Poetry

I have very recently found the patience to read poetry, and I love it! I started with Margaret Atwood, who is one of my favorite novelists, and just a moment ago read my first ee cummings, 'anyone lived in a pretty how town' which I absolutely loved!

I want to move along and read some more, but the library is not proving to be a good source; they don't have much, and what there is seems to be, (dare I say it?) pretty boring and archaic.

Does anyone have any suggestions of good, readable poetry?

...of good, readable poetry?

LOL - like everything, largely subjective!

Robert Frost, Elizabeth Bishop, Pablo Neruda (in translation or in Spanish if you can manage it), Philip Levine, Edward Thomas, Philip Larkin, John Betjeman, William Shakespeare, Wilfred Owen, William Blake, Eavan Boland, Stevie Smith, Siegfried Sassoon, James Dickey, Randall Jarrell, Walt Whitman, Donald Justice, Carol Ann Duffy, Sylvia Plath, Anne Sexton, Adrienne Rich, Federico García Lorca, Robert Lowell...

That gives you a few to be going on with.

And a few more good ones...

W H Auden, Seamus Heaney, Rita Dove, Ai, John Berryman, Louise Bogan, Gwendolyn Brooks, Billy Collins, Emily Dickinson, Tess Gallagher, Allen Ginsberg, Nikki Giovanni, Louise Glück, Thomas Hardy, Joy Harjo, Robert Hayden, Jane Hirshfield, Langston Hughes, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Jane Kenyon, Stanley Kunitz, Li-Young Lee, Denise Levertov, Audre Lorde, Glyn Maxwell, Edna St Vincent Millay, Naomi Shihab Nye, Sharon Olds, Mary Oliver, Dorothy Parker, Molly Peacock, Theodore Roethke, May Sarton, William Stafford, Wallace Stevens, Dylan Thomas, Mona Van Duyn, Richard Wilbur, William Carlos Williams, W B Yeats...

Gosh!  There are so many!

Now that I've made this handy dandy list, I really need to rebuild my book collection again!  Sadly, my ex-b/f ended up with most of our poetry books.

Try Maya Angelou ... particularly "Phenominal Woman" and "I Rise." There are also some good compilation books that give you a sample of lots of poets. One is "Top 500 Poems" and another is "The Best Loved Poems of the American People" -- this last one is great, and they have new and used copies available on amazon.co.uk.

Yes, I second the idea of checking out poetry anthologies.  Gives you the chance to sample lots of different poets before you commit to an entire book of one poet.

Poetry read/heard out loud is also great!  I found this a good book to get you going for that:



Or if you can lay your hands on some recordings!

Maya Angelou, Alice Walker & Sandra Cisneros are all great. My poetry is too, lol. PM me if you want the URL.

You know, I liked Maya Angelou's poetry when I first started reading more poetry (about 10 years ago) -- I'd consider her an 'entry poet' but then the more I read, the more I was 'Meh' about Maya Angelou.  Conversely, e e cummings was also an entry poet for me, but I still like him just as much.

Maya's a good starting point; personally I prefer her essays to her poems, but she's a 'readable' poet.

Oh, and Dylan Thomas, particularly "Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night." And Edgar Allen Poe. And "To His Coy Mistress" by Andrew Marvell. I think Maya Angelou is the only poet that I can sit down and read a book of her work. With everyone else, I have one or two poems that I like.

I've always been fond of Sylvia Plath (odd since I'm quite a chipper type) and Pablo Neruda.  His poetry is, well....music.

I'm a huge fan of Roger McGough and Simon Armitage.

Wooo hoo! How many good recommendations! I am going to have to print this thread!
Thanks everyone.
I did read some Maya Angelou ages ago, when I read her autobiographies, and enjoyed it somewhat, but I don't know that it suits me so well. Same with Alice Walker. But with these huge lists I should be able to find plenty.

If you can manage to get your hands on some old Dylan Thomas recordings - do it!  There is nothing better than hearing him reading his own poetry out loud!  That booming, inimitable voice of his.

Thing is -- you never know what you're going to fancy in particular -- that's why checking out some anthologies is such a good idea, because then you can read a range & maybe stumble on a poet you really like -- making you want to read more of them.

If you can manage to get your hands on some old Dylan Thomas recordings - do it!  There is nothing better than hearing him reading his own poetry out loud!  That booming, inimitable voice of his.

Oooooooh!  You don't have to scavenge for Dylan Thomas readings -- they're right here online!

This is my favorite Thomas reading ever!

http://www.undermilkwood.net/poetry_lament.html

(And Fern Hill comes a close second. )

I absolutely love the end of that - Lament!!!!!

Chastity prays for me, piety sings,
Innocence sweetens my last black breath,
Modesty hides my thighs in her wings,
And all the deadly virtues plague my death!

Unfortunately my pc crashed and sound drivers were not on the recovery disk; so no sound until I can arrange to be home between the hours of 9-5 on a weekday. Once I arrange that I would be delighted to listen!

I did go to the Bookbarn on Sunday, specifically to get some poetry. By the time I found the poetry section I had somehow accumulated a number of books and couldn't afford the book of Dylan Thomas that I found. (I'm just saying, if it costs more second hand than it ever did new, it's a problem! Especially if someone has been writing in the margin...)  I did get a book of poetry by Kate Clanchy called Slattern, which I am enjoying. There were loads of anthologies but they seemed to be from 1886, which put me off! Next week I shall search again.