Recomended Reading: Poet / Anthology

[PhilipCFJohnson]

I've just re-read Whitsun Weddings and I'm looking to get a new anthology to read, to broaden my poetic intake! After all, man cannot live on Larkin alone!

Which poet do you suggest, and which anthology?

Many thanks
Phil

[Sharra]

Hi Phil
if you want an anthology of different poets I would recommend these three. They're full of fantastic poems and will give you a wide range of styles to taste:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Staying-Alive-P ... 239&sr=1-1

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Being-Alive-Seq ... 239&sr=1-2

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Emergency-Kit-P ... 265355&sr=1-1

poetswise - I'm a big fan of Billy Collins, Michael Laskey, Carol Ann Duffy, Ted Hughs, if you want to go for older stuff, I've recently got into Robert Frost, and Walt Whitman is another of my favourites.

Sharra
xx

[OwenEdwards]

Try out Neruda, Dylan Thomas, and Donne if you haven't already (I could also discuss what Romantics to bother with at length but I shan't)...and Wendy Cope. Always Wendy Cope. But you knew that.

[Ros]

Really Wendy Cope, Owen? Whenever I've heard her discussed on poetry boards, she tends to be rather sneered at. I find some of her stuff lightly amusing.

[David]

Really Wendy Cope, Owen? Whenever I've heard her discussed on poetry boards, she tends to be rather sneered at.

Rather sneered at, Ros? What sort of remark are you referring to?

I find some of her stuff lightly amusing.

Oh, that sort of remark.

You're quite right, though. She's Pam Ayres with muesli.

Phil, if you want to stretch yourself - and you don't have to, of course - you could give Wallace Stevens a try. Probably the greatest poet in English in the 20th century. But not easy.

[Wabznasm]

Yeats? He's been surprising me lots for the last couple of weeks.

And I'm afraid to say I am a minor fan of Wendy Cope, even if she's only worth a read once!

[Ros]

I wasn't actually trying to sneer, I just couldn't phrase it in a non-sneering fashion. I think some of her stuff is quite clever, but light. No great philosophical meanings there really.

How about T S Eliot? I really like some of his poems and really don't appreciate the rest. It's a bit strange.

And do I seem like a country bumpkin if I say I really really like Ted Kooser?

[OwenEdwards]

I'll stick some Cope poems here for general enjoyment - I presume there's no great objection to this? Shouldn't count as copyright violation.

First, a response to issues about "light verse" (she's written others but this is my favourite).

Serious Concerns

"She is witty and unpretentious, which is both her strength and her limitation." (Robert O'Brien in the Spectator, 25.10.86)

I'm going to try and overcome my limitation -
Away with sloth!
Now should I work at being less witty? Or more pretentious?
Or both?

"They (Roger McGouch and Brian apatten) have something in common with her, in that they all write to amuse." (ibid.)

Write to amuse? What an appalling suggestion!
I write to make people anxious and miserable and to worsen their indigestion.


She's also, I'd say, the pre-eminent poet of our time when writing about love and heartbreak. Per exemple:

At 3 a.m.

the room contains no sound
except the ticking of the clock
which has begun to panic
like an insect, trapped
in an enormous box.

Books lie open on the carpet.

Somewhere else
you're sleeping
and beside you there's a woman
who is crying quietly
so you won't wake.

From June to December, 3. Summer Villanelle

You know exactly what to do -
Your kiss, your fingers on my thigh -
I think of little else but you.

It's bliss to have a lover who,
Touching one shoulder, make me sigh -
You know exactly what to do.

You make me happy through and through,
The way the sun lights up the sky -
I think of little else but you.

I hardly sleep - an hour two;
I can't eat much and this is why -
You know exactly what to do.

The move in my mind is blue -
As June runs into warm July
I think of little else but you.

But is it love? And is it true?
Who cares? This much I can't deny:
You know exactly what to do;
I think of little else but you.


And those really aren't the best of her poems about love, there's so many...But if you want "meaningful" or deep (depending on what you really mean by that), how about this:

If I Don't Know

If I don't know how to be thankful enough
for the clusters of white blossom

on our mock orange, which has grown tall
and graceful, come into its own

like a new star just out of ballet school,
and if I don't know what to do

about those spires of sky-blue delphinium,
then what about the way they look together?

And what about the roses, or just one of them -
that solid pinky-peachy bloom.

that hollows towards its heart? Outrageous.
I could crush it to bits.

A photograph? A dance to summer?
I sit on the swing and cry.

The rose. The gardenful. The evening light.
It's nine o'clock and I can still see everything.

[David]

I'll stick some Cope poems here for general enjoyment - I presume there's no great objection to this?

Not on my part, Owen, but definitely on hers, I believe. She hates people posting her stuff on the internet. Honest.

And what's more I still feel completely unconverted.

[Ros]

Could I tempt you all with a Ted Kooser then? Just picking one fairly at random:

The Great Grandparents

As small children, we were taken to meet them.
They had recently arrived from another world
and stood dumbfounded in the busy depot
of the present, their useless belongings in piles:
old tools, old words, old recipes, secrets.
They searched our faces and grasped our hands
as if we could lead them back, but we drew them
forward into the future, feeling them tremble,
their shirt cuffs yellow, smoky old wood stoves
smoldering somewhere under their clothes.

[BenJohnson]

I'm tempted, not come across him before, but that piece is marvellous.

[David]

That's really not bad, Ros. Big In America, I believe.

[BenJohnson]

He's pretty good to listen too on his website also. I loved his valentine poem.

[BenJohnson]

For Wendy Cope, I've always loved 'Stealing' http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/gcsebitesi ... rev1.shtml . A very memorable first line and written from a great angle. She is good at acting out different characters in her writing.

[Ros]

Ted Kooser's best poems are wonderful. My favourite book so far is this one, Flying at Night . So cheap it's practically free. Buy it, buy it, buy it.

http://www.bookdepository.co.uk/WEBSITE ... 0822958775

[Nigel]

Ted Kooser - well he's very accessible - you don't have to read his poems twice, do you ? And I can't decide whether that's a plus or a minus or whether it matters.

[Ros]

Ted Kooser - well he's very accessible - you don't have to read his poems twice, do you ? And I can't decide whether that's a plus or a minus or whether it matters.

Yes, he is accessible, and I agree he only does a certain sort of poem. But he's very good at what he does. I don't have to read his poems twice, but I do read them many times. So they work.