Poetry Forum

Being quite new to poetry; I reluctantly confess, to not knowing the realm of poets you cool guys and gals seem to know. I have always been a fan of the transcendentalists (Whitman, Thoreau, Emerson - not necessarily always poetry). Right now I am reading Margaret Atwood's, Morning in the Burned House, and am enjoying it very much. I guess my interest lies in what you all might recommend. What poets have really spoke to you? Which ones where totally unique and inspiring? While there are many poets I can think of to do a little research on; I do very much enjoy reading the great poetry that graces this site. Y'all are pretty damn good. So if you find the time, could you help a man on his search, by listing some of your favorites.


take care,


Marten

Marten,

Your simple question is quite a difficult question as there have been so many.

Off the top of my head: Gerard Manley Hopkins because The Windhover is such an ecstatic piece of poetry.

C

Whitman's Song of Myself is up there though.

Mine will be a standard reply, as I haven't expanded my poetic reading for a long while, although I have recently invested in The Rattle Bag anthology, which seems a handy reference tool, poems chosen by Seamus Heaney and Ted Hughes. That's a good place to start.

My List:

Philip Larkin (a must in my opinion)
W.B Yeats
Seamus Heaney
Simon Armitage
Theodore Roethke (just started reading TR, I'll post an intriguing poem by him called The Flight
Tony Harrison
Ted Hughes
Roger McGough.

And all the others...

Yeah, certainly not a Simple Question, I admit.

William Stafford.


If you ever get the chance to hear him read on a DVD (there are some kicking around) you may be glad you did.

Well, I'll think of a few I love who haven't been mentioned yet...

T.S.Eliot, Hardy and Robert Frost

I must say I'm not incredibly well read - but those three are up there as well, in my opinion.

ooh, and Brian Pattern

5 of my favorite poems -

R.S. Thomas - "A Marriage"
Lawrence Ferlinghetti - "I am Waiting"
Allen Ginsberg - "A Supermarket in California"
Gerard Manley Hopkins - "God's Grandeur"
William Stafford - "Thinking for Berky"

I would say -

Sassoon
Wilfred Owen
R.S.Thomas
Yeats
Hardy
Browning
TS Eliot
Cavafy
Dylan Thomas - I could go on.

What really got me on to the rocky rome of poetrude was a little book which I stole from a bookstore in Manchester in the sixties (you didn't hear this from me, right?) - The Penguin Book of Chinese Verse. It is now held together by yellowing cellotape - I still read it. Price on the cover - 4/6 (twenty two and a half pence).

Barrie

I see. No, I didn't hear, Barrie.

I would like to add Gary Snyder...

Friedrich Hölderlin
T.S. Eliot mostly pre-1925
Ol' Ezra: amazed at both his talent and what a moron he was, unless he wrote some of that stuff to help with his insanity defense.
Dante
and I keep coming across translations by W.S. Merwin that I like.

This has turned more into a 'Look what I enjoy' thing, but sod it, I'll join in.

For a particularly good English poet outside of the canon (but an important one, in my eyes), check out Ken Smith.