Poetry Forum

Howdie all,

In an effort to broaden my reading of poetry, and maybe that of others, I thought it might be interesting for peeps to post up their 3 favourite poets.

(hope this is an acceptible forum for this thread.)

Cheers,
Tom

Get the collected works of Peter Reading, volumes 1 and 2, published by Bloodaxe (volume 3 is more patchy).

Link and link (amazon showing wrong cover for vol. 2 for some reason).

I really can't emphasise this enough.

Larkin first, I think. He's not the be-all and end-all, far from it, but you can't get by without him.

Tom

I came back to poetry in the last year after 20+ years away and my three would be Larkin, Norman McCaig and I bought an anthology edited by Andrew Motion titled From Here to Eternity mainly because it had sections devoted to the "big" themes and therefore covered a lot.

elphin

My personal favourite would undoubtedly be Anne Bronte. I know Emily is said to be the best poem of the three sisters but personally I find Anne surpasses her. The way she writes is just beautiful, straightforward and I find it very easy to relate to what she writes. Above that brilliant imagery (But he that dares not grasp the thorn / Should never crave the rose.) and very moving topics. Never ever did I read a poet where I loved so many poems!
Apart from her, it'd be difficult to point out anyone in particular, but I guess there's no way passed Blake or Wordsworth. although John Clare ("First Love") has some great work too.

It's the Three John's for me. Hegley, Cooper Clarke and Masefield.

Like music my taste in poets changes as I discover.

I'd always have Larkin in the top 3 then perhaps a big hitter - perhpas Yeats - his later stuff, then perhaps an "alternative" poet like John Cooper Clarke or John Hegley. These past months I have mostly been reading Theodore Roethke and a new discovery Polly Clarke - http://www.pollyclark.co.uk/index.php?f ... ctions&a=0

Thanks for taking the time to share, all. Some new names to explore there.

Tom

I'm quite fond of Tony Harrison at the mo, but then, I am very canon.

walt whitman,percy shelley and charlotte mews are the 3 poets i rate the highest-Charlotte Mews doesnt get the recognition she deserves probably because she didnt write a great deal but i couldnt recommend her more highly.

coleridge wrote:walt whitman,percy shelley and charlotte mews are the 3 poets i rate the highest-Charlotte Mews doesnt get the recognition she deserves probably because she didnt write a great deal but i couldnt recommend her more highly.

Great call on Charlotte Mew, very underrated - she wrote exquisitely about love and loss.

Mine vary dependent on mood and who I've discovered, its tricky to pick my fav 3.
Billy Collins is an old favourite of mine, I fell in love with Walt Whitman last year and I've just discovered Michael Laskey.
Sharra
x

Keats

Jim Carroll

Dorothy Parker

Emily Dickinson

I love Anton Chekhov

the list goes on and oooooooooooon

I think,
Philip Larkin, Sylvia Plath and T S Eliot

I've just read "Snow Water" by Micheal Longley as recommended by a friend of mine who was taught by him at school. Lovely stuff, highly recommend it.
sneaker

I probably sound like I'm taking the p*ss here but:

Martin Amis - for the turn of phrase
Pink Floyd - for the concept album
My dad - for the love of words

Cheers

Stuart

Shakespeare. Milton and Gerard Manley Hopkins.

David wrote:Larkin first, I think. He's not the be-all and end-all, far from it, but you can't get by without him.

Whole-heartedly and frantically agree! Larkin is an essential experience in life!!

Eliot, Frost, Hopkins in that order.
Arthur

I can't put them into order because I love them so much
TS Eliot, WH Auden and Philip Larkin

with Sylvia Plath, Louis MacNeice and Stevie Smith just missing out

CK Williams...

and in terms of slightly left field bits, I'm into Sujata Bhatt lately. And somehow, sinfully, only just really getting into Ted Hughes, who's about as right field (centre field?) as one can get in modern canon terms.

I am surprized that there is no mention of John Donne or Marvel who form a direct link to contemporary poetry. I could not possibly pick three poets but I could suggest the ones I think will be read in a hundred years time. Shakespeare, Yeats and Eliot. Of course in all probability I am wrong. Most people are when they try to predict the future.

hi, just spotted this thread.
interestingly a number of big names noticeable by their absence - Heaney, Hughes, Betj, Frost, Lowell, Thomas (you choose which!) etc. plus many of the old masters.

Anyway, sadly (for it's lack of originality) I have to admit to a love of Larkin's writing, but also Edward Thomas is a great favorite. Love his writing about the countryside - he lets you into a lost world of rural England before the great war with a poignancy that moves you.

Can't commit to a third.........(Blake edging ahead as they come into the final furlong, but Betjeman coming up on the inside, oh wait - it's a late charge from Eliot, now it's neck and neck - Frost and Betjeman, and as they cross the line it's Ogden Nash via a completely unexpected punchline -
'The cow is of the bovine ilk, one end is moo the other milk'.)

Marc

Marc. You seem a irreverent a as I am. Look at my post "Modern Metaphysics." and see where it gets you.

Yes, I did notice you got something of a drubbing. I rather enjoyed the poem 'though wouldn't profess to sufficient knowledge to enter the discourse on metaphysical poets etc. I also recognized the light hearted nature of the poem - some didn't perhaps? Their loss I guess...

Now on topic - what about Houseman, Thomas, Hughes and Heaney - theres a traceable line I feel...