Ha! Funny you should mention onanism. I had an amazing high school English teacher who had us study the bible as literature, and he asked the class one day who could define ‘onanism.’ I was the jackass who actually knew, AND raised her hand. I had trouble in high school, as is probably apparent.

Favorite poets: Gerard Manley Hopkins, Charles Bukowski and Richard Brautigan. They are each singular – I can’t think of any who did what they did with the language, and each in different ways. Hopkins had a musical ear, and to read any of his poems out loud (try “Pied Beauty”) is a kind of gourmet literary meal. A treat for the tongue, so to speak, though heavily laden with God stuff. Brautigan used spare language, but communicated ideas we don’t usually give voice to. He was sweet and sad, and told little stories with his poems. Bukowski – well. It’s Bukowski, dammit.

I actually had an English professor tell me my poems were too definitive. He didn’t use that word, but the message I got was that if it’s not inscrutable, it isn’t good poetry. Asshole.

I do have trouble keeping the flowery language from getting out of control in my other writing, because I do write poetry. I just enjoy word play and the lyricism involved. I read Pablo Neruda and only understand half of what he wrote, but it’s still beautiful sounding. So…who are your favorites?

I’m a sucker for the romantics. Always have been. Emerson, Poe, Shelley, Byron, Coleridge, Wordsworth, Keats, Thoreau, et al.

For modern stuff, I discovered Stephen Dobyns through King’s use of his poem Pursuit in his novel Insomnia. Some of Dobyns poems are not my favorites, but he has written some gems. If you’re looking to read some Dobyns poetry, start with Cemetery Nights.

I’ll admit I never much cared for poetry or things like it at all. It’s one of those things that just never stuck with me. I think it has to do with what you said above about school. I didn’t like what I was hearing, and so every since I didn’t like every work of poetry I heard I just assumed I didn’t like every work of poetry.

This changed when I took a Modern Japanese Literature course and the teacher went over the works of Ishikawa Takuboku and Masaoka Shiki. Both are credited as being ‘the reason’ the Tanka and Haiku are still around today, and changed from their overly rigid traditional structure into what we now know as the haiku. Making it more a snapshot of life and a scene more than anything else.

It’s just an excerpt of one of Takuboku’s non structured poems, but the only bit of poetry I’ve ever been able to hold onto no matter what is. (albeit a translation)

Flushed with wrath I clenched my fist
When in a chink of my mad soul
I found a soul that was not mad.

Wow. Stephen Dobyns. I read two of his novels in high school (Wrestler’s something or other, and Church of Dead Girls), and didn’t realize he was a poet.

Huh.

– c.

That poetry tool is a great find, thanks for sharing it.

As for me, Rainer Maria Rilke is a consistent companion – as are Carl Sandburg, William Carlos Williams, Denise Levertov and EE Cummings.

Also, I am really enjoying Jackson Mac Low these days as well.

I love Shelley. I used to have a framed, typed copy of Ozymandias on my desk as I wrote when I was in my early 20s.

But then I always had a crush on Ramses the Great, and when i discovered that they’d been able to get some of his cells from his mummy to live again I wanted to be first in line to carry the new fetal Pharaoh.

Shut up.

Ogden Nash is my favorite ever. I have two collections that I’d guard with my life. He makes me think, and he makes me laugh. Those are two of my favorite things.

One of my favorite poems of late is actually from Will Hindmarch, not to wantonly kiss his ass. His haiku:

“The smell of fall leaves has me dreading the day that the smell of fall leaves.”

Anyway.

I love T.S. Eliot for all his weirdness. McCammon uses him to nice effect in SWAN SONG. “The Wasteland.”

Blake, also. Very much love Blake.

I too am a sucker for the Romantics. As Darren notes. Thoreau and Merson, who I like, were not strictly Romantic poets, if I recall — they were Transcendentalists, right? That borrows and builds on American Romanticism, though.

I need to become better versed in modern and post-modern poetry, though.

I dig the hell out of beat poetry.

Need to read more Bukowski — as a teen I found him indulgent, but I think my opinion may differ, now.

– c.

@Julie:

Ogden Nash was the first poet I fell in love with as a child.

Ozymandias is one of my favorite poems. I love the scope of it, the tale told. Those are my favorite poems, really — the ones that tell an epic story in just such a way.

– c.

@Andrew –

William Carlos Williams, no doubt.

ee cummings I always… well, I was on the fence with his work. The style is as important as the words with him, and I’m usually driven batty by things that are reliant so dearly on style. Then again, that’s poetry in general, isn’t it? Poetry is either about the form or the breaking of the form.

– c.

I would like to re-read Bukowski as well. I read him a lot in high school (probably cause Henry Rollins told me to), but started to find him really boring, repetitive and as you say indulgent.

But as I mention Henry Rollins, I realize he was my gateway poet for my 7th-grade-self. Did you have a gateway poet?

Wordsworth, Byron, Poe, Keats were my first loves with regard to Poetry. Then later, Nash and Frost.

My favorite contemporary poet is Marge Piercy.

Its hard to comment on Cummings and style, because I have read so much of him. But I think the majority of his work is straight sonnets, or variations of sonnets.

I do think many folks have an initial wtf moment when approaching Cummings work, but really its not very cryptic or anything. I think listening to it is the real awakening with his work, just reading doesn’t get it done.

That said, Cummings is pretty light on content. I still love it like I love cake and sweets and the way it makes me happy. But I rarely turn to Cummings for anything of real thought provoking insight.

Andrew: Then read ee cumming’s “anyone lived in a pretty how town”
http://famouspoetsandpoems.com/poets/e__e__cummings/poems/14134

You may change your mind.

Elissa: Don’t get me wrong. I love Cummings, and have found great enjoyment as well as been lead by his words to many thought filled visions and conversations. I just turn to Cummings for something uplifting and joyous, not to reflect on humanities inhumanity or probe the depths and corners of the soul.

And I would maintain that a work like “anyone lived in a pretty how town” or “Humanity I love you” or “of ever-ever land I speak” lacks the depth of say some of the social/political poems of Denise Levertov or Jean Valentine.

Thats all I meant.

I forgot to mention John Donne, but only one of his poems has really stuck with me: The Canonization.

Yeah, Bukowski is indulgent, but I can live with it. My love for him probably has more to do with how I discovered him than anything else.

@Andrew, having Henry Rollins as a gateway poet is fucking awesome. Mine would be Dylan Thomas, which lead, ridiculously, to Allen Ginsberg. I was lucky enough to meet both Rollins and Ginsberg, incidentally. Not that I’m showing off or anything. Not that I was totally dumbstruck by their magnificence or anything, nor did I drool AT ALL in front of Rollins. Nope. Not me.

Also, J. Alfred Prufrock is an old lover of mine. We spent some time together when I was at a very impressionable age.

Oooh, poets. Dylan Thomas is a favorite. So is W.B. Yeats and T.S. Elliot. Rupert Brooke and Robert Burns sometimes.

I was really fond of “This is my Beloved” by Walter Benton when I was in High School. And that of course lead me to the “Song of Solomon” which was really about the only part of the Bible I liked.

Shakespeare’s sonnets in small chunks, although I really hate reading or sitting through his plays. And I think Poe’s “The Raven” is overdone, although I do like the cadence in “Annabel Lee”.

poets i like best: eliot, pound, yeats, millay, poe, homer, ted hughes

i am on my second copy of “the waste land and other poems.” i am both intimidated by and fascinated with pound’s “cantos.” i like to read those alongside hughes’s “tales from ovid.” millay’s sonnets are the poems i wish i could write. yeats’s “among school children” hurts so good. and as for poe, i like most of his poems the same way i like songs that i don’t mind getting stuck in my head – “the bells” is my “hey ya.”

You know it would not be me unless I pushed some Russian or Polish things on you, right? Right.

Problem is: poetry is even harder to translate than prose is. (Oh, and Robert Frost can go eat a bag of dicks for “Poetry is what’s lost in translation”.). And when I read poetry, I either go for the original or a Polsih translation. Thus, I can only recommend people whom I know have been translated into English: Czesław Miłosz (despite his communist apologetics), Wisława Szymborska and Bułat Okudżawa.

Oh, and for larks, you can check out Nabokov’s translation of Pushkin’s “Egene Onegin”. If you want to read it, Wikipedia recommends the James E. Falen translation.

Ginsberg, motherfucker. Also, Bukowski. To a much lesser extent for me, Whitman.

Poetry generally doesn’t speak to me. While I’m a fan of economy of words, which good poetry definitely has, there have been few poets outside of the three above that had something to say that appealed to me. I think that says something about my prosaic worldview.

Actually, I take that back. Edgar Allan Poe is probably one of my all time favorite wordsmiths and almost entirely for his poetry. His ability to set a mood and evoke sound is unrivaled. I think I learned the most about what words can do from him. Also, Kate reminded me of Poe and I stole her answer.

The Wrestler’s Cruel Study. Sue me. I’m a Dobyns fan. He’s written (I think) 15 books of poetry. I heartily recommend him. Seriously, start with Cemetery Nights. If you’re not hooked, then stop.

I also love Ogden Nash. And true, Thoreau was not technically a romantic, but as you said, his worked followed naturally from theirs.

I offer not a favorite poet, but a favorite poetic resource. I recommend this book to anyone who is agnostic about their love of poetry, since it is the book that set my love of poetry alight:

“The Ode Less Travelled”, by Stephen Fry (linkage: http://www.amazon.com/Ode-Less-Travelled-Unlocking-Within/dp/1592402488 )

If you’re a fan of Fry’s work, his name alone should be sufficient to get you to buy the book. if you’re not sure why a British comedian should be your new poetic guru, watch these two clips:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZFD01r6ersw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zx_YY_frOvQ

“Ode” is shot through with the same love of language you see in those clips. There are two aspects of ode that make it a good fit for you, Chuck.

First, Fry takes an explicitly traditional or formal stance throughout the book. Fry loves the nuts and bolts of poetry. “Ode” is a general survey of poetry, explaining everything from iambs and meter all the way to limericks and haiku and on to esoteric forms like the sestina. Throughout, Fry provides countless examples of each poetic concept he’s discussing, both familiar and obscure. Through reading this book, you are taught the foundation of poetry. I finished the book and felt that a large hole in my classical education had been filled. I had the technical tools to really dig into a poem and to find, as you suggest, the author’s intent expressed in meter and rhyme.

The second aspect of this book which will appeal is that it is unabashedly a workbook. Fry expects, at the each of each chapter, that you will WRITE poetry of the type he’s just discussed. He provides writing exercises and some examples of his own to get you started. He instructs you to write in the book itself, if no other paper is at hand. Fry wants you to get your hands dirty, since through your own attempts, you will learn a greater appreciation for the poetry you’ve already read. What better challenge and pleasure for a writer?

I cannot praise this book enough. Were I an English teacher, I would fight to make it the class text for a senior class. It’s a delightful book. If you’re at all curious about poetry, there’s no finer introduction.

I will be grabbing Cemetery Nights at the library if they have it.

I love this post. I love these comments. The Bells. Yes.

More gin?

English language: Cummings, Frost, Eliot, Yeats, R.E. Howard.

Non-English (in translation, because I’m an American monolingual gimp): Basho, Rumi, Sturlasson.

I used to write pomes, from time to time. Just haven’t felt the burn for it in a while. Hm.

Sometimes, Welsh people are very angry and/or very protective of Dylan Thomas.

I mean, enough to maybe get into a pub fight about it.

I’m just putting that out there.

(This is all great stuff — trying not to die in the heat. More comments later!)

– c.

If you want poetry worthy of the classics, you should have a look at my late friend John M. Ford. He win a Hugo for one of his pieces but was also well-known for spouting extemporaneous poetry in the comments of the blog Making Light. (And he wasn’t a slouch at prose either.) One of my favorites is this piece called “Against Entropy:” http://bit.ly/bZNhH0

Dobyns is a good one, to be sure. I was a sucker for Quincy Troupe in high school, to the extent that I arranged for him to visit us at college, and picked him up at the airport in a shitty Ford Escort that he barely fit in. Mr. Troupe tells great stories and reads a mean poem.

On the drive to Chicago, I re-listened to a performance of poems by Billy Collins, former Poet Laureate of these United States, and was reminded how silly he can be, in great ways. He started Poetry 180, in which high-school students read or listen to one poem a day, without analyzing or dismembering the poem in a class, just to give them a feel for the breadth and possibility of the medium. Maybe they talk about that day’s poem, maybe they don’t. But at least they’re getting exposure to poetry.

Collins wrote this one: “Litany.”

I keep meaning to go back and get myself well versed in Whitman and Ginsberg, but I’ve been on a book-buying moratorium for more than a month.

Stephen Fry’s book, “The Ode Less Travelled”, is a fantastic introduction to, and defense of, poesy. The main crux of his book is that more people would be willing to write poetry if we all agreed that we didn’t have to share it, and politely created a group consensus that it’s alright to be a lousy poet.

It’s a weird argument, but it works.

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