| Author | Message | ||
| Brianna
Valued Member Username: shkethtmnymkrhorsey Post Number: 235 Registered: 12-2007 |
Umm... I was wondering if you could recommend some famous poets for me to read...because I'm not really familiar with a lot. Also if you could recommend some of your favorite poems for me to look up and read. I just picked up an Emily Dickinson and an E.E. Cummings book of poems so I'll read those. Thank you, Bri ...I heard a neigh. Oh, such a brisk and melodious neigh as that was! My very heart leaped with delight at the sound. ~Nathaniel Hawthorne "Before you, Bella, my life was like a moonless night. Very dark, but there were stars --points of light and reason....And then you shot across my sky like a meteor. Suddenly everything was on fire; there was brilliancy, there was beauty. When you were gone, when the meteor had fallen over the horizon, everything went black. nothing had changed, but my eyes were blinded by light. I couldn't see the stars anymore. And there was no more reason for anything." -Edward Cullen -Twilight "5 bucks she throws up." "I don't think so, she runs with vampires." -Jared & Embry -Twilight by Stephenie Meyer Time passes. Even when it seems impossible. Even when each tick of the second hand aches like the pulse of blood behind a bruise. It passes unevenly, in strange lurches and dragging lulls, but pass it does. Even for me.-Bella -Twilight | ||
| Rania S. Watts
Intermediate Member Username: cementcoveredcherries Post Number: 816 Registered: 04-2008 |
Dear Bri, I can offer you two websites full of poetry, by various writers: http://famouspoetsandpoems.com/ http://www.poets.org/ As for my favourite poems, too many to list will give you a few: "A Dream with in a Dream" By: Edgar Allan Poe "The Road not Taken" & "Stopping by the Wood on a Snowy Evening" By: Robert Frost Anything by Walt Whitman, start with "Leaves of Grass" and read this list that M posted on a prior thread! http://wildpoetryforum.com/~wildpoet/cgi-bin/discus/discus.cgi That should keep you busy for a bit, Best, Rania S. Watts "You will hardly know who I am or what I mean" ~ Walt Whitman Cement Covered Cherries | ||
| Jane Røken
Advanced Member Username: magpie Post Number: 1647 Registered: 03-2007 |
Bri ... Whenever I'm asked a question like this (and it happens now & then), I usually (not always, mind ya!) say, Read Walt Whitman's "Song of the Open Road". (It's one of the poems in Leaves of Grass.) It's rather long. But you don't have to read it all in one go. It's a bit 'old-fashioned' too. But I think you may like it. Well, that was my tuppence-worth. I bet you're going to get no end of interesting suggestions. Good luck! ... Such an awful lot of good reading you can look forward to ... Jane (Message edited by magpie on June 29, 2008) | ||
| Brianna
Valued Member Username: shkethtmnymkrhorsey Post Number: 236 Registered: 12-2007 |
Thank you soo much Rania! I'll check it out right now...! : ) Bri ...I heard a neigh. Oh, such a brisk and melodious neigh as that was! My very heart leaped with delight at the sound. ~Nathaniel Hawthorne "Before you, Bella, my life was like a moonless night. Very dark, but there were stars --points of light and reason....And then you shot across my sky like a meteor. Suddenly everything was on fire; there was brilliancy, there was beauty. When you were gone, when the meteor had fallen over the horizon, everything went black. nothing had changed, but my eyes were blinded by light. I couldn't see the stars anymore. And there was no more reason for anything." -Edward Cullen -Twilight "5 bucks she throws up." "I don't think so, she runs with vampires." -Jared & Embry -Twilight by Stephenie Meyer Time passes. Even when it seems impossible. Even when each tick of the second hand aches like the pulse of blood behind a bruise. It passes unevenly, in strange lurches and dragging lulls, but pass it does. Even for me.-Bella -Twilight | ||
| Brianna
Valued Member Username: shkethtmnymkrhorsey Post Number: 237 Registered: 12-2007 |
Thank you too Jane, I'll check that out too... : ) Bri ...I heard a neigh. Oh, such a brisk and melodious neigh as that was! My very heart leaped with delight at the sound. ~Nathaniel Hawthorne "Before you, Bella, my life was like a moonless night. Very dark, but there were stars --points of light and reason....And then you shot across my sky like a meteor. Suddenly everything was on fire; there was brilliancy, there was beauty. When you were gone, when the meteor had fallen over the horizon, everything went black. nothing had changed, but my eyes were blinded by light. I couldn't see the stars anymore. And there was no more reason for anything." -Edward Cullen -Twilight "5 bucks she throws up." "I don't think so, she runs with vampires." -Jared & Embry -Twilight by Stephenie Meyer Time passes. Even when it seems impossible. Even when each tick of the second hand aches like the pulse of blood behind a bruise. It passes unevenly, in strange lurches and dragging lulls, but pass it does. Even for me.-Bella -Twilight | ||
| ~M~
Board Administrator Username: mjm Post Number: 30543 Registered: 11-1998 |
Dearest Brianna -- don't forget to check out the: WPF BookShop Lots of great contemporary poets listed in there. If you click on the listings, they will take you to an Amazon.com review of the book. Even if you don't buy any of the books, you can still learn the poets' names to enter into search engines and on sites like poets.org. Love, M | ||
| Emusing
Senior Member Username: emusing Post Number: 5891 Registered: 08-2003 |
Briana, My long-standing favorites: Rainer Maria Rilke (a) Letters to A Young Poet (b) Selected Poems (translations by Stephen Mitchell) (c) The book of hours (d) The French Poems (A. Poulin) (e) Sonnets to Orpheus Frederico Garcia Lorca (a) Poem of the Deep Song (b) Suites (c) Poet in New York Pablo Neruda (a) 100 Love Sonnets (b) Full Woman, Fleshly Apple Antonia Machado (Border of a Dream translation Willis Barnstone) Rumi (a) Soul of Rumi (there are many more but this is the best to get a sampling) Jorge Luis Borges Selected Poems Mary Oliver Selected Poems Lynda Hull Collected Poems Sylvia Plath - Ariel Li Po Basho (The Monkey's Raincoat) Cesar Vallejo - The Black Heralds Czeslaw Milosz The Collected Poems Antonia Montejo - The Trees (love this!) That should help with the list to get you started! x e Word Walker Press; Moonday Poetry; KPFK; Kyoto Journal Education should be the process of helping everyone to discover his uniqueness. --Leo Buscaglia | ||
| Fred Longworth
Senior Member Username: sandiegopoet Post Number: 4155 Registered: 05-2006 |
I'm going to be the odd man out once again. Traditionally, people are introduced to poetry largely written before TV, radio, the computer, the motorcar, the telephone, the iPod, inside bathrooms, the germ theory of disease, women's right to vote, etc. The reader is asked to peruse literature that is largely about lifestyles and world views that no longer exist. The reader usually finds it extremely hard to connect. Usually the reader is told this is their fault, an inadequacy in the recipient. (Silly me -- I think it has everything to do with the dazzling and unprecedented rate of change throughout modern Western culture.) The embeddedness in history is so intense that the reader finds it extremely difficult to extrapolate the universals in the works. So . . . the reader gives up, and turns to contemporary culture. Contemporary culture is more interesting and more comprehensible. I suggest that readers begin with better contemporary culture. This ignites the literary flame. Then later, they can delve into voices from the past. With this in mind, here are nineteen modern poets that have a great deal to offer -- 1. Kim Addonizio 2. Margaret Atwood 3. Robert Bly 4. Charles Bukowski 5. Billy Collins 6. Lucille Clifton 7. Stephen Dobyns 8. B.H. Fairchild 9. Dana Gioia 10. Jane Kenyon 11. Ted Kooser 12. Maxine Kumin 13. Philip Levine 14. Heather McHugh 15. Sharon Olds 16. Mary Oliver 17. Charles Simic 18. William Stafford 19. Mark Strand Hope this is useful. Fred * * * * * (Message edited by sandiegopoet on June 29, 2008) Unofficial Forum Pariah -- recent victim of alien abduction -- I'm running out of places to store the bodies. | ||
| Brianna
Valued Member Username: shkethtmnymkrhorsey Post Number: 238 Registered: 12-2007 |
Thank all of you so much! I can't wait to get started but it's like 2 a.m here...I should go to bed....hmm...maybe 1 or 2....: P Thanks again, : ) Bri ...I heard a neigh. Oh, such a brisk and melodious neigh as that was! My very heart leaped with delight at the sound. ~Nathaniel Hawthorne "Before you, Bella, my life was like a moonless night. Very dark, but there were stars --points of light and reason....And then you shot across my sky like a meteor. Suddenly everything was on fire; there was brilliancy, there was beauty. When you were gone, when the meteor had fallen over the horizon, everything went black. nothing had changed, but my eyes were blinded by light. I couldn't see the stars anymore. And there was no more reason for anything." -Edward Cullen -Twilight "5 bucks she throws up." "I don't think so, she runs with vampires." -Jared & Embry -Twilight by Stephenie Meyer Time passes. Even when it seems impossible. Even when each tick of the second hand aches like the pulse of blood behind a bruise. It passes unevenly, in strange lurches and dragging lulls, but pass it does. Even for me.-Bella -Twilight | ||
| Gary Blankenship
Moderator Username: garydawg Post Number: 24340 Registered: 07-2001 |
Sorry, Fred, I do not agree. A poet should be encouraged to read poets no matter when or where they wrote. My list would not be specific poets but anthologies: The West pre 1900 The West 1900 to about 1960 The Modern West The East - a minimum of Japan, China esp the High Tang and India, but best with Middle East and Se Asia - don't miss Rumi. Latin - Neruda, Lorca, Paz Black America The Rest Barnes and Nobel, Borders or the local library will have good volumes, though you might have to get the Asian in seperate volumes for Japan and China. For the most Modern, Pustcart and Best of American Poetry are good volumes to get a sense of what is being written now - though I don't believe BAP is always the best and would recomment Pushcart first. There are vg volumes on writing and reading poetry. Francess Mayes' The Discovery of Poetry, is one. Hirsch, Bly and others have volumes also. And Emily is a good place to start - esp if it is as she wrote them... Smiles and good luck. Smiles. Gary Celebrate Walt with Gary: http://www.poetrykit.org/pkl/tw10/tw4conte.htm | ||
| Ann Metlay
Senior Member Username: wordsrworthy Post Number: 4447 Registered: 08-2007 |
Bri, Another way to get introduced to a number of poets is to get an anthology. The one that comes to mind is Good Poems by Garrison Keillor, but I now there are some other very good ones out there. That way you have a number of poets in one book, then you can investigate those you like further. Ann I am paying attention to small beauties, whatever I have--as if it were our duty to find things to love, to bind ourselves to this world. (Sharon Olds) | ||
| Brianna
Valued Member Username: shkethtmnymkrhorsey Post Number: 243 Registered: 12-2007 |
Thank you Ann, I will definitely try to get one. Gary- thank you also! Boy this is quite a list : ) I don't have a very good (or long) attention span... haha jk. Ive made a list of everything you guys have wrote here so I should keep busy this summer!!! Thank you all so much again. : ) Bri ...I heard a neigh. Oh, such a brisk and melodious neigh as that was! My very heart leaped with delight at the sound. ~Nathaniel Hawthorne "Before you, Bella, my life was like a moonless night. Very dark, but there were stars --points of light and reason....And then you shot across my sky like a meteor. Suddenly everything was on fire; there was brilliancy, there was beauty. When you were gone, when the meteor had fallen over the horizon, everything went black. nothing had changed, but my eyes were blinded by light. I couldn't see the stars anymore. And there was no more reason for anything." -Edward Cullen -Twilight "5 bucks she throws up." "I don't think so, she runs with vampires." -Jared & Embry -Twilight by Stephenie Meyer Time passes. Even when it seems impossible. Even when each tick of the second hand aches like the pulse of blood behind a bruise. It passes unevenly, in strange lurches and dragging lulls, but pass it does. Even for me.-Bella -Twilight | ||
| Mariah Wilson
Intermediate Member Username: mariahwilson43 Post Number: 794 Registered: 11-2007 |
Some of my all time favorites are in the realm of English Literature. John Keats Alfred, Lord Tennyson William Wordsworth Percy Bysche Shelly W.B. Yeats Not in the realm of English Lit are the following..... Bill Bissett Edgar Alan Poe (Especailly The Raven) Dean Koontz (yes he is also a poet...look up The Book of Counted Sorrows) Humor is emotional chaos remembered in tranquility~James Thurber~ | ||
| Anna Brown
Valued Member Username: tissuetoyou Post Number: 104 Registered: 11-2007 |
I am in love with Edgar Allan Poe, and I'm just starting to read a book I got by Naomi Shihab Nye. She's good, too. _________________________________________________ Every Imp could be a bastard, but not every bastard need be short. George R.R. Martin - A Game of Thrones | ||
| Christopher T George
Senior Member Username: chrisgeorge Post Number: 6652 Registered: 12-2004 |
Hi Brianna Of modern poets I would recommend Randall Jarrell (check out his excellent The Woman at the Washington Zoo), Philip Larkin, Sylvia Plath, Ted Hughes, Carolyn Forché, Denise Levertov, Louise Glück, Stanley Kunitz. That should keep you busy.  Chris Editor, Desert Moon Review http://www.desertmoonreview.com Co-Editor, Loch Raven Review http://www.lochravenreview.net http://chrisgeorge.netpublish.net/ | ||
| Jeffrey S. Lange
Advanced Member Username: runatyr Post Number: 1034 Registered: 10-2005 |
Hi Brianna, Looks like you have your reading cut out for ya! And some great reading it shall be. I adore the British Romantics, some of whom have been named. This is largely 19th C work. The traditional canon consists of: William Wordsworth Samuel Taylor Coleridge Percy Bysshe Shelley John Keats Lord Byron William Blake My favorite 20th C poets: Elizabeth Bishop Pablo Neruda Anne Sexton Sylvia Plath Robert Frost Fernando Pessoa Anna Akhmatova Contemporary: Robert Pinsky John Ashbery Russell Edson Charles Simic Nikki Giovanni Naomi Shihab Nye Oh, I almost forgot Nathalie Handal! She's amazing. Met her once when she read at my university. Very personable. For that matter, Pinsky is personable also... he has a larger-than-life personality. He struck me as the Clint Eastwood of poetry. ;) (Message edited by runatyr on July 01, 2008) | ||
| David C.
Intermediate Member Username: david_shay_mish Post Number: 450 Registered: 07-2007 |
Oh heck. This has just reminded me of all the modern poets I haven't read. | ||
| Brianna
Valued Member Username: shkethtmnymkrhorsey Post Number: 256 Registered: 12-2007 |
Wow...thats a lot of people! haha jk. Thank you soo much everyone!!! : ) Bri ...I heard a neigh. Oh, such a brisk and melodious neigh as that was! My very heart leaped with delight at the sound. ~Nathaniel Hawthorn Time passes. Even when it seems impossible. Even when each tick of the second hand aches like the pulse of blood behind a bruise. It passes unevenly, in strange lurches and dragging lulls, but pass it does. Even for me.-Bella -Twilight Do you want me to bolt the doors so you can massacre the unsuspecting townsfolk? ~Bella And where do you fit into that scheme? ~Edward Oh I'm with the vampires of course. ~Bella Anything to get out of dancing ~Edward Anything ~Bella ~Bella and Edward, Twilight | ||
| Gary Blankenship
Moderator Username: garydawg Post Number: 24350 Registered: 07-2001 |
Actually, if you could only read one volume, I would pick http://www.amazon.com/dp/0393316548?tag=wildpoetryfor-20&camp=14573&creative=327641&linkCode=as1&creativeASIN=0393316548&adid=12YBFPXEXV2B2W63X054& The Poet's Companion - one of the absolute essentials - not only to help write, but the poems in it worth the volume as just a collection to read. Smiles. Gary Celebrate Walt with Gary: http://www.poetrykit.org/pkl/tw10/tw4conte.htm | ||
| Fred Longworth
Senior Member Username: sandiegopoet Post Number: 4164 Registered: 05-2006 |
Gary, This fascination with the past -- indeed, this obsession with the past -- during the era when culture is changing faster than at any other time in history . . . is in itself worthy of volumes. I submit that the primary reason for a generation of educationally disaffected youth is precisely because the educational system largely ignores the actual historical moment in which the students are living. In part, this is egregious and deplorable cowardice. The educators are AFRAID to deal with the present. The present is controversial and leads to angry parents and expensive litigation. Better to target educational topics that are safe and non-litigious -- like asking kids to read the Federalist Papers and Jane Austin. * * * * * In my imagination Kid says to me, "It's all propaganda and the past." How do I answer that? "Listen Kid, ignore the present. Focus on what dead people had to say." * * * * * Suppose that children went to school, and were required to learn to speak and read Middle English? -- leaving only limited time for studying contemporary English. Or Greek? -- leaving only limited time for studying contemporary English. Or Latin? -- leaving only limited time for studying contemporary English. Or Middle English AND Greek AND Latin? -- leaving almost NO time for studying contemporary English. I submit that this archaic educational model, this obsessive sucking at the breasts of dead mothers, should be consigned to the junkheap of history. * * * * * Let us teach our youth about the present in which they are actually living, and then once they have become excited about the life and culture that is actually around them, let them delve into the antecedents to the contemporary world. * * * * * I say this for the youth. For myself, next Wednesday afternoon (9th) I will begin a four-week class in Shakespearean plays, which will include a backstage tour -- all through the University of California Extension. But then I am 61, not 16. Fred Unofficial Forum Pariah -- recent victim of alien abduction -- I'm running out of places to store the bodies. | ||
| Gary Blankenship
Moderator Username: garydawg Post Number: 24371 Registered: 07-2001 |
Fred, as it relates to education I cannot disagree as long as we remember those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it or something like that. But as it relates to Bri's question - one by a serious student of poetry - she or any of us will benefit from a read of the entire spectrum of poetics from Willie through Edgar, Robert, WC, Alan to Derf. Smiles and peace. Gary Celebrate Walt with Gary: http://www.poetrykit.org/pkl/tw10/tw4conte.htm | ||
| Christopher T George
Senior Member Username: chrisgeorge Post Number: 6653 Registered: 12-2004 |
Hi Brianna Here's another modern poet whose I admire: Frank O'Hara. there was a review of Frank O'Hara's Selected Poems in the New York Times Book Review this past Sunday. I had forgotten that he was born in Baltimore. If you haven't read the article, you should be able to read William Logan's review, "Urban Poet" by following the link.  All the best Chris Editor, Desert Moon Review http://www.desertmoonreview.com Co-Editor, Loch Raven Review http://www.lochravenreview.net http://chrisgeorge.netpublish.net/ | ||
| Brianna
Valued Member Username: shkethtmnymkrhorsey Post Number: 266 Registered: 12-2007 |
Thank you all so much for taking the time to write all this. I really appreciate it! : ) Bri ...I heard a neigh. Oh, such a brisk and melodious neigh as that was! My very heart leaped with delight at the sound. ~Nathaniel Hawthorn Time passes. Even when it seems impossible. Even when each tick of the second hand aches like the pulse of blood behind a bruise. It passes unevenly, in strange lurches and dragging lulls, but pass it does. Even for me.-Bella -Twilight Do you want me to bolt the doors so you can massacre the unsuspecting townsfolk? ~Bella And where do you fit into that scheme? ~Edward Oh I'm with the vampires of course. ~Bella Anything to get out of dancing ~Edward Anything ~Bella ~Bella and Edward, Twilight | ||
| Anna Brown
Valued Member Username: tissuetoyou Post Number: 117 Registered: 11-2007 |
Jeff, I flipping love Byron! Good pick! And I like Sylvia Plath and Shelley. _________________________________________________ Every Imp could be a bastard, but not every bastard need be short. George R.R. Martin - A Game of Thrones | ||
| Jeffrey S. Lange
Advanced Member Username: runatyr Post Number: 1041 Registered: 10-2005 |
Yeah, Byron had amazing technical skill and a keen sense of humor. Larger than life both on the page and off, too. ;) |
