Also: Natalie Diaz, Frank Bidart, Henri Cole, Mary Oliver, Elizabeth Bishop, and Adam Zagajewski, to name just a few.
Highly recommend checking out the Poetry Foundation’s daily poem to make reading poetry more of a habit. It has helped me to discover lots of great poets.
Mar 7, 2024
Related Recs
😃
• Maggie Nelson (Bluets and Something Bright, Then Holes)
• Victoria Chang (Obit)
• Heather Christle (The Crying Book)
• bell hooks
• June Jordan
• Mary Oliver
• e. e. cummings
• Melissa Broder
• Chen Chen
• Mary Oliver
• Jacqueline Suskin
• Andrea Gibson
Some of the above poets have twitters/insta you can follow to keep up with their work!
I also suggest following some publishers and presses that publish poetry to hear about new poets and their collections!
I really like:
• Copper Canyon Press
• Graywolf Press
• Coffee House Press
• Wave Books
• Button Poetry
Happy reading, from one poet to another 💗
May 7, 2024
Poetry is often short and so we just skim over it and are left underwhelmed. Sometimes we need to make ourselves hear and feel it more, I find that reading the poem out loud really helps with this! Also maybe try to find videos of poets reading their own poems. (I’ve attached a Mary Oliver reading, I’ve never met anyone who didn’t like Mary Oliver haha)
Also remember that “poetry” is such a huge and nebulous literary form and that you may well dislike a lot of it (I detest so much poetry that I find it a little embarrassing as a poet). Just because you don’t like a poem, or a hell of a lot of poems, doesn’t mean you don’t like poetry, you’ve just not found the poems you like. If you find one poem that you like, find more from that same poet. If you like a poet, look at who their fans like, or who the poet has cited as inspiration. You’re allowed to find lines you love but not like other lines in the same poem. It’s all worth it when you find one line that hits right through you. “you do not have to be good…you just have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves”.
Apr 1, 2024
🖋
1. accept that you can take whatever you want from a poem - I personally care less about understanding exactly what the poet intended, and focus more on: being reminded of moments/people/thoughts in my life, taking advice, and hearing words and phrases that sound nice together
2. start with easy/lovely/understandable poems! esp contemporary ones. have linked a couple below
3. read analysis/reviews of poems you don't understand!
4. read an entire poetry book! sometimes it's useful to see the poems in the context of each other. this is often how they're meant to be read. also sometimes have a authors note or intro which can help
here are some good ones to start with:
- clam by Mary Oliver (abt nature + withstanding life): https://wordsfortheyear.com/2016/09/06/clam-by-mary-oliver/
- after a greek proverb by A E Stallings https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/55235/after-a-greek-proverb
- what I didn't know before by Ada Limón - https://www.poetryinternational.com/en/poets-poems/poems/poem/103-30712_WHAT-I-DIDN-T-KNOW-BEFORE
- Invictus by William Ernest henley (this is an old one but easy to understand) https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/51642/invictus
Apr 1, 2024
Top Recs from @larry_gopnik2
😃
My current obsession. Heard it in the film the Killer by David Fincher a few weeks ago and have been unable to stop listening to in since then. It’s such a sultry song.
Mar 17, 2024
😃
Anything by her, especially her albums Painless and Inside Out. Her music is hard to categorize and combines a variety of genres. Such a unique sound.
Mar 29, 2024
😃
My favorite poem changes frequently, but this one hit me hard recently.
“How should we like it were stars to burn
With a passion for us we could not return?
If equal affection cannot be,
Let the more loving one be me.”
Such a beautiful description of unrequited love.
Mar 18, 2024