Attention poetry mavens: any suggestions for good contemporary poets (either in general or particular collections)? Have sudden appetite but very little idea where to start. Any advice welcome!
It is my current hope to go to graduate school for English literature next year: a certain school in a certain place, both a goal and an insurmountable challenge. Having been out of college for a year already, and having graduated as a music major, I am rusty. Trying to compensate, I googled “books every english major has read” but have had a difficult time finding a list that suggests what every (generalized) English major should have read by the time of (undergraduate) graduation. As a person who attended a high school whose meager syllabus prescribed the study of one novel, one play and four poems a year, and who could only scrape enough college literature credits for a minor, I feel woefully behind. Most American kids got a head start in AP English (seriously – who are those freaks who read Ulysses in high school?). American high schools may have their weaknesses, but a strong and ambitious push to read literature consistently is not one of them. There are gaps, and I fear that wh...
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I'm not sure if you've already read some of their work. But here are a few of my favourite poems, by my favourite contemporary poets.
Marginalia, by Billy Collins : http://www.billy-collins.com/2005/06/marginalia.html
Farewell, by Agha Shahid Ali :
http://wonderingminstrels.blogspot.in/2002/12/farewell-agha-shahid-ali.html
Leaving and Leaving You, by Sophie Hannah :
http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/leaving-and-leaving-you/
- Shruti
http://www.stpetershigh.org.uk/DEPARTMENTS/ENGLISH_DEPT/PRUSH/KS4_Resources/Freshwater/Motion_Freshwaterstuff/Freshwater.html
Daniel Berrigan - Selected & New Poems - the well known social activist and Jesuit priest, who served time in jail for such activities as burning draft records and pouring blood on nuclear warheads. I recently discovered this book in a small used book store (the best kind) in Sandpoint, Idaho and have been consistently floored by his poems, ranging from his stark early religious imagery to his final moving series about his friend Thomas Merton.
Christian Wiman - Every Riven Thing - I came across this amazing poet - also the editor of Poetry magazine - after reading his essay about his incurable disease in Image magazine.
Dana Gioia - Pity the Beautiful
Richard Skelton - ok, this guy is great, especially if you love the uk countryside - check his web site Corbal Stone Press to get an idea of his work. I first came across his work in a musical context via a cover story in The Wire music magazine - in an attempt to confront his grief over the early death of his first wife, he immersed himself in the countryside and wrote an incredible series of poems and prose fragments, in addition to composing sad drones which he recorded in the open moors. Can't rave enough...