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POETS & POETRY |
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Reading Recommendations |
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Poets.org has asked a number of poets, including previous Chancellors of the Academy of American Poets, to list a few poetry books that they would recommend to others. The selections that came in include influential volumes, books returned to over and over, must-reads, and books frequently recommended to students or new poetry readers.
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Ai |
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Robert Bly |
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Billy Collins |
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Toi Derricotte |
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Joy Harjo |
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Robert Hass |
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John Hollander |
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Fanny Howe |
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Susan Howe |
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Mark Jarman |
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Philip Levine |
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Nathaniel Mackey |
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Arthur Sze |
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Ai recommends:
Galway Kinnell Body Rags 2002, Mariner Books Reissue
Galway Kinnell The Book of Nightmares 1973, Mariner Books
W. S. Merwin The Lice 1993, Copper Canyon Press Reissue
Cesare Pavese Hard Labor 1979, Johns Hopkins University Press
James Wright Shall We Gather at the River 1968, University Press Of New England
Sylvia Plath Ariel 2004, HarperCollins Restored Edition
Allen Ginsberg Howl 1956, City Lights Books
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Robert Bly recommends:
Wallace Stevens Harmonium 1923, Faber and Faber
Antonio Machado Soledad 1990, Fondo de Cultura Económica
Antonio Machado Times Alone 1983, Wesleyan Univ Press
Richard Wilbur The Beautiful Changes 1947, Reynal & Hitchcock
Robert Creeley For Love 1980, Macmillan
Cesar Vallejo The Black Messengers 1995, Losada
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Billy Collins recommends:
Richard Brautigan The Pill vs. The Springhill Mind Disaster 1969, Delacorte Press
Fernando Pessoa Fernando Pessoa & Co.: Selected Poems 1999, Grove Press
Kenneth Koch New Addresses 2001, Knopf
Wislawa Szymborska View with a Grain of Sand 1995, Harvest Books |
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Toi Derricotte recommends:
Lucille Clifton The Book of Light 1993, Copper Canyon Press
Galway Kinnell The Book of Nightmares 1973, Mariner Books
Yusef Komunyakaa Dien Cai Dau 1988, Wesleyan University Press
Sharon Olds The Gold Cell 1987, Knopf
Rainer Maria Rilke Duino Elegies 1992, W. W. Norton & Company reissue
Gerald Stern Paradise 1984, Random House
Ruth Stone Simplicity 1997, Paris Press
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Joy Harjo recommends:
John Burnside The Good Neighbour 2005, Jonathan Cape
Audre Lorde The Black Unicorn 1995, W.W. Norton & Co. Reissue
Okot P'Bitek Song of Lawino 1984, Heinemann Reissue
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Robert Hass recommends:
Forrest Gander Science and Steepleflower 1998, New Directions
Donald Revell Arcady 2002, Wesleyan Univ. Press
Brenda Hillman Cascadia 2001, Wesleyan University Press
Louise Glück October 2004, Sarabande Books
Myung Mi Kim Commons 2002, University of California Press
Peter Gizzi Some Values of Landscape and Weather 2003, Wesleyan University Press |
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John Hollander recommends:
John Milton Paradise Lost 2005, Norton Reissue
George Herbert The Temple 1981, Paulist Press Reissue
Walt Whitman Leaves of Grass 1855 edition, Penguin Classics
Emily Dickinson Complete Poems 1976, Back Bay Books Edition
Alfred, Lord Tennyson Complete Poems 1999, W.W. Norton & Co. Edition
Thomas Hardy The Complete Poems 2002, Palgrave Macmillan
Wallace Stevens Collected Poetry and Prose 1997, Library of America
W. H. Auden The Complete Works 1988, Princeton University Press
Elizabeth Bishop Complete Poems, 1927-1979 1984, Farrar, Straus and Giroux
James Merrill Collected Poems 2001, Knopf
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Fanny Howe recommends:
Bernadette Mayer Midwinter Day 1999, New Directions
Lyn Hejinian Happily 2000, Post Apollo Press
Rae Armantrout Up To Speed 2004, Wesleyan University Press
Melvin B. Tolson Libretto for the Republic of Liberia 1999, University Press of Virginia
Leslie Scalapino Zither & Autobiography 2003, Wesleyan University Press |
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Susan Howe recommends:
Algernon Charles Swinburne Poems and Ballads and Atalanta in Calydon 2001, Penguin Books
Ezra Pound The Pisan Cantos 2003, New Directions
Rainer Maria Rilke elected Poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke ed. & trans. by Stephen Mitchell 1989, Vintage, Reissue Edition
John Ashbery Where Shall I Wander 2005, Ecco
John Ashbery Self Portrait In A Convex Mirror 1992, Penguin
John Ashbery Tennis Court Oath 1977, Wesleyan University Press
J. H. Prynne Poems by J. H. Prynne 1999, Bloodaxe Books
W. H. Auden The Sea and The Mirror: A Commentary on Shakespeare's "The Tempest," 2003, Princeton University Press
Gertrude Stein Gertrude Stein, Writings 1932-1946 1998, Library of America
Wallace Stevens Collected Poetry & Prose by Wallace Stevens 1997, Library of America
Emily Dickinson The Master Letters of Emily Dickinson 1998, University of Massachusetts Press
H. D. Trilogy 1998, New Directions
H. D. Helen In Egypt 1998, New Directions
William Carlos Williams Patterson 1995, New Directions
Robert Creeley Collected Poems of Robert Creeley, 1945-75 1985, University of California Press
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Mark Jarman recommends:
Robert Lowell Life Studies 1967, Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Chase Twichell The Ghost of Eden 1998, George Braziller
Philip Larkin High Windows 1974, Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Elizabeth Bishop Geography III 1977, Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Philip Levine 1933 1974, Atheneum
Andrew Hudgins The Never-Ending 1992, Houghton Mifflin
Garrett Hongo The River of Heaven 1988, Knopf Reprint |
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Philip Levine recommends:
Elizabeth Bishop Geography III 1977, Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Sterling Brown Southern Road 1974, Beacon Press
Zbigniew Herbert Selected Poems 1986, Ecco Press
Kenneth Koch New Addresses 2001, Knopf
Larry Levis Winter Stars 1985, Univ. of Pittsburgh Press
Cesare Pavese Hard Labor 1986, Ecco Press
Theodore Roethke The Lost Son 1948, Doubleday
Edward Thomas The Poems of Edward Thomas 2003, Handsel Books
Walt Whitman Song of Myself from Leaves of Grass, 1983, Bantam Classics
William Carlos Williams Selected Poems 1985, New Directions |
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Nathaniel Mackey recommends:
Robert Duncan Bending the Bow 1968, New Directions
Kamau Brathwaite The Arrivants 1988, Oxford University Press
H. D. Trilogy 1998, New Directions
H. D. Hermetic Definition 1972, New Directions
H. D. Helen in Egypt 1998, New Directions
Ed Roberson Voices Cast Out to Talk Us In 1995, University of Iowa Press |
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Arthur Sze recommends:
Jay Wright Transfigurations 2000, Louisiana State University Press
Charles Simic Selected Early Poems 2000, George Braziller
John Yau Borrowed Love Poems 2002, Penguin
C. D. Wright Deepstep Come Shining 1998, Copper Canyon Press
Forrest Gander Science and Steepleflower 1998, New Directions
Jon Davis Scrimmage of Appetite 1995, University of Akron Press
Carolyn Kizer Cool, Calm, and Collected 2000, Copper Canyon Press
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