Okay, so everytime I pick up a book with one good poem in it, I tend to find the rest of the poetry to be as much tasteful as wet turnips cooked in olive oil and roasted with Dutch cheese.
I always feel like I don’t wanna spend what ends up being 20-30 bucks on a book which has about one verse that I approve of.
I’m not really used to looking for poems (can’t quite call me a poem buff), so I’ll just outline the characteristics of what I percieve as a good poem:
It has to be completely image-laden. Think of A Midsummer Nights Dream or Hamlet by the great Willie himself. I like stuff where it talks about the noise of rustling leaves/silence, glowing moonlit night, illuminating colours, coral reef sea-life etc. It gives me a buzz. I guess I’m what you would call visuo-spatially oriented. But you get the jist… I like poetry where you have to use your imagination and get caught in another world…
I am attempting to stay away from anything pre-19th century. I would prefer not to look at stuff that talks about “thence forth”, “thine own”, “mine own”, “thee”, “misbegotten”, “o’er” etc. Basically I would like modern contemporary poetry, or poetry constructed via “ourtime” language. Using words like “ourtime” shows you why I need to brush-up on my linguistic skills.
I think that’s pretty much it. I’d really like a diversity of topics-- horror, thriller, romance, fantasy, fairytale and comedy (not tragedy though, I’d prefer to stay away from that - there’s already enough sadness in my life without having to pile-on).
Can anyone recommend any complete set of books that I can purchase with all these types? Any recommended books at all for what I’m looking for?
And, as an aside, exactly what type of poetry am I looking for? I mean, does it have a name (e.g. “Image-associated poetry”) or something?
–As an aside, for those of you who don’t really know what I’m not looking for, think of poems like “Jack and Jill went up the hill”. That kind of shit really gets on my nerves. I HATE that kind of poetry. That’s the crap I wanna avoid.
My suggestions are Dylan Thomas and T.S. Eliot, but I’m addicted to both.
*Let us go then, you and I
When the evening is spreas out against the sky
Like a patient etherised upon a table…
The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes,
The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes,
Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening,
Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains…*
Love it.
I think your best bet is to skim a bunch of kinds of different poetry, and try to come up with a few specific authors.
You can’t go wrong with lyric romantics: Wordsworth and Coolridge, Byron, some Keats.
As suggested, everyone should read Dylan Thomas.
You should read Howl by Ginsburg, just cause everyone starting to play with poetry should.
Yeats has wonderful, accessible language.
Libraries and used bokstores are wonderful things. Check out or buy anthologies–Nortons are, of course, essential, but there are other anthologies as well–and keep them by your bed or by your toliet.
“Introduction to Poetry” by X. J. Kennedy would be a good place to look for leads. Lots of different examples of poets in it. It might give you a better idea on what you’re looking for.
Also for imagery-style, I see someone beat me to Thomas and Eliot, so I’ll have to add:
Sylvia Plath (don’t let the suicide ending fool you, her work is not all depressing)
Carl Sandburg
Emily Dickinson
Anne Sexton
e.e. cummings
James Dickey
Archibald MacLeish
William Carlos Williams (reluctantly*)
I have to disagree with you, Ukulele Ike. There’s quite a difference between a poetic style like E. A. Robinson and one like Gerard Manly Hopkins. Not all poetry is geared towards imagery, and some poetry is nothing but imagery.
*I’m sorry but his wheelbarrow poem pisses me off- other than that, he’s okay.
The point of poetry is to zap images into the reader/listener’s mind using language, and as little of it as possible. You don’t think that both Hopkins and Robinson are both doing that, albeit in different styles?
My personal favourite is Sylvia Plath – “Electra on Azalea Path” has been my obsession of late. She’s very heavy into the imagery, and very artistic, if extremely sad. I guess what I like about Plath is that you can really feel her through what she’s written, even though she commited suicide fifty years ago.
Most of you have hit on my favorites (Uncle Walt “Song of Myself”, Mr. Eliot “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” and “The Hollow Men,” anything by mr. cummings, esp. “what if a much of a which of a wind,” “pity this busy monster manunkind,” etc). I also like Edgar Allan Poe, Emily Dickinson, William Butler Yeats (“The Second Coming” gives me chills every single time), and Margaret Atwood’s prose poetry (how’s that for an oxymoron?)
I recommend you hit the library. Go into the 808 and just browse around until you find something that tickles you. If you like Shakespeare, you know he wrote 154 sonnets, right? They’re amazing.
