Poetry (bookstrut)

hertzhoghertzhog 865 Posts
edited December 2006 in Strut Central
I haven't really read too much poetry-- it has bothered me for years and now I decided it's time to do something about it. Pretty much all I have on my shelf is some Bukowski and Neruda. I'm mainly looking for 20th century stuff, so that should narrow it down a bit. Difficult or easy, it doesn't really matter. And since christmas is coming up, you could throw in some good non-poetry reads, too...

  Comments


  • Where to begin with 20th century poetry... Yikes!

    You CANNOT leave out William Carlos Williams: He is as essential as it gets. Additionally, he took so many risks and adventurous turns with his career that there's something for everyone.

    I also like Auden quite a bit, especially "In Praise of Limestone," one of my favorite poems. He's a feeler, so if you like poetry from the heart, he's the man.

    I don't really do much Pound, although some of his Cantos are anthologized.

    Can you tell I like the modernists?

    Wallace Stevens would be another big name. You could do a selected works book from him and be fine, although his stuff is all quality--probably the most consistent, in my opinion.

    I'd avoid ee cummings.

    Charles Olson is great, but you have to dedicate a lot of time to his stuff. There's a connection between him and John Cage through the Black Mountain school. That'd be interesting to look in to.

    I like Elizabeth Bishop, especially "The Waiting Room."

    John Ashbery is utterly confusing. Again, gotta spend a lot of time with his stuff.

    And that's where I end. I could care less about modern poetry since I think most of it is shit published by a group of influential friends. That and half of the selections I read in the "Best Ofs" books from the past five years deal with trauma, and I just don't care for it. Rarely do any of these books feature writers under 35, so we're stuck with writers with shit in their pants.

    That and nobody publishes spatial poetry, which is what I like to read/write.

    Someone else can give you the goods on the Pomo stuff. I obviously hate what's being called good Pomo poetry...

  • p_gunnp_gunn 2,284 Posts
    Report from the Besieged City

    Too old to carry arms and fight like the others -

    they graciously gave me the inferior role of chronicler
    I record - I don't know for whom - the history of the siege

    I am supposed to be exact but I don't know when the invasion began
    two hundred years ago in December in September perhaps yesterday at dawn
    everyone here suffers from a loss of the sense of time

    all we have left is the place the attachment to the place
    we still rule over the ruins of temples spectres of gardens and houses
    if we lose the ruins nothing will be left

    I write as I can in the rhythm of interminable weeks
    monday: empty storehouses a rat became the unit of currency
    tuesday: the mayor murdered by unknown assailants
    wednesday: negotiations for a cease-fire the enemy has imprisoned our messengers
    we don't know where they are held that is the place of torture
    thursday: after a stormy meeting a majority of voices rejected
    the motion of the spice merchants for unconditional surrender
    friday: the beginning of the plague saturday: our invincible defender
    N.N. committed suicide sunday: no more water we drove back
    an attack at the eastern gate called the Gate of the Alliance

    all of this is monotonous I know it can't move anyone

    I avoid any commentary I keep a tight hold on my emotions I write about the facts
    only they it seems are appreciated in foreign markets
    yet with a certain pride I would like to inform the world
    that thanks to the war we have raised a new species of children
    our children don???t like fairy tales they play at killing
    awake and asleep they dream of soup of bread and bones
    just like dogs and cats

    in the evening I like to wander near the outposts of the city
    along the frontier of our uncertain freedom.
    I look at the swarms of soldiers below their lights
    I listen to the noise of drums barbarian shrieks
    truly it is inconceivable the City is still defending itself
    the siege has lasted a long time the enemies must take turns
    nothing unites them except the desire for our extermination
    Goths the Tartars Swedes troops of the Emperor regiments of the Transfiguration
    who can count them
    the colours of their banners change like the forest on the horizon
    from delicate bird's yellow in spring through green through red to winter's black

    and so in the evening released from facts I can think
    about distant ancient matters for example our
    friends beyond the sea I know they sincerely sympathize
    they send us flour lard sacks of comfort and good advice
    they don???t even know their fathers betrayed us
    our former allies at the time of the second Apocalypse
    their sons are blameless they deserve our gratitude therefore we are grateful
    they have not experienced a siege as long as eternity
    those struck by misfortune are always alone
    the defenders of the Dalai Lama the Kurds the Afghan mountaineers

    now as I write these words the advocates of conciliation
    have won the upper hand over the party of inflexibles
    a normal hesitation of moods fate still hangs in the balance

    cemeteries grow larger the number of defenders is smaller
    yet the defence continues it will continue to the end
    and if the City falls but a single man escapes
    he will carry the City within himself on the roads of exile
    he will be the City

    we look in the face of hunger the face of fire face of death
    worst of all - the face of betrayal
    and only our dreams have not been humiliated

    Zbigniew Herbert


  • Zbigniew Herbert

    YES!

    Buy this guy's stuff.

    I first read his poetry in "A Book of Luminous Things" edited by Czeslaw Milosz and proceeded to do a term papar on "Elegy of Fortinbras."

  • Bukowski

    If you like this guy you might also like the poetry of Raymond Carver. I'm reminded of him because of the aforementioned "Book of Luminous Things" which featured Carver's poem "Wine."

  • BaptBapt 2,503 Posts

    Mahmoud Darwich


  • FlomotionFlomotion 2,390 Posts
    Philip Larkin - This Be The Verse

    They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
    They may not mean to, but they do.
    They fill you with the faults they had
    And add some extra, just for you.

    But they were fucked up in their turn
    By fools in old-style hats and coats,
    Who half the time were soppy-stern
    And half at one another's throats.

    Man hands on misery to man.
    It deepens like a coastal shelf.
    Get out as early as you can,
    And don't have any kids yourself.

  • magpaulmagpaul 1,314 Posts

    The Little Black Boy

    My mother bore me in the southern wild,
    And I am black, but oh my soul is white!
    White as an angel is the English child,
    But I am black, as if bereaved of light.

    My mother taught me underneath a tree,
    And, sitting down before the heat of day,
    She took me on her lap and kissed me,
    And, pointed to the east, began to say:

    "Look on the rising sun: there God does live,
    And gives His light, and gives His heat away,
    And flowers and trees and beasts and men receive
    Comfort in morning, joy in the noonday.

    "And we are put on earth a little space,
    That we may learn to bear the beams of love
    And these black bodies and this sunburnt face
    Is but a cloud, and like a shady grove.

    "For when our souls have learn'd the heat to bear,
    The cloud will vanish, we shall hear His voice,
    Saying, 'Come out from the grove, my love and care
    And round my golden tent like lambs rejoice',"

    Thus did my mother say, and kissed me;
    And thus I say to little English boy.
    When I from black and he from white cloud free,
    And round the tent of God like lambs we joy

    I'll shade him from the heat till he can bear
    To lean in joy upon our Father's knee;
    And then I'll stand and stroke his silver hair,
    And be like him, and he will then love me.

    William Blake

  • tuneuptuneup 586 Posts
    coffee gut


    how many cups of coffee
    can i drink when coffee
    hurts my gut
    two fold
    too many cars in ditches

    by the way...
    fuck iambic pentameter
    this is my drive
    and my poem

    back to the car

    how do you drive when you???re scared
    of the road ahead
    again
    cars
    in ditches

    coffee gut

    wired for sound with records in the back
    bounty for mortgage
    wish i liked most of it

    Jersey turns to Jersey cows
    Jersey cows to darkness
    2am there she is

    coffee gut gone

  • SwayzeSwayze 14,705 Posts
    Seaver's comment about there being no good poetry out now shows how he is from the streets...

    This year's facemelters:
    Anna Moschovakis - I have not been able to get through to everyone
    Ted Mathys - Forge (okay, fall 2005, but still)
    Juliet Patterson - The Truant Lover (sapphic heat, with nods to Charles Olson)
    Ben Lerner - Angle of Yaw (he makes it look so easy, it's like he's taunting you...)


    For older, more established living (and recently dead) poets, check:

    Nicanor Parra
    Denise Levertov
    Julio Cortazar (the CityLights selected poems is really meaty)
    Charles Simic (check the '70s stuff like Austerities and Charon's Cosmology)
    James Tate
    Lisel Mueller (deceptively simple)

  • parenparen 537 Posts

    For older, more established living (and recently dead) poets, check:

    Denise Levertov - yes
    Charles Simic - double yes

    personal favorites:

    kenneth patchen
    charles simic
    russell edson
    william stafford
    juan ramon jimenez
    mark strand
    tom andrews

    ---

    when in doubt, go back and read more blake.

  • HAZHAZ 3,376 Posts
    Pushkin is cool - I'd recommend his novella in verse, Eugene Onegin.

  • Seaver's comment about there being no good poetry out now shows how he is from the streets...

    This is true. I have no desire to be connected to the scene.

  • Thanks everybody. Tomorrow I'm off to the library and/or bookstore.

  • i hate reading. i kinda hate most poetry too. but i really do like the charles olson essays. which are a poetry unto themselves. i also like robert creeley which i think was a student of olsons. as well as wcw essays but not necessarily his poems.

    david antin did some cool stuff. they were called talk poems. i like to consider him a friend of mines. he gave me books in trade for mixtapes of stuffs. im sure he'd heard of most the stuff i gave him and i think he humored me with the jazz shit. but still, he was a cool dude and a great storyteller. he does what are called "talk poems" where he would basically just get up on stage and bullshit for an hour or two and record it. then transcribe it. though bullshit is not the best word to use, cuz his "bullshit" is worlds better than most peoples' well thought out diatribes.

    there is some contemporary shit that i do like. though i cant name any of them. i have a couple friends that are poets and theyll show me stuff here and there, and some of it i'll dig, and other stuffs im like "eh"

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