Poets who shaped poetry provide good reading for NaPoMo and beyond

This last day of National Poetry Month can begin a new or renewed commitment to poetic excellence in your own work as you resolve to read some of our most influential poets before the next NaPoMo. At first that may sound a little like a homework chore, but if you’re beyond the public school years, you might be as surprised as I was when I re-read and totally got those “Say what?” poems from high school days.

Since my favorite example gave me the shock of understanding and actually liking the once-baffling poem “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” let’s start with Pru’s poet-maker.

T.S. Eliot – Recently reviewed in The New York Times, this Nobel Prize poet reflected less than noble views as a man of the times who recorded what he saw. A long list of still-familiar quotations may give you a truer perspective of his perspective, but regardless, notice the brilliant metaphors in Prufrock, then read the poem aloud to hear the amazing musicality. Also, contemplate the multiple meanings in another must-read, “Journey of the Magi.” If you like Eliot’s poems, as I do, you might want to check out his essays on poetry too.

Ezra Pound – A friend of Eliot, but frankly not mine, this controversial figure and founder of the Imagist movement wrote essays about poetry, got arrested for his fascistic views, and was eventually declared insane. Acclaimed though he continues to be, I never connected with Pound or his poetry, yet he wrote one of my all-time favorite poems in two exquisite lines, “In a Station of the Metro.”

Robert Frost – Despite a whirl of poetic movements moving around him, Robert Frost kept writing in traditional forms and meter, winning four Pulitzers in the process. “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” reminds me to say that most people warmed to Frost, whose poems these are we think we know, but if you read his work again and aloud, you might be surprised how the possibilities for interpretation continue to snowball.

Gerard Manley Hopkins – This inventor of tightly compressed “sprung rhythm” became a Jesuit priest who wrote religious poetry of high literary quality that continues to be appreciated today. For example, “Windhover” orchestrates a symphony of sound echoes, and “God’s Grandeur” pictures the shining of shook foil, but my favorite is the insightful, quietly sensitive response to a young child in “Spring and Fall.”

Emily Dickinson – Reclusive for reasons people still speculate about, the real Em comes through her recently published letters and the museum that honors her. Numerous websites post her poems too, but as you read her work, listen for the music of a traditional ballad form and look for dashes of punctuation that show her dash of thought.

Walt Whitman – Known as a liberator of free verse in America, Whitman liberated lines of poetry and lines of thought in the expansive, inclusive lists or catalogs in his poems, many of which can be found on the Internet. Like Pound and other well-known poets who invented or re-invented poetic forms and styles, Whitman self-published his early work, including a slim volume that kept growing and growing as Leaves of Grass.

This list could keep growing, too, but not begin to touch the hundreds, indeed, thousands of years of great poets who greatly influenced poetry – poets such as Horace, Sappho, Basho, Aristotle, Petrarch, Shakespeare, Donne, Coleridge, Wordsworth, Yeats, and Auden. Hopefully, you’ll read them all!

If you already have a favorite, you’re once again invited to add the name of an influential poet or poem in the Comments section below. Feel free, too, to invite your poet-peers and poetry-loving friends to read and respond to articles on The Poetry Editor blog.

If you want to help The Poetry Editor website and blog continue to help you help your poems and appreciate poetry more fully, investigate the blog ads posted here and also professional services, such as the poetry critiques and writing consultations, available (at least for now) from The Poetry Editor.

Poets and poems to celebrate during National Poetry Month

Poets often ask each other about their favorite poets or poems, so here’s a list of personal Favs with hotlinks to poems for studying or just reading to enjoy. Feel free to add your favorites in the Comments section below.

Mary Oliver – The insightful and observant nature poetry of this Pulitzer Prize-winning poet drew me back into reading and writing poetry after years of writing almost everything except poems!

Charles Wright – Another Pulitzer Prize winner who weaves amazing metaphors and insight into exquisite free verse, this contemporary poet initially interested me because he was born in my native state of Tennessee, but his work appeals to a wide, global audience.

Donald Justice – This 20th Century Pulitzer poet had a home tie to Florida, where I’ve lived for years, but I especially enjoyed the insight into people and relationships often shown in his traditional poetry and free verse.

Pablo Neruda – Surrealist poetry, political poems, and odes of joy distinguish the Nobel Prize-winning poems of this 20th century poet, originally named Neftalí Ricardo Reyes Basoalto, from Chile.

Billy Collins – A winner of numerous prestigious prizes, this former U.S. Poet Laureate has won a non-poetry-reading public with skillfully written humorous poetry, noted for asking such questions as why the farmer’s wife cut off mice-tails with a carving knife.

Maya Angelou – Loved by the general public, this former nightclub singer, actress, activist, and highly versatile poet has also written song lyrics, picture books for children, a Pulitzer-nominated screenplay, and a poem for President Clinton’s 1993 Inaugural.

Jorie Graham – The brilliant, insightful poems of this Pulitzer Prize-winning poet may require multiple readings if you approach her poems, as I first did, from a mind-brain that goes for comprehension, but if you read her poems aloud as an experience, you’ll feel the poetry and perhaps keep coming back for more.

Richard Wilbur – A veteran of WWII, this veteran poet has won more than one Pulitzer and pretty much every major award for poetry. More amazing, though, has been his ongoing dedication to writing traditional metered poetry during the ongoing reign of free verse.

Mary Ann Hoberman – Our Children’s Poet Laureate writes books for kids and lively poems with humor and bounce.

The Poetry Editor – Hopefully, your poems are your Favs too! To read some of mine on the Internet, this link takes you to specific titles and a Bio.

If you would like to post a hotlink to your poetry page, provide your info in the Comments section. Then keep on reading, writing, and enjoying good poetry. Be sure to tell poet-friends about The Poetry Editor website and blog too. They might thank you, as I do!

National Poetry Month and the 3 Rs

NaPoMo reminds us of three R’s important to poets, not just in April but throughout the year: Reading, ‘Riting, and, you do the ‘Rithmatic to know it’s also time for Revising.

Read Poetry
To become a serious poet become a great lover of poetry.
Enjoy poems more and more as you learn how to read a poem.
Support poetry! Buy poetry books and journals.
Borrow poetry anthologies from your public library.
Study classical and contemporary poems on the Internet.
Investigate Poetry Resources in an earlier article on The Poetry Editor blog.
Check out the Resources page on The Poetry Editor website.

Write Poetry
Write a poem a day until May.
Research an interesting topic.
Remember a happy/ sad/ scary time.
Describe an event and how it made you feel.
Write a poem to recall a favorite person/ pet/ holiday.
Focus on something in your home or outside your window.
Let thoughts flow without editing, revising, or censoring yourself.
Put these poems aside.

Revise Poems
Each day of NaPoMo, revise an older poem that doesn’t seem quite finished.
Read the poem aloud. Listen for any jolts or flaws in sound or sense.
Ease the process of revising as you get a new vision for each re-vision.
Use this checklist for Editing, Revising, and Otherwise Improving Your Poems.

If you need a professional opinion of your work, see the minimal fees and options available to you on The Poetry Editor website.

Have a Happy National Poetry Month! And keep the NaPoMo momentum going all year long.