Poets picking poets

 

When I asked a group of poets about their favorite poets, I started by naming those who meant the most to me:

Mary Oliver, who keenly observed and wrote about the intricacies of nature (human and otherwise), got me back to writing poems after years away!

Wendell Berry, whom I had the privilege of meeting, inspired and challenged me with his poems about basics and community.

After struggling in high school to understand T.S. Eliot, I devoured his amazing comparisons and exquisite phrases, wrought, no doubt, by time and insightful observation.

Other favorites include the wry humor of Billy Collins, down-to-earth haiku of Richard Wright, powerful reflections and assessments of Langston Hughes, and, oh, too many poets to name, for many were my teachers-in-print.

Then, a group of poets shared their favorites, such as Emily Brontë, whose work I’d never read but wanted to after hearing the poet’s reason for choosing her: “The way she sees the world in such a unique and almost haunting way makes her writing stand out for me. I feel very inspired reading her poetry.”

Another poet didn’t give reasons for the choices, but provided specific titles: Wislawa Szymborska, “Four in the Morning,” Yusef Komunyakaa, “Ode to the Maggot,” and Elizabeth Bishop, “One Art.”

Yet another said, “Of course, the great Pablo Neruda. Soft heart for Galway Kinnell as well,” but most of the poets merely listed their favorites, each of whom is worth looking up online and reading a poem or two. To ease your research, just copy and paste each name of interest into your browser’s Search box.  

Allen Ginsberg

Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Anna Akhmatova

Czeslaw Milosz

Denise Levertov

Dylan Thomas

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Emily Dickinson

Francis Thompson

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

John Keats

John Donne

John Milton

Khalil Gibran

Lord Byron

Percy Bysshe Shelley

Robert Browning

Robert Frost

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

William Blake

William Stafford

William Wordsworth

Walt Whitman

I’ve omitted some of the favorites because of space and also because I wasn’t familiar enough with their poems to recommend them here, but I hope you’ll add your favorite poet(s) in the Comments section below.

 

Posted by Mary Harwell Sayler, who would be ecstatic for you to buy numerous gift copies of A Gathering of Poems!