Favorite poets, poetry, and why

As a poetry lover, poet, freelance poetry editor, and competition judge, I’m often asked about my favorite poets, which puts me in a spin as I admire and enjoy the poems of so many. Then it occurred to me to focus on favorites whose work I’ve reviewed, mainly because their publishers sent review copies of recent books per my request! Unfortunately, others did not, or I just haven’t gotten around to asking. Nevertheless, I can almost guarantee you that studying the works of these highly acclaimed poets will increase your pleasure in reading poems – and improve your poetry writing too:

Poems of Jorie Graham flow through a stream of conscientiousness with beauty and fresh, often startling, imagery and statements that cause us to think, imagine, and reconsider what we thought we knew. As you read her poetry, let each experience wash over you, whether you understand everything that’s going on or not! I rarely do! Yet the poems are so exquisite, I keep returning to her work where each reading rewards me with something new or insightful.

I could say the same about the poetry of Charles Wright – another Pulitzer poet whose work includes allusions to experiences I don’t have or places unfamiliar to me, despite the fact that we were both born in Tennessee and have lived in California and Virginia. Again, like Graham, Wright’s poetry is lush with exquisite phrases and imagery, and each has a spiritual quest going that I share. I also like how both poets play with line lengths – an experiment worth studying.

Wallace Stevens wrote a jar onto a hill in Tennessee and shared my love for my home state of Florida, but he’s more apt to envision a world under construction by poets and poetry. His award-winning work offers fresh imagery and musicality to notice and study, but I especially enjoyed responding to some of his poems with poems and experimenting with titles after reading the interesting and often lengthy ones he created.

Czeslaw Milosz mentored many poets and spotlighted Polish poets in particular, but his poetry enlarges our world view with references and insights born of war, exile, and the loss of loved ones. Somehow this struggle evoked hope, perhaps based on his attachment to the church and his sense that things are not to be dissected but contemplated and appreciated for what they are. Although God remains in mystery, Milosz remained open to the search as do most of the poets on this list.

Wendell Berry most assuredly seeks the spiritual side of things, and yet his poetry is accessible, down-to-earth, and wise with insight based on experience and ardent observation. I say “ardent” because of his passion for life and his obvious love for God and creation and “observation” because his poetry calls us to pay attention, appreciate, and interact with all that’s around us.

The poems of Pattiann Rogers, however, would win the prize for interaction. Her work embraces almost every aspect of life and life sciences – from the make-up of the cosmos to the break-down of garbage! On a deeper level, the precise details and possibilities demonstrated in her poems cause us to pause and enter into such diversities as the suffering of God and the vulnerability of a turtle.

The poems of Gary Snyder also make us aware of nature and natural surroundings but, in addition, call attention to social and human inadequacies. While I certainly wouldn’t call Snyder a romantic poet, his insights on relationships clarify what’s honest, loving, and true in a Zen-like way, but I especially appreciate his astounding brevity. Poets who struggle with wordiness will find his poems excellent examples of saying a lot while being concise and, often, amusing.

Amusement definitely distinguishes the poems of Billy Collins. What’s especially funny is that this highly cerebral poet connects with a huge reading audience because of his comedic timing, unexpected twists, and good calls. i.e., He calls it like it is, but we did not think about it that way until he said so with accuracy and good humor.

As you delve into the work of these favored poets, notice how they sound uniquely like themselves yet find ways to be fresh, insightful, observant, concise, and wise. Therefore, we would be wise to read, study, and enjoy their poems – their exquisite, prize-winning poems filled with musicality, imagery, and the quests of their lives.

...

©2015, Mary Harwell Sayler, writer and reviewer, has 3 books of poems in print: Living in the Nature Poem published by Hiraeth Press and Beach Songs & Wood Chimes (for children) and Outside Eden, published by Kelsay Books.

...

From the New World: Poems 1976-2014 by Jorie Graham

In the highest realm of poets and poetry, Jorie Graham and her poems are gorgeous. Even if you don’t understand a single line, you know you’re in the presence of something extraordinary – something worthy of three or more readings to “get” what’s too often apparent in poems from the start. So, when I learned of the latest book, From the New World: Poems 1976-2014, I eagerly awaited my review copy, kindly sent to me by the publisher, Ecco Press.

When the book arrived, however, I froze. Like, who am I to comment on the work of any Pulitzer Prize-winning poet, much less this one! Some time ago, in fact, a friend asked why I keep on reading and re-reading Graham’s work when I was often frustrated by my lack of understanding. I said I felt I could learn something important, which is a good enough reason anytime, but especially during NaPoMo (National Poetry Month.) However, a more precise response to why I read Jorie Graham’s poetry is, “How can I not?”

If you’re a poet who likes to eat, sleep, and breathe poetry, you know what I mean. But then, maybe you don’t, and thus far, I’ve done nothing to entice you, so let’s remedy that!

Mid-way into the first verse of the first poem, “Tennessee June,” for example, you’ll find these exquisite lines:

“…Imagine
your mind wandering without its logic,
your body the sides of a riverbed giving in.
In it, no world can survive
having more than its neighbors;
in it, the pressure to become forever less is the pressure
to take forevermore
to get there….”

If you want to understand the poems of Jorie Graham, those lines might pull you under, but if you want to experience her work with its sensitive insights, acute observations, and highly intelligent thought patterns, try going with the flow of that river and enjoying its depths and possibilities for change. You might even catch a reflection of the poet herself.

But then, the next poem reminds us that we’re all “Strangers” – to one another, to our surroundings, to ourselves. For example:

“The vigor of our way
is separateness,
the infinite finding itself strange
among the many….”

Such lines might be considered flat statements were there not so many curves! But this poem, as typically happens in Graham's work, includes images as fresh as the tulips who “change tense/ too quickly” and as startling as the starlings who “keep trying/ to thread the eyes/ of steeples.”

If you think you’ve heard those lines before, you probably have since this collection consists of several poems selected from each of eleven previously published books before closing with new poems. But, if you’ve never read Graham’s poetry, having poems representative of her work collected in one volume makes an excellent place to start – not only for the sweeping, all-encompassing view but for the life these poems take on when combined and arranged as they have been.

We could talk about that. We could talk about what the poems mean, and if you want such assessments by numerous poets and poetry students, you’ll find explications on the Internet. To relish the taste of Jorie Graham’s poetry, however, I recommend you simply enjoy the play of words, the sound echoes, the complexities of thought, then give yourself over to the experience of each poem.

When I began to do this, I discovered a spirit of wonder, a sense of breathlessness, a stream of consciousness that engaged me with its musicality and lush imagery. I also found connections arising from the disconnected and reorientation from various disorientations lit on by a highly active mind.

Because we’re now well into National Poetry Month and because my review copy has been with me too long without response, I’ll stop here for now with the hope you’ll let me know in the Comments below how you approach the poems of Jorie Graham. Then, when I’ve had time to read and absorb each poem a few more times, I hope we’ll chat again about this major poet and what makes her poetry so memorable and her new book so important to read and recommend as I do now.

©2015, Mary Harwell Sayler, writer and reviewer, has 3 books of poems in print: Living in the Nature Poem published by Hiraeth Press and Beach Songs & Wood Chimes (for children) and Outside Eden, published by Kelsay Books.


From the New World: Poems 1976-2014, Hardcover



…

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



(c) 2011, Mary Harwell Sayler