Compiled by Reb Kittredge
Must-reads:
If you read nothing else, read Leslie Ullman’s essay, “A ‘Dark Star’ Passes through It.” You’ll find it at her web site: http://www.leslieullman.com. Click on “Abstract of ‘A “Dark Star” Passes through It’”; then click on the link for the full essay. The article appears as a chapter in her book (below).
If you read only one book, read Stephen Dobyns, “Best Words, Best Order.”
This is your fundamental work on craft. For an even better experience, read his extraordinary book of poems, “Body Traffic,” along with it. To answer any questions you may have on free verse poetry read his lengthy chapter, “Notes on Free Verse.” The most basic requirement that every poem must meet is to balance the three planes of interest: physical world/activity, voice/consciousness, and tension/drama.
The best way to become acquainted with poetry is to read works on craft such as the ones below. Because of the wealth of poems and poets you’ll discover in their pages I have limited my list of poetry books to a very few.
Some Highlights:
In Range of the Possible, read the interview with Dave Smith, editor of The Southern Review, one of the top literary magazines in the country. Note his criticisms of PC. These occur when he criticizes Philip Levine’s actions relating to the Rita Dove/Helen Vendler flap over “inclusiveness” in an anthology of American poetry that Dove edited. You can find discussions of the heated debate online. Vendler, a big cheese at Yale, was on our side.
In the Palm of Your Hand is an enormously helpful book for those interested in learning to write poetry. Writing Poems, the only “textbooky” work on this list, is noteworthy for its treatment of line-breaks. The Triggering Town contains two important pieces of advice: “Think small” and “Change the subject.” Nine Gates is an elegant essay that is both helpful and a pleasure to read. The Practice of Poetry is devoted to writing exercises for poets. Arts require practice; poetry is no different.
In Planet on the Table (the phrase comes from a Wallace Stevens poem) read David Wojahn, “From the Valley of Saying,” about the place of poetry in a commercial society. In Poets Teaching Poets read Heather McHugh, “Moving Means, Meaning Moves: Notes on Lyric Destination.” The article shows the power of poetry in its compressed use of language, as well as the value of writing about poetry. Michael Ryan’s wide-ranging essay, “Poetry and the Audience,” touches on Anglo Saxon prosody, Ezra Pound, modernism and fascism, and the conception of poetry as inculcating virtue.
Works on Craft:
Stephen Dobyns, Best Words, Best Order (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1996)
Jane Hirschfield, Nine Gates: Entering the Mind of Poetry (New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1997)
Steve Kowitt, In the Palm of Your Hand: The Poet’s Portable Workshop (Gardiner, ME: Tilbury Publishers, 1995)
Leslie Ullman, Library of Small Happiness: Essays, Poems, and Exercises on the Craft of Poetry (Taos, NM: 3: A Taos Press, 2017)
Robert Wallace and Michele Boisseau, Writing Poems, fifth ed. (New York: Longman, 2000). Note: Wallace died as the fifth edition went to press.
Richard Hugo, The Triggering Town (New York: WW Norton & Company, 1979)
Robin Behn and Chase Twitchell, editors, The Practice of Poetry: Writing Exercises from Poets Who Teach (New York: Harper Perennial, 1992)
Criticism and Interviews:
Sharon Bryan and William Olsen, editors, Planet on the Table: Poets on the Reading Life (Louisville, KY: Sarabande Books, 2003)
Gregory Orr and Ellen Bryant Voigt, Poets Teaching Poets: Self and the World (Chicago and London: The University of Michigan Press, 1996)
Mary Kinzie, The Cure of Poetry in an Age of Prose (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1993)
Tod Marshall, Range of the Possible: Conversations with Contemporary Poets (Spokane, WA: Eastern Washington University Press, 2002)
David Wojahn, Strange Good Fortune: Essays on Contemporary Poetry (Fayetteville, AK: The University of Arkansas Press, 2000)
Books of Poems:
Stephen Dobyns, Body Traffic (New York: Penguin Books, 1990). I’ve never read anything else like this amazing collection of poems.
Mark Doty, Atlantis (New York: HarperPerennial, 1995)
—-. Sweet Machine (New York: HarperPerennial, 1998)
Doty is a brilliant poet. Try to find his great poem, “Source,” which appeared in The Gettysburg Review in 2001. He has a book by that title; but all you need from it is that poem.
Larry Levis, The Selected Levis (Pittsburg: University of Pittsburg Press, 2000). Levis is one of the best poets of the second half of the twentieth century. He starts to come into his full powers in Winter Stars.
—-. Elegy (Pittsburg: University of Pittsburg Press, 2000). Published posthumously, Elegy contains astonishing and darkly visionary poems. Notice, especially in “Elegy for Whatever Had a Pattern in It,” how he is able to alternate between a descriptive, narrative voice and a meditative voice.
Wallace Stevens. Holly Stevens, ed. The Palm at the End of the Mind: Selected Poems and a Play (New York: Vintage Books, 1990). One of the best poets of the 20th century.
Mark Strand, ed., The Contemporary American Poets: American Poetry Since 1940 (New York: The World Publishing Company, 1969)
Robinson Jeffers, Selected Poems (New York: Vintage Books, 1965). A very important poet for us, as his outlook is congenial to ours.
—-. The Double Axe and Other Poems (New York: Liveright, 1977). This work, which is full of bitter poems about America’s involvement in the World War II, brought Jeffers censure from the poetry establishment and ended his public career. He was an early victim of character assassination by a hostile elite.
Many poets shun Jeffers. Which poets like him? Louise Gluck, James Dickey, Jane Hirschfield, Sherod Santos, and Diane Theil, for starters. For an experience of a lifetime, go to Tor House in Carmel-by-the-Sea, California. Also visit the website: www.torhouse.org
Noteworthy Works on Jeffers:
James Karman, Robinson Jeffers: Poet of California (Three Oaks Farm, Brownsville, OR: Story Line Press, 1996)
Sherod Santos, On the Memory of Stone: A Tor House Legacy (Bath, NY: FootHills Publishing, 1996)
Coffee Table Books on Jeffers:
James Karman, Stones of the Sur: Poetry by Robinson Jeffers, Photographs by Morley Baer (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2001). Gorgeous and powerful.
Horace Lyon, Jeffers Country: The Seed Plots of Robinson Jeffers’ Poetry (San Francisco: The Scrimshaw Press, 1971)
Great Individual Poems:
Many can be located at www.poetryfoundation.org
Rainer Maria Rilke, “Archaic Bust of Apollo” (discussed in Ullman)
—-. “The Panther”
W.B. Yeats, “The Second Coming”
—-. “The Lake Isle of Innisfree” (discussed in Hirschfield)
W.H. Auden, “Funeral Blues,” featured in the film, Three Weddings and a Funeral
Archibald MacLeish, “Ars Poetica”: just beautiful; also good advice on poems
Philip Larkin, “The Explosion,” a great poem that pays tribute to working men
A.R. Ammons, “Gravelly Run”
Robinson Jeffers, “Shine, Perishing Republic”
—-. “Rock and Hawk”
—-. “The Purse-Seine”
—-. “The Torch Bearer’s Race”
Wallace Stevens, “Of Mere Being,” the final poem in The Palm at the End of the Mind
T.S. Elliot, “The Hollow Men,” featured in the film, Apocalypse Now
Online sources:
To get your daily dose of what’s out there, the good, the bad, and the woke, subscribe to these poetry sites and magazines for free poems: Rattle; Poetry Daily.
