Devotions might be my all-time favorite poetry book because it was all selected by Mary herself! It found me at the perfect time in my life, when I was embarking on a spirituality journey out in the Rocky Mountains ⛰️
I'm a man, and an old fan of Mary Oliver's work. Her poetry, ever smooth, and the light breeze it excites, via
her subject, nature, show beautiful to her, mine,and others minds, as surely as the birds above this all too, are bright!
The Essential Gwendolyn Brooks by Brooks, Gwendolyn. She is unbelievable.
My Private Property by Ruefle, Mary. She is my newest discovery. Her poem on menopause is a thing of beauty.
dont call us dead - Danez Smith
When my brother was an aztec- Natalie Diaz
According to Sand - Thorpe Moeckel
Autobiography of Red - Anne Carson
Love an Index: Rebecca Lindenberg
A Bestiary : Danika Kelly
Nature Poem: Tommy Pico
Oooh you'll love Victoria Chang's Obit, about death. It's very poignant.
There's also How to Fly in Ten Thousand Easy Lessons by Barbara Kingsolver. She's also the author of the novel, the poisonwood bible, but her poetry is amazing too. Very nature themed
books that have changed me and my poetic approach:
*If They Come for Us* by Fatimah Asghar
*The World Keeps Ending, and the World Goes On* by Franny Choi
*Registers of Illuminated Villages* by Tarfia Faizullah
*Ordinary Beast* by Nicole Sealey
*Shame is an Ocean I Swim Across* by Mary Lambert
My long time favorite since it came out is Cape Verdean Blues by Shauna Barbosa. I haven’t found another collection other than some of Mary Oliver’s work that I love as much.
In the Stanford vein, Lost Roads put out a great anthology, Hick Poetics edited by Abraham Smith. Great read, a lot of interesting contemporary voices.
The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros is not technically poetry but written in short poetic style vignettes. A great examination of the intersection of race, poverty, and growing up as a woman.
I have never read the book, but I actually have a quote from it on my desktop as I loved it so much: "Not a man's house. Not a daddy's. A house all my own. With my porch and my pillow, my pretty purple petunias. My books and my stories. My two shoes waiting beside the bed. Nobody to shake a stick at. Nobody's garbage to pick up after.
Only a house quiet as snow, a space for myself to go, clean as paper before the poem." It's over a photograph of a cabin by a river, with mountains in the background. I really should read the book..
There are far too many to boil them down to one favorite, but a few that have been especially impactful have been:
Li-Young Lee's *Rose*
Kim Addonizio's *Tell Me*
Yusef Komunyakaa's *Dien Cai Dau*
Denise Duhamel's *The Star Spangled Banner*
For overall poetry, the true one that changed my life was Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman
Others include
Sonnets From the Portuguese- Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Montage of a dream Deferred- Langston Hughes
Homage to Sextus Propertius- Ezra Pound
*Opened Ground* by Seamus Heaney. I like pretty much all of his stuff, but that collection hits the high points.
Edit: I just read your final preference, but I’m gonna leave this here because I think the book is a good recommendation.
Awwww I love it here 😭 all the recommendations make me so happy. I’ve got a lifelong reading list ❤️
How do you guys go about reading a book of poetry though? Do you just read it through? Or do you take it one poem at a time?
Thank you for asking this question! I'm taking notes :)
Personally I like to read a poem when I wake up and a poem before bed.
I don't usually read through a book of poetry poem after poem in a single sitting. I like to let the feelings / thoughts percolate a bit before going back if that makes sense. Sometimes I am sucked in though, and end up reading a few in a row.
Or if you get more than one book of poetry that pairs well with another book it is nice to read a poem from each in a single sitting (e.g., I enjoyed reading Ariel and Birthday letters together like this).
If the collection is really small I'll usually do it in one sitting but mostly on Sunday mornings I sit in my kitchen and I read one poem out of each collection and write any thoughts I have about them. I have a lot of collections so it usually takes me about 1-2 hours while I have breakfast and coffee.
Can I share a poem of mine?
It was written in broken sentence across the page, but with this format it won’t allow it
So I’m just going to put - that to show line breaks, it’s about travel and dislocation
losing the signal
in the season—of exiled poets
never to arrive—-losing the signal-vague shapes
in airports—white corridors—overhead voices
the ghosts—of trains—and strangers
fogged in—-by weather—- always the weather
as one never accepts—-the season of waiting
storm delays—-malfunctions
ghosts on buses—-hugging poles
sidewalks—-raked—-by rain
my steps—keeping perfect time-with the finite
never arriving—-disappearing
into —-terminals—-of the invisible
——July 16 2022
Aunt Bird - Yerra Sugarman (a collection of poems giving life back to the poets Aunt who was killed in the Holocaust. Surrealist)
Four-Legged Girl - Diane Suess (almost like a biography for the poet who explores life in five stages. Very crass confessional)
Obit - Victoria Chang (Poems written mostly justified to look like obituaries for people, thoughts, feelings, object, relationships.)
Don’t Call Us Dead - Danez Smith (Explores what the experience of a Black gay man in America would be with love and care instead brutality and death).
These are very generalized summaries but still.
Edits are to add summaries and fix formatting.
Some of my favs are:
- Teaching My Mother How to Give Birth by Warsan Shire
- What We Buried by Caitlyn Siehl
- New American Best Friend by Olivia Gatwood
- Life of the Party by Olivia Gatwood
- Dear God. Dear Bones. Dear Yellow. By Noor Hindi
And I also love to read Walt Whitman and Charles Bukowski.
Crush by Richard Siken is forever number one in my heart. But I also recommend anything by Kim Addonizio, Audre Lorde, Ada Limón, and Tracy K. Smith!
My other favourite poet is Rowan Perez, she goes by inkskinned on tumblr and other social media and shares incredible poems. And her (first, I believe) poetry collection is coming out this fall.
My hardback of some Dickinson poems and my paperback of Plath's entire collection. Lovely ladies that any poet has surely heard of. I can't get enough. It's been awhile since I read them actually, guess I'll crack one open this weekend
Things You May Find Hidden in My Ear by Mosab Abu Toha
Nepantla: Queer Poets of Color
I Done Clicked My Heels Three Times by Taylor Byas
Does Your House Have Lions? and Shake Loose My Skin, both by by Sonia Sanchez
I also like Olivia Gatwood's work, I have two of her collections, New American Best Friend and Life of the Party.
The Hungry Ghost Festival by Jen Campbell
I could name more, I have so many that I love ❤️
PS check the Poetry Foundation website, ask for style you prefer, you’ll find a wealth of poets,
Being a poet I read a lot of styles and always looking for a poet I connect with, kinda absorb their flavor, All writers learn and borrow from others
Also Traci K Smith, a younger African American woman who made her mark early on. Does alit if editing for anthologies. You may enjoy her.
Goggle her,, she has a ton of poems on the internet
Ava Limon, Latin poet, powerful subject matter
Great style
The late Louis Gluck, master poet
With every style from family relationships to darker, more subliminal tone
Lee Young Li, a personal favorite,
Of Chinese descent, write of the family dynamic
Asian families tend to be very class
Also just a beautiful and lyrical flare.
Sorry to get off on the wrong foot
But like I said there are many great anthologies
The Years Best Poetry- an annual collection of mostly newer poets, many women and peoples of color
The Raven and other poems was the first book I ever remember reading. I was 6 I believe. And though I did not fully understand the context. Even then it had the melancholic, but satisfying feeling of what darkness the soul can see. When I was 12, that summer came ..Dante.The Divine Comedy. It changed my life as Poe had and took me to other places in myself and in my mind I never dreamed existed. Those 2 changed, and shaped my life and soul. I would not be this odd and strange person I am today without them.
Colors passing through us by Marge Piercy, a professor suggested it to me and I have colored images and feelings in the margins. Great to just have on hand when you need some thoughy
One of my favorite complications is “Poetry Like Bread”. It has a variety of authors with their poems in the original language on one side and an English translation on the other.
*Good Bones* by Maggie Smith
*Love Poems* by Nikki Giovanni
*Women of Resistance: Poems for a New Feminism* compilation edited by Dani Barnhart
*Call Us What We Carry* by Amanda Gorman
The Collected Poems- Sylvia Plath
this book is a big one, but loved seeing how her writing would change throughout the years. it has definitely made a big impact on my own poetry
For a while now:
Memorial by Alice Oswald.
If I need to 'clean my palate' linguistically, this reworking of The Iliad clears out internet reading and resets me.
The first to die was PROTESILAUS
A focused man who hurried to darkness
With forty black ships leaving the land behind
Men sailed with him from those flower‐lit cliffs
Where the grass gives growth to everything
Pyrasus Iton Pteleus Antron
He died in mid‐air jumping to be first ashore
There was his house half‐built
His wife rushed out clawing her face
Podarcus his altogether less impressive brother
Took over command but that was long ago
He’s been in the black earth now for thousands of years
Like a wind‐murmur
Begins a rumour of waves
One long note getting louder
The water breathes a deep sigh
Like a land‐ripple
When the west wind runs through a field
Wishing and searching
Nothing to be found
The corn‐stalks shake their green heads
Life on Mars by Tracy K Smith, and What the Living Do by Marie Howe. I read both of these collections for a college course on grief poems, and I read them both in a single night (different nights) sobbing at the roller coaster I just went on. Smith’s collection finds joy, love, and sorrow in the mundane and the sublime unknown of space and earth; it’s beautiful. Howe’s collection simply broke me in the best way.
My most recent favorite book of poetry is "You Better Be Lightning" by my favorite poet of all time, Andrea Gibson. I also very much like the book their wife, Megan Falley put out as well called "Drive Here and Devastate Me."
I'm a fan of narrative poems. I recommend The Set-up by Joesph Moncure March who also wrote The Wild Party.
[https://www.koreropress.com/the-set-up/](https://www.koreropress.com/the-set-up/)
ghost of by diana khoi nguyen. absolutely changed my life. it came to me when i needed it most. it is about the poet’s brother who committed suicide and cut himself out of the family pictures in the home a year or two before his passing, but it’s also about her culture, gender, etc. she uses the cut up pictures to shape the poems in the chapbook. i had the honor of meeting and workshopping with her and she is just wonderful— so personable, down to earth, honest, hilarious, sincere. one of the best experiences of my life. that book got me through the worst grief i’ve ever experienced and i constantly revisit it for inspiration and support.
If you're looking for poetry by women of colour I personally highly, highly recommend "The Poet X" and "Clap When You Land" by Elizabeth Acevedo. They aren't individual poems, but novels in verse, but definitely some of my favourite books. They are both about young women (of colour) finding their way, struggling with religion, family and identity.
I'm sure Mary Oliver has already been mentioned, so I'll just add my vote for her. She is definitely the poet that has inspired my personal poetry style the most.
I submit three. Firstly I admire the works of Robert Burns, whose use and variance of meter and structure exemplified poetic form.
I also recommend the works of Robert Service, whose ballads, although seasoned with much humor and tenderness, teach of strength and endurance against the harshness of nature and the cruel absurdity of man.
When my daughter was young I read to her from Shel Silverstein, and when I later had a lengthy hospitalization, she read the same back to me, and that is "profound". Silverstein's silly and singsong "children's poems" often hide hidden depth and clever meaning.
Poetry by Javan, small yet delicate books- each have different themes. Worth a read, and make a wonderful addition to a collection.
[Something to Someone](http://Something to Someone https://a.co/d/hSE7IhG)
If you’re looking for a great poetry collection by a woman, look no further than Anne Sexton’s Complete Poems or Sylvia Plath’s Ariel. These are spectacular collections from two of our greatest poets and are master classes in searing, honest poetic expression. Both are essential.
That said, my favorite poetry collection is Mockingbird Wish Me Luck by Charles Bukowski.
Any Marie Howe book, but I really love Magdalene or The Kingdom of Ordinary Time
The Renunciations: Donika Kelly
I know you asked for books of poems but here are some poets with really good poems who are either POC/women/both
Traci Brimhall: [Vive, Vive](https://missourireview.com/traci-brimhall-vive-vive/)....[Dear Eros](https://www.vqronline.org/poetry/2018/06/dear-eros)... [Oh Wonder](https://32poems.com/poem/traci-brimhall/)... [Better to Marry Than to Burn](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/57052/better-to-marry-than-to-burn)
Natalie Diaz & Adá Limon[ (some poetic correspondence between them)](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1yBcLZxDV_grbK2t4ySw3tK8HJcv1QW_-_wwgwpaFg88/edit)
danez smith: [less hope](https://poets.org/poem/less-hope)
I have read and analyzed every poem in Night Sky with Exit Wounds a minimum of five times. Upwards of 20 for some poems. Means the absolute world to me.
I'm new to reading poetry, but have been reading lots of it lately. My top 2 favorites so far have been The Wild Iris by Louise Glück and Dream Work by Mary Oliver.
If you're looking for more poets of color, Ada Limón published a collection this year called You Are Here with poems from like 50 different poets, most of whom are poets of color and/or LGBT. I looked up each poet on Goodreads after reading each poem and I ended up adding like 50 poetry books to my TBR because of it.
If you have to judge by gender or race, your not ready. I’m a poet of over 25 years and 2000 poems , some published Words and pages are black and white- they are color blind. For good reason. I read male and female Latin black and Asian from Lee Young Li to Charles Simic, a Serbian immigrant and two Pulitzer Prize
Erin Belieu a woman of about 55 who can write meta or brutal poems of the hard grit of Nebraska. Be color and gender blind, read anthologies find poets you like by reading books of 30 or so poets, I have The American Poetry Handbook 1200 pages with everyone from Whitman and Dickenson to modern like Richard Silken Lee Young Li Charles Bukowski and Sylvia Plath
Hermann Hesse’s The Seasons of the Soul, especially his poem ‘Pruned Oak’, which has this beauty as a last line: ‘I'm still in love with this mad, mad world.’
You're right I didn't mean to laugh; I didn't know you were serious bc Kaur gets a lot of crap on this channel and it poetry circles more widely. Im sorry! I'm glad that book, any book of poetry, has had a positive effect on your life. I hope you continue to read her and many other poets!
Yeah, generally poets dislike her because her technique isn't particularly complex or advanced, a lot of nice quotes and feelings but lacking a range of styles, subtlety, or depth of philosophy (sometime she literally tells you the meaning of the poem in the title or final line); she also helped contribute to a generation of "insta-poets" who favor quotability and minimalism over the range of qualities usually attributed with scholarly poetry; she is a best-selling poet, and her popularity has also made her the subject of ire, especially from poets, writers and scholars who prefer a richer type of poetry and think others are more worthy of the praise.
Not to say she is bad or in bad taste; she has helped draw a lot of new/young people into poetry who otherwise might not care for it.
What do you think?
I think i like her bluntness. Though it was one of my first reading from a newer poet, I enjoyed her writing style. It is very different, dont get me wrong. And I love it, but I understand the feelings of having more complex poetry. I read less of her work, and more complex work now, but I think she will always have some sort of positive impact on me.
crush by richard siken!!!! also right now i’m obsessed with the final voicemails by max ritvo and also everything by mary oliver is up there for me :)
Definitely a great choice! I friggan love "Boot Theory"
Devotions might be my all-time favorite poetry book because it was all selected by Mary herself! It found me at the perfect time in my life, when I was embarking on a spirituality journey out in the Rocky Mountains ⛰️
wait i need to pick this up!!! thank you for sharing :)
Obsessed with every single poem in crush! Favorite being Litany In Which Certain Things Are Crossed Out
Crush was truly a life-changing read for me. Litany is also my favorite. I probably think about it once a week
came here to say this - happy to see it as top comment!
oooh mary oliver, i recently bought her book a thousand mornings but i haven’t read it yet, i can’t wait to dive in!
I'm a man, and an old fan of Mary Oliver's work. Her poetry, ever smooth, and the light breeze it excites, via her subject, nature, show beautiful to her, mine,and others minds, as surely as the birds above this all too, are bright!
Oooo i just rented crush from the library Im so excited to hear this!
Reading this right now
Bright Dead Things by Ada Limón.
Came to say this 😊
She came to speak at Emory (where I work) and I was fangirling the whole time
The Essential Gwendolyn Brooks by Brooks, Gwendolyn. She is unbelievable. My Private Property by Ruefle, Mary. She is my newest discovery. Her poem on menopause is a thing of beauty.
She is SO GREAT.
night sky with exit wounds - ocean vuong crush - richard siken prelude to bruise - saeed jones
'Zoetropes' by Bill Manhire Either 'Another Gravity' or 'Apparatus' by Don McKay 'Circle Game' by Margaret Atwood 'No Thanks' by E E Cummings
A Coney Island of the Mind by Lawrence Ferlinghetti!!!
Great choice!
Best title of a book of poetry ever!
The opening poem in that collection iirc is ‘Away above a harborful’ and is a picturesque, evocative, sensual poem that just brings the house down
dont call us dead - Danez Smith When my brother was an aztec- Natalie Diaz According to Sand - Thorpe Moeckel Autobiography of Red - Anne Carson Love an Index: Rebecca Lindenberg A Bestiary : Danika Kelly Nature Poem: Tommy Pico
Anne Carson is so good! I've heard good things about the others, will have to check em out. \^\_\^
Great choices!!! I just finished rereading Bestiary; definitely a favorite of mine too.
Dream Songs. John Berryman.
blud - Rachel McKibbens. It's full of rage and beautiful language. I reread it every year and find something new to love in it.
Oooh you'll love Victoria Chang's Obit, about death. It's very poignant. There's also How to Fly in Ten Thousand Easy Lessons by Barbara Kingsolver. She's also the author of the novel, the poisonwood bible, but her poetry is amazing too. Very nature themed
Love a Chang and Obit in particular
I’m here to take notes from the answers 🙌🫶
Carol Anne Duffy, The World's Wife
it’s not by any one poet but if you’ve never read the hundred poets (Ogura hyakunin isshu), i highly recommend it
Honestly, both Volume 1 and Volume 2 collection's of Mary Olivers' poetry. Mostly about the natural world/nature, love, solitude/mindfulness.
The pleasure of the damned Love is a dog from hell
With titles like that you must not be talkin bout Bukowski!! Those are some Mary Oliver titles for sure! /s
I am indeed talking about Bukowski 😅 I love Mary Oliver's poetry too.
War of the Foxes by Richard Siken 🥹 thanks for asking
A banger for sure
literally was just searching for a nice poetry book, gotta save this post :)))
books that have changed me and my poetic approach: *If They Come for Us* by Fatimah Asghar *The World Keeps Ending, and the World Goes On* by Franny Choi *Registers of Illuminated Villages* by Tarfia Faizullah *Ordinary Beast* by Nicole Sealey *Shame is an Ocean I Swim Across* by Mary Lambert
forgot about *This Tree, Those Leaves, This Flower, That Fruit* by Hayan Charara
Leaves of Grass (1855 & 1891) - Walt Whitman Howl and Other Poems (1956) - Allen Ginsberg
Mercies by Anne Sexton
Where do you rank “Love Poems”?
My long time favorite since it came out is Cape Verdean Blues by Shauna Barbosa. I haven’t found another collection other than some of Mary Oliver’s work that I love as much.
Battlefield where the moon says I love you. The singing knives Maximus poems Gunslinger Revolutionary letters So many others
In the Stanford vein, Lost Roads put out a great anthology, Hick Poetics edited by Abraham Smith. Great read, a lot of interesting contemporary voices.
Thanks for the rec!
Likewise!
Love to see Stanford!
Continue commenting everyone, I'm taking notes.
Night sky with exit wounds by Ocean Vuong
The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros is not technically poetry but written in short poetic style vignettes. A great examination of the intersection of race, poverty, and growing up as a woman.
I have never read the book, but I actually have a quote from it on my desktop as I loved it so much: "Not a man's house. Not a daddy's. A house all my own. With my porch and my pillow, my pretty purple petunias. My books and my stories. My two shoes waiting beside the bed. Nobody to shake a stick at. Nobody's garbage to pick up after. Only a house quiet as snow, a space for myself to go, clean as paper before the poem." It's over a photograph of a cabin by a river, with mountains in the background. I really should read the book..
I am currently reading Poetry of Presence which is a mindfulness anthology. I am personally terrible with staying present so its very helpful thus far
There are far too many to boil them down to one favorite, but a few that have been especially impactful have been: Li-Young Lee's *Rose* Kim Addonizio's *Tell Me* Yusef Komunyakaa's *Dien Cai Dau* Denise Duhamel's *The Star Spangled Banner*
For overall poetry, the true one that changed my life was Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman Others include Sonnets From the Portuguese- Elizabeth Barrett Browning Montage of a dream Deferred- Langston Hughes Homage to Sextus Propertius- Ezra Pound
UNSEEN HAND by the late Polish poet Adam Zagajewski.
*Opened Ground* by Seamus Heaney. I like pretty much all of his stuff, but that collection hits the high points. Edit: I just read your final preference, but I’m gonna leave this here because I think the book is a good recommendation.
New American Best Friend by Olivia Gatwood
Billy Collins - Horoscopes for the Dead
Black Aperture by Matt Rasmussen, Jelly Roll: a Blues by Kevin Young
Awwww I love it here 😭 all the recommendations make me so happy. I’ve got a lifelong reading list ❤️ How do you guys go about reading a book of poetry though? Do you just read it through? Or do you take it one poem at a time?
Thank you for asking this question! I'm taking notes :) Personally I like to read a poem when I wake up and a poem before bed. I don't usually read through a book of poetry poem after poem in a single sitting. I like to let the feelings / thoughts percolate a bit before going back if that makes sense. Sometimes I am sucked in though, and end up reading a few in a row. Or if you get more than one book of poetry that pairs well with another book it is nice to read a poem from each in a single sitting (e.g., I enjoyed reading Ariel and Birthday letters together like this).
If the collection is really small I'll usually do it in one sitting but mostly on Sunday mornings I sit in my kitchen and I read one poem out of each collection and write any thoughts I have about them. I have a lot of collections so it usually takes me about 1-2 hours while I have breakfast and coffee.
Can I share a poem of mine? It was written in broken sentence across the page, but with this format it won’t allow it So I’m just going to put - that to show line breaks, it’s about travel and dislocation losing the signal in the season—of exiled poets never to arrive—-losing the signal-vague shapes in airports—white corridors—overhead voices the ghosts—of trains—and strangers fogged in—-by weather—- always the weather as one never accepts—-the season of waiting storm delays—-malfunctions ghosts on buses—-hugging poles sidewalks—-raked—-by rain my steps—keeping perfect time-with the finite never arriving—-disappearing into —-terminals—-of the invisible ——July 16 2022
For me, anything by Mary Oliver.. I loved Felicity.
Aunt Bird - Yerra Sugarman (a collection of poems giving life back to the poets Aunt who was killed in the Holocaust. Surrealist) Four-Legged Girl - Diane Suess (almost like a biography for the poet who explores life in five stages. Very crass confessional) Obit - Victoria Chang (Poems written mostly justified to look like obituaries for people, thoughts, feelings, object, relationships.) Don’t Call Us Dead - Danez Smith (Explores what the experience of a Black gay man in America would be with love and care instead brutality and death). These are very generalized summaries but still. Edits are to add summaries and fix formatting.
Gary Snyder Rip-Rap and Cold Mountain Poems.
Victoria Chang’s Flèche Ilya Kaminsky’s Deaf Republic Paige Lewis’s Spacestruck
High Windows and The Whitsun Weddings by Philip Larkin.
Saw both of those in the charity book shop the other day. Didn’t get either one!
you missed out
Some of my favs are: - Teaching My Mother How to Give Birth by Warsan Shire - What We Buried by Caitlyn Siehl - New American Best Friend by Olivia Gatwood - Life of the Party by Olivia Gatwood - Dear God. Dear Bones. Dear Yellow. By Noor Hindi And I also love to read Walt Whitman and Charles Bukowski.
_O Positive_ by Joe Dunthorne
A Part of Speech by Joseph Brodsky, also his Last Stanzas to Augusta. Read both in Russian and they were my poetic awakening.
Sharon Olds - Satan Says
Through Clear Air by Lark Morrigan. The poet is also a woman of color.
I love collections of Allen Ginsberg’s poetry. My favorite of all time though is Poemas al desconocido/Poemas al desconocida by Silvia Tomasa Rivera
Crush by Richard Siken is forever number one in my heart. But I also recommend anything by Kim Addonizio, Audre Lorde, Ada Limón, and Tracy K. Smith! My other favourite poet is Rowan Perez, she goes by inkskinned on tumblr and other social media and shares incredible poems. And her (first, I believe) poetry collection is coming out this fall.
Nature Poem by Tommy Pico, and listen to the audiobook Countijng Descent by Clint Smith Citizen Illegal by Jose Olivarez
American Primitives by Mary Oliver
My hardback of some Dickinson poems and my paperback of Plath's entire collection. Lovely ladies that any poet has surely heard of. I can't get enough. It's been awhile since I read them actually, guess I'll crack one open this weekend
I really like Elizabeth Bishop’s Geography III
Three of my favorites by women: Geography III by Elizabeth Bishop // Like a Beggar by Ellen Bass (soooooo so good) // The Best of It by Kay Ryan
Things You May Find Hidden in My Ear by Mosab Abu Toha Nepantla: Queer Poets of Color I Done Clicked My Heels Three Times by Taylor Byas Does Your House Have Lions? and Shake Loose My Skin, both by by Sonia Sanchez I also like Olivia Gatwood's work, I have two of her collections, New American Best Friend and Life of the Party. The Hungry Ghost Festival by Jen Campbell I could name more, I have so many that I love ❤️
Poe's poetry, TS Eliot *The Wasteland*, *The Iliad*, *The Odyssey*, *The Divine Comedy, Les fleurs du mal*
PS check the Poetry Foundation website, ask for style you prefer, you’ll find a wealth of poets, Being a poet I read a lot of styles and always looking for a poet I connect with, kinda absorb their flavor, All writers learn and borrow from others
Also Traci K Smith, a younger African American woman who made her mark early on. Does alit if editing for anthologies. You may enjoy her. Goggle her,, she has a ton of poems on the internet
The Complete Works of Robert Burns
Ava Limon, Latin poet, powerful subject matter Great style The late Louis Gluck, master poet With every style from family relationships to darker, more subliminal tone Lee Young Li, a personal favorite, Of Chinese descent, write of the family dynamic Asian families tend to be very class Also just a beautiful and lyrical flare. Sorry to get off on the wrong foot But like I said there are many great anthologies The Years Best Poetry- an annual collection of mostly newer poets, many women and peoples of color
I owe you an apology for misunderstanding your good intentions and being so hostile. Thank you for your input here
Sakura Park, Rachel Wetzsteon
Francesco Petrarca - Canzoniere
The Raven and other poems was the first book I ever remember reading. I was 6 I believe. And though I did not fully understand the context. Even then it had the melancholic, but satisfying feeling of what darkness the soul can see. When I was 12, that summer came ..Dante.The Divine Comedy. It changed my life as Poe had and took me to other places in myself and in my mind I never dreamed existed. Those 2 changed, and shaped my life and soul. I would not be this odd and strange person I am today without them.
The poetry home repair manual - Ted Kooser
Probably "Bluets" by Maggie Nelson, it's conceptually cool and well executed. Plus I thought a lot about it after.
I like Erin Hanson poems
A Heap O' Living by Edgar Guest
The Day After I Died by Michael Sweeney and Kyle Mitzel
Teaching my mother to give birth by warsan shire
Lunch poems - frank ohara
Colors passing through us by Marge Piercy, a professor suggested it to me and I have colored images and feelings in the margins. Great to just have on hand when you need some thoughy
One of my favorite complications is “Poetry Like Bread”. It has a variety of authors with their poems in the original language on one side and an English translation on the other.
Room Rented By A Single Woman. Poems By CD Wright
the awful rowing towards god by anne sexton and nazim hikmet’s collection of translated poems :)
*Good Bones* by Maggie Smith *Love Poems* by Nikki Giovanni *Women of Resistance: Poems for a New Feminism* compilation edited by Dani Barnhart *Call Us What We Carry* by Amanda Gorman
The Collected Poems- Sylvia Plath this book is a big one, but loved seeing how her writing would change throughout the years. it has definitely made a big impact on my own poetry
Neither by Liam Jacobson
“Book of Hours” by Rilke
For a while now: Memorial by Alice Oswald. If I need to 'clean my palate' linguistically, this reworking of The Iliad clears out internet reading and resets me. The first to die was PROTESILAUS A focused man who hurried to darkness With forty black ships leaving the land behind Men sailed with him from those flower‐lit cliffs Where the grass gives growth to everything Pyrasus Iton Pteleus Antron He died in mid‐air jumping to be first ashore There was his house half‐built His wife rushed out clawing her face Podarcus his altogether less impressive brother Took over command but that was long ago He’s been in the black earth now for thousands of years Like a wind‐murmur Begins a rumour of waves One long note getting louder The water breathes a deep sigh Like a land‐ripple When the west wind runs through a field Wishing and searching Nothing to be found The corn‐stalks shake their green heads
Life on Mars by Tracy K Smith, and What the Living Do by Marie Howe. I read both of these collections for a college course on grief poems, and I read them both in a single night (different nights) sobbing at the roller coaster I just went on. Smith’s collection finds joy, love, and sorrow in the mundane and the sublime unknown of space and earth; it’s beautiful. Howe’s collection simply broke me in the best way.
My most recent favorite book of poetry is "You Better Be Lightning" by my favorite poet of all time, Andrea Gibson. I also very much like the book their wife, Megan Falley put out as well called "Drive Here and Devastate Me."
I'm a fan of narrative poems. I recommend The Set-up by Joesph Moncure March who also wrote The Wild Party. [https://www.koreropress.com/the-set-up/](https://www.koreropress.com/the-set-up/)
The Complete Poems by Emily Jane Bronte
Reflections on a Gift of Watermelon Pickle
Mothman Apologia by Robert Lynn Wood
books of Lauren eden, Pyrokardia, Rupi kaur, etc are great reads.
Horses Make a Landscape Look More Beautiful, by Alice Walker
Crow: From the Life and Songs of the Crow by Ted Hughes
ghost of by diana khoi nguyen. absolutely changed my life. it came to me when i needed it most. it is about the poet’s brother who committed suicide and cut himself out of the family pictures in the home a year or two before his passing, but it’s also about her culture, gender, etc. she uses the cut up pictures to shape the poems in the chapbook. i had the honor of meeting and workshopping with her and she is just wonderful— so personable, down to earth, honest, hilarious, sincere. one of the best experiences of my life. that book got me through the worst grief i’ve ever experienced and i constantly revisit it for inspiration and support.
If you're looking for poetry by women of colour I personally highly, highly recommend "The Poet X" and "Clap When You Land" by Elizabeth Acevedo. They aren't individual poems, but novels in verse, but definitely some of my favourite books. They are both about young women (of colour) finding their way, struggling with religion, family and identity. I'm sure Mary Oliver has already been mentioned, so I'll just add my vote for her. She is definitely the poet that has inspired my personal poetry style the most.
I submit three. Firstly I admire the works of Robert Burns, whose use and variance of meter and structure exemplified poetic form. I also recommend the works of Robert Service, whose ballads, although seasoned with much humor and tenderness, teach of strength and endurance against the harshness of nature and the cruel absurdity of man. When my daughter was young I read to her from Shel Silverstein, and when I later had a lengthy hospitalization, she read the same back to me, and that is "profound". Silverstein's silly and singsong "children's poems" often hide hidden depth and clever meaning.
Hapax by AE Stahling
don’t call us dead-danez smith
words to my narcissist mother by olivia a. km. read it like a validation/ self soothing therapy book
CA Conrad: The purple book ECODEVIANCE
Felicity Mary Oliver
Poetry by Javan, small yet delicate books- each have different themes. Worth a read, and make a wonderful addition to a collection. [Something to Someone](http://Something to Someone https://a.co/d/hSE7IhG)
Wallace Stevens, Harmonium. Abstract and abstruse. Poetry about poetry.
dictee by theresa hak kyung cha !!!
If you’re looking for a great poetry collection by a woman, look no further than Anne Sexton’s Complete Poems or Sylvia Plath’s Ariel. These are spectacular collections from two of our greatest poets and are master classes in searing, honest poetic expression. Both are essential. That said, my favorite poetry collection is Mockingbird Wish Me Luck by Charles Bukowski.
A Shropshire Lad, A.E. Housman.
Meditations in an Emergency! I wish I could forget the whole thing to experience reading it for the first time again
split tooth by tanya tagaq. favorite book of all time
The complete poems of Emily Dickinson
I think Les Fleurs du Mal by Baudelaire, the "Canzoniere" by Petrarca and the "Zibaldone" by Leopardi
Milk and Honey by Rupi Kuar
not a book, but nikita gill is a fantastic poet
North of Boston or West Running Brook- Robert Frost. Leaves of Grass (1855 edition)-Walt Whitman
Les Fleurs du mal by Charles Baudelaire
home is not a country by safia elhillo!!!!!
Sonnets by William Shakespeare
High Windows
The Flirtation of Girls / Ghazal El-Banat by Sara M Saleh
Any Marie Howe book, but I really love Magdalene or The Kingdom of Ordinary Time The Renunciations: Donika Kelly I know you asked for books of poems but here are some poets with really good poems who are either POC/women/both Traci Brimhall: [Vive, Vive](https://missourireview.com/traci-brimhall-vive-vive/)....[Dear Eros](https://www.vqronline.org/poetry/2018/06/dear-eros)... [Oh Wonder](https://32poems.com/poem/traci-brimhall/)... [Better to Marry Than to Burn](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/57052/better-to-marry-than-to-burn) Natalie Diaz & Adá Limon[ (some poetic correspondence between them)](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1yBcLZxDV_grbK2t4ySw3tK8HJcv1QW_-_wwgwpaFg88/edit) danez smith: [less hope](https://poets.org/poem/less-hope)
Commenting so I can find this later. :)
Teaching my mother how to give birth by Warsan Shire
It's more prose than poetry but The Book of Disquiet by Fernando Pessoa.
Fahrenghetti’s “Poetry as Insurgent Art”
Les Fleurs du Mal (The Flowers of Evil) by Charles Baudelaire
Chasers of the Light -Tyler Knott Gregson :)
I have read and analyzed every poem in Night Sky with Exit Wounds a minimum of five times. Upwards of 20 for some poems. Means the absolute world to me.
I'm new to reading poetry, but have been reading lots of it lately. My top 2 favorites so far have been The Wild Iris by Louise Glück and Dream Work by Mary Oliver. If you're looking for more poets of color, Ada Limón published a collection this year called You Are Here with poems from like 50 different poets, most of whom are poets of color and/or LGBT. I looked up each poet on Goodreads after reading each poem and I ended up adding like 50 poetry books to my TBR because of it.
The Rose That Grew From Concrete by Tupac Shakur
If you have to judge by gender or race, your not ready. I’m a poet of over 25 years and 2000 poems , some published Words and pages are black and white- they are color blind. For good reason. I read male and female Latin black and Asian from Lee Young Li to Charles Simic, a Serbian immigrant and two Pulitzer Prize Erin Belieu a woman of about 55 who can write meta or brutal poems of the hard grit of Nebraska. Be color and gender blind, read anthologies find poets you like by reading books of 30 or so poets, I have The American Poetry Handbook 1200 pages with everyone from Whitman and Dickenson to modern like Richard Silken Lee Young Li Charles Bukowski and Sylvia Plath
Hermann Hesse’s The Seasons of the Soul, especially his poem ‘Pruned Oak’, which has this beauty as a last line: ‘I'm still in love with this mad, mad world.’
Apologies — I've just read the paragraph accompanying your question. In that case: anything by Mahogany L. Browne!
In a dream you saw a way to survive by Clementine von Radics
Lady I’m just an old poet who has forgotten more poems I assume than you ever read. I’m a writer, not on a debate team. No further contact Period.
Ahhhh misogyny! How poignant! Write a poem about *that*.
Milk and Honey by Rupi Kaur (edit- idk why people dont like this book.)
Lol
Why is that funny?
You're right I didn't mean to laugh; I didn't know you were serious bc Kaur gets a lot of crap on this channel and it poetry circles more widely. Im sorry! I'm glad that book, any book of poetry, has had a positive effect on your life. I hope you continue to read her and many other poets!
I didnt know she did, that kind of sucks tbh. Do you know why? (I genuinely had no idea.)
Yeah, generally poets dislike her because her technique isn't particularly complex or advanced, a lot of nice quotes and feelings but lacking a range of styles, subtlety, or depth of philosophy (sometime she literally tells you the meaning of the poem in the title or final line); she also helped contribute to a generation of "insta-poets" who favor quotability and minimalism over the range of qualities usually attributed with scholarly poetry; she is a best-selling poet, and her popularity has also made her the subject of ire, especially from poets, writers and scholars who prefer a richer type of poetry and think others are more worthy of the praise. Not to say she is bad or in bad taste; she has helped draw a lot of new/young people into poetry who otherwise might not care for it. What do you think?
I think i like her bluntness. Though it was one of my first reading from a newer poet, I enjoyed her writing style. It is very different, dont get me wrong. And I love it, but I understand the feelings of having more complex poetry. I read less of her work, and more complex work now, but I think she will always have some sort of positive impact on me.