42. Ariel by Sylvia Plath
 

I know that this is a formalist's board primarily but I feel compelled to nominate Plath's Ariel, not only because of its enormous influence and popularity, but because the poems are, actually, very very good, for the most part. Its a collection the author put together rather fastidiously, and this comes across in the unifying whole where the poems have a certain similarity in form and content. Of course we know she was married to Ted Hughes, arguably one of the best poets of the last century. Hughes edited her Collected Works (or was it complete, can't remember), which I would have nominated instead of Ariel if I didn't think selecting single books was a better way to go. Hughes did take liberties with the Ariel collection and made various changes after her death. The book came out in 1965. Plath died in 1963.

Those who love metrical poetry may know that Plath started out writing tightly wrought poems in traditional forms, mainly sonnets and villanelles, a number of which are in the juvenilia section of her Collected Works but which do not bear the mark of an amateur in any way. She is to my mind one of the greatest poets of the last century.

Best. Thread. Ever.

Never knew about Finlay before, but I am digging what I find in these links -- one review I found called him an "avant gardener." I have always been a fan of Kenneth Patchen -- and might have put him on this list if I had 8 or 10 picks -- especially his picture poems. Very different, but a connection to make for me.

Here is a direct link to UC California Press where you can buy the selected volume in the link Chris gave.

David R.

Station Island, Seamus Heaney #43
 

I don't see him in here anywhere. Station Island is probably his most famous book (though I like Death of a Naturalist too).

Heaney is one of those poets whose style and sensibility had an influence on me when I was younger, who I tried to emulate until I realized I wasn't Irish. He's got the uncanny gift of being memorable, even though (or maybe because) his meter is a little loose and his lyricism is a little harsh. His rhyming isn't like anybody else's, and neither is his syntax. He's written a lot of different kinds of poems, all in his own style. Plus, at least in his public persona, he's likeable, and seems like a fairly happy, ordinary, decent guy. Especially with living poets, there's no use pretending that doesn't matter.

At last, someone nominated Ariel for me. :rolleyes: I do, however, think that if you decide to buy her book, you should go with the Restored Edition (alas, published in 2005, and thus not suited to the criterias for this list):

http://www.amazon.com/Ariel-Facsimil...ds=plath+ariel

This edition contains her handwritten notes, as well as her own arrangement and selection of poems. In short, it's a more exact version than the book published in 1965.

I, too, am glad to see Ariel nominated, and almost did it myself. I don't like every poem in the book, but my first encounter with it was breathtaking. The power of that relentless voice, the rhythms that she had internalized from years of working in rhyme and meter, the startling images--they all spoke to me of passion and a control that was teetering on the edge of being out of control. She was breaking every taboo there was, and it was riveting and rather scary to watch.

I didn't like how hard I needed to work to understand some of the poems, how elliptical they were. Sometimes it felt as if she were writing for herself and really didn't care whether the reader could follow her. But the poems were so urgent that I wanted to understand them, and once I found out more about her life, I could make sense of most of them. Even without understanding them, I could sense that they had their own internal logic, like a nightmare.

Susan

When this thread began it was supposed to list, was it not, the 100 BEST poetry books of the 20th century, rather than 'Here's one I rather like myself'? Is it possible that even their doting mums, that even Mr Whitworth, really believe Wendy Cope, K.Addonizio, G.Shnackenberg, T.Steele to be better poets than Akhmatova, Brecht, Cavafy. . . Lorca, Milosz, Rilke. . . or even, sticking to English, than Basil Bunting, Robert Graves, D.H.Lawrence, Louis MacNeice, Wilfred Owen, Ezra Pound, Dylan Thomas (however patchy you may consider these last two). It may well be that an 'insufficiently esteemed' thread would be more interesting, but it was not the initial premise of this one.

No. 44, Collected Poems, Edwin Morgan
 

Since I mentioned Morgan in a previous thread, I'll nominate his Collected from 1990.

At 600 pages, the Collected only spans the first 70 years of the man's life and leaves out many, many poems. There are also the 20 years of poems he wrote after the Collected. Nor does the collection include his translations, which are numerous, and which are compiled in a different book, also several hundred pages and incomplete.

Morgan wrote in every style imaginable: concrete, sound, sonnets, limericks, vast expanses of free verse, one-word poems, ottava rima, sestinas, collages, found poetry, emergent poems, and bunches of nonce forms.

Morgan can be considered a great poet for many reasons, maybe the most important one being he loved language and playing with words.

And since Mr. Morre mentioned Basil Bunting in the previous thread, check out Morgan's elegy:

A Trace of Wings

Philip - All is a matter of pesonal estimation and the nomination of one poetry book (the real focus of this thread) does not mean to suggest that another so far un-nominated volume does not deserve entry. As poets, I'd certainly second Owen and Dylan Thomas - and others you don't mention and I still have two book nominations to go!

My slight unease at the way things are going, however, is that I thought that Tony had accepted that 'Collecteds/Selecteds/Completes' were not truely in the spirit of his original idea - and, as I said early on, I absolutely agree. Note how long it took for one particular Auden volume, for example, to be cited. So could the various 'Collecteds/Selecteds/Completes' be persuaded to go back and find the quintessential volume to represent their poets? It's not that I disagree - splendid to see Morgan up there - but a major part of the initial idea is in danger of being lost. I want to know which particular binding of which poems made that deep and enduring impression. Any takers?

Best to all,
Nigel

You have convinced me, Orwn,(post 127) I covet this book. I think your comment above should be on the first page of every notebook of every poet as a reminder to explore and extend the boundaries.

Crossposted with Nigel.

I think Philip makes a good point, but the issue isn't that simple. We'd all like to have it both ways, to assert that some writers are simply better than others, no matter what anyone thinks, while at the same time affirming that the most important thing is the undeniable connection between the writer and reader, not some supposedly objective appraisal. We all know some of the poets mentioned that belong on any list like this, but the lesser known ones, the more idiosyncratic choices, are often more interesting.