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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. Quote:
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. |
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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.
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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 |
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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.
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I entirely agree about the idiosyncrasy - in fact, it's more or less what I meant by my last sentence. But while we may any of us have a soft spot for, say, the wrenched rhymes of Victorian hymns, to suggest that 'Making Cocoa for Kingsley Amis' could deserve inclusion in a list of even the best 1000 poetry books of the century in all languages seems to me preposterous.
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Philip, I have to say that I think the "all languages" is a bit of a mistake in a thread of this sort. None of us is remotely competent to make such judgements; I, for example, can second your choice of Montale (and I do), but most people here just have to take it on trust. I certainly have to take on trust any such assessments of Achmatova, Brecht, Lorca, Rilke, to take up some of the names you mentioned. And then what about the Lithuanian, Albanian, Guanese, Guatemalan, Tibetan, Sudanese poets, who might feel unfairly excluded and start writing angry letters to the Times about it?
It seems to me to make more sense to restrict ourselves to poets who wrote in English, where we are all competent to judge. And I think such a limitation in no way spoils the fun of the game; after all, there are certainly still plenty to choose from. |
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Have anyone nominated Weldon Kees yet? Perhaps we should consider, now that we're starting to get a few pages to flick through, making a seperate thread where we update the list? One thread, one comment, with the recommendations updated by a single person (Tony if he would like to do it?). After all, these pages will only get longer. I don't know about you, but I'm already having a hard time remembering the books that have been picked, and we're only on number 44. |
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Nigel Mace,
For Cummings, I suppose it would be is 5 -- it contains a delightful example of the variety in his work: fantastic anti-war poems (“"next to of course god and america i"); love poems (“in spite of everything”, “you being in love”); prostitute poems; Spring poems; sex poems (“she being Brand”, “(ponder, darling, these busted statues”); sonnets; – and, “since feeling is first”. It is light, however, on the visual/typographical/puzzle poems. It’s a wonderful volume – but, in truth, I’d still prolly direct people who wanted to get a good feel for Cummings, or own just one book, to the Kennedy Selected. BTW -- if we’re talking great and influential, somebody should mention the Thomas H. Johnson Collected Emily Dickinson published in 1955. THAT was a landmark. |
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David R. |
By the way, Philip. I think we could each come up with our own top 100. While there would likely be some overlap, there likely would be as much disjunction. Pound, Eliot, Wilbur, and Plath for example, while I recognize their importance, would not make my own top 100. There's no accounting for taste. Meanwhile, Tony upped the limit to five, so you can still rectify at least four serious omissions.
David R. |
War Music by Christopher Lugue is the book that has influenced me the most and the one I return to again and again. It may not be to everyone’s taste — Lattimore fans especially— and there are bound to be those you cry out, “Oh, no please, not that,” but reading Logue is one of the ways I contact the muse. I read him and I want to rush to the desk and write.
When I first read the review of “Kings” in the New York Review and heard that it was Homer in a modern idiom, I thought, “Please, no,” but then I came to the passage where Athena turns Achilles head around like a doll’s. I put down the paper and went to the store to order the book (of course it was not in stock). Logue did go off the rails later with Cold Calls, but the sections gathered in the second volume titled War Music: Iliad books 1-4 and 16-19 are just so good. |
45. Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins now first published. Edited with Notes by Robert Bridges (1918)
Hopkins died in 1889 of course, but this book - and its influence - is very much part of the twentieth century story. The original printing would set you back several thousand dollars, but expanded editions appeared in 1930 and 1948, and reprints abound on ABE at all prices. |
Why has nobody else thought of this? Quite right.
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47. Collected Poems of Wilfred Owen
I'll put in Owen, whom I only recently began to read. (I have the C. Day Lewis--don't know if the newer edition is substantially different/better.)
The line that got me, the one that put him in my personal canon, comes in "The Send-Off": So secretly, like wrongs hushed-up, they went. That's the line that made me want to read more. The moments that resonate most with me have this kind of quiet savagery, phrases that seem to come through gritted teeth. All of the terror, the outrage, the despair--you'd think he'd be shrieking but he almost whispers it all in your ear. Pat |
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The Hugo collected might be another matter. But it might not be... David R. |
48. Selected Poems of Derek Mahon
Derek Mahon seems not to be in print at all on my side of the Atlantic. This little Penguin selected is only book of his I have ever even seen, although a quick search shows lots of things available here & there. Maybe someone who knows all of him better could pick an actual book, but since no one has yet...
These stanzas from "Dawn at St. Patrick's" broke my heart the first time I read it, and have broken it again each time I've reread it: as I chew my thumbSpeechless, Pat |
How had John Betjeman escaped me? The shame! Yet, I’m delighted now we’ve found each other… thank you, Nigel.
I’m with David R., this really is a fabulous thread. I’m sure it will inform a part of my reading for some time. Going back through the thread, I see that Chiago is right on Lorca -- he should get a heading and number, verdad ? |
Hi All,
Well, you know, I think the Haiku Anthology is fine. After all, I put in Modern European Poetry, opening the door to anthologies, which, after all, show the taste and ability of the editor/translator(s). Collected and Selected poems aren't ideal, but if a poet's books are filled with, well, filler, then sometimes the Selected is necessary to make a good book, versus a book with some good poems. Yes, at some point we're gonna have to simplify this thing, trim it to just the list of books. I wonder how to do that and maintain formatting? The idea of the thing is great BOOKS, books that hang together, start to end, books that amaze you, dazzle you. What are the 100 books of poetry you should have on your shelf? They could be translations, could be anthologies, could be poetry/art collaborations, and so on. I still have two left, myself, and am musing on how to spend my gold! Best, Tony |
Oh, and one more thing. If you've posted a poet and haven't given him or her a number and put it in the title of your post, the poet ain't on the list. Prove your love! Repost. The reason for this is that each post spawns discussion, and having a title and a number it makes it possible for the reader to scan down the thread and skip to each poet on the list. Without titles and numbers your fave poet is invisible!
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46. Hoping it might be so: Kit Wright
Kit Wright is distinctive and very English. Those of you who do not know him should acquaint yourselves with his work immediately though this is not easy since his adult books are out of print - another triumph for the publishing industry.
The Orbison Consolations Only the lonely Know the way you feel tonight? Surely the poorly Have some insight? Oddly, the godly Also might, And slowly the lowly Will learn to read you right. Simply the pimply Have some idea. Quaintly the saintly Have have got quite near. Quickly the sickly Empathise And prob'ly the knobbly Look deep into your eyes. Rumly, the comely Will understand. Shortly the oertly Will take your hand. Early the surly Dispraised and panned, But lately the stately Have joined your saraband. Only the lonely Know the way you feel tonight? Singly the tingly Conceive your plight, But doubly the bubbly Fly your kite... And lastly the ghastly Know the way you feel tonight. By God, I had to type that out. Download it and meditate. |
50. The Uncelestial City, by Humbert Wolfe
I ordered a hardcover edition of this book on Amazon, not knowing that I was going to receive an edition that was printed in 1930. There are no later copyright dates anywhere in the volume. The pages are old and yellowed, or browned, however it is, and pages 253-255 were still uncut.
I've read the book once through and am now reading it a second time, to get a better grasp and appreciation of the work. It's not a collection of poems, but a single long Poem consisting of individual poems, some of which were published previously in several prestigious journals at the time: The Spectator, the Saturday Review, Harper's Bazaar, Punch, etc. Anyway, I paid only a few dollars for the book. The postage was more expensive than the item itself. I had known of Wolfe's work only by way of a single anthology I own that includes a few of his poems. That anthology is called, Modern British Poetry, A Critical Anthology, edited by the very busy anthologist and poet, Louis Untermeyer. In this book there are several gems, one I really like is this miniature: THE LILAC Who thought of the lilac? "I", dew said, "I made up the lilac out of my head." "She made up the lilac! Pooh!" thrilled a linnet, and each dew-note had a lilac in it. ~ Anyway, that little poem is not typical of the kind of work contained in The Uncelestial City, where the poet uses many meters and forms in various ways to build the entire work. The poem takes on serious moral and legal issues (and clarifies, at least so I think, the important distinction between the two terms), religious doctrine, theology, philosophy, etc.; but there is also human drama and even a hint of unspoken romantic love, melancholy, emotional suffering, everything, as well as classical hints of cosmic order, justice, retribution, attrition, atonement, all under the author's Christian belief system. He was of Jewish heritage and converted. I know the work was well-regarded and all, but I don't think it got the attention it deserved, which is why I'm nominating it as my 4th choice in this thread. I've got one more! I'd nominate my favorite poet, Menke Katz, but the only book I've got by him is an edition of his Yiddish poems translated into English, by the Harshavs. That book came out in 2005. I can think of about fifty or more names I'd want to include in this list. |
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51. These are not Sweet Girls: Poetry by Latin American Women
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I am recommending this anthology edited by Marjorie Agosin. Published by the admirable White Pine Press in 1994, The reason for my nominating it being that it introduced to a broader public in the English speaking world, a wide selection of very fine women poets from Latin America who wrote in troubled times. Common to all is that they did not write in the expected "sweet" way, leaning on the religious themes that would not offend. Rather these women poets are political, erotic and critical of the roles to which they have been assigned. And their voices transcended both lingual and national barriers. The poets come from Costa Rica, Cuba, Uruguay, Honduras, Puerto Rico, Mexico, Colmbia, Brazil, Chile, Peru, Dominican Republic, Argentina, Guatemala, Niaragua, Eduador, Chile, Bolivia. Does poetry matter? Can it change anything? When she showed me her photograph she said, This is my daughter. She still hasn't come home. She hasn't come home in ten years. But this is her photograph. Isn't it true that she is very pretty? She is a philosophy student and here she is when she was fourteen years old and had her first communion, starched, sacred. This is my daughter. She is so pretty. I talk to her every day. she no longer comes home late, and this is why I reproach her much less. But I love her so much. This is my daughter. Every night I say goodbye to her. I kiss her and it's hard for me not to cry even though I know she will not come home late because as you know, she has not come home for years. I love this photo very much. I look at it every day. It seems that only yesterday she was a little feathered angel in my arms. (By Marjorie Agosin, Chile) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marjorie_Agos%C3%ADn I could write a short essay on WHY this is poetry, about what tools are used here to make it so, but this is a smart bunch of readers, so you can do that analysis yourself. |
52. New and Collected Poems - U.A. Fanthorpe
Although this collection came out early this century, the poems were written in the 20th century and with few exceptions all were published then. Besides which all the rules set for this thread have been broken shortly after they were made.
I chose this collection because U.A. Fanthorpe was a role model for vast numbers of women poets on both sides of the Atlantic and elsewhere during the time period quaintly called "Women's Liberation". Here is a link to one of many moving tributes written at the time of her death. http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/book...arol-ann-duffy UA Fanthorpe inspired generations of women poets The generosity, skill and emotional intelligence of UA Fanthorpe transformed women's poetry in Britain, (...) But it is clearly true that without Ursula Fanthorpe, herself tipped at various points as both laureate and Oxford professor of poetry, women's poetry in Britain would differ, in ways we can only loosely guess at, from the vibrant and various forms it takes today. Here is a link to a longish poem which hit me like a ton of bricks when I first read it, decades ago. http://english.emory.edu/classes/pai...s/uccello.html |
53. The Collected Poems of Amy Clampitt
My reason for nominating this is because she carries on the tradition of eloquence and detail in her craftsmanship, a tradition that includes Elizabeth Bíshop, Emily Dickinson and Marianne Moore.
You can't take in her work "on-the-fly" so to speak. You need to sit and savor, to partake and digest. Her dexterity in poem-making, her care about the factual groundwork to which the poems are anchored, her precise vocabulary and perfect grammar, in short, her skills as a poet. Here is one I particularly like: Meadowlark Country Speaking of the skylark in a New England classroom-- nonbird, upward-twirler, Old-World hyperbole-- I thought how the likewise ground-nesting western meadowlark, rather than soar unsupported out over the cattle range at daybreak, takes up its post on a fence post. I heard them out there, a liquid millennium arising from the still eastward-looking venue of the dark-- like the still-evolving venue of the young, the faces eastward-looking, bright with a mute, estranged, ancestral puzzlement. |
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The reason this thread interests is that poems (the way we measure poets) are not the same as books. A book can have qualities none of the poems have on their own. A favorite poem surrounded by weaker ones can create a book we like less than one that doesn't include any single poem that measures up to our favorite in the weaker book. If poems and poetry books were the same thing, Tony simply could have asked whom we considered the best poets of the century (or which books they wrote). If he had, many of us would have ignored the thread. |
54. The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes, Knopf, 1994
Langston Huges was one of the earliest innovators of the then-new literary art form jazz poetry and paved the way for all the slam and spoken word that came after.
As a member of the Harlem Renaissance he was also a role model for many black writers of his own time and in coming decades. He was one (of several) who helped redefine how the literary world looked at black literature and blacks in literature. That word "redefine" is important because change can only come about when individuals in a group (women's movement, blacks, latino, you name it) redefine how they view themselves and their collective. Before "black is beautiful" was coined as a catchword, he wrote in "My People" (October 1923)[): The night is beautiful, So the faces of my people. The stars are beautiful, So the eyes of my people Beautiful, also, is the sun. Beautiful, also, are the souls of my people. I have one nomination left, but there are so many I'd like to name for one reason or another that I think I will not nominate any other books. Unless something very unexpected occurs. (Crossed fingers) |
Well, Philip (post 126), the rules seem to have been both bent and broken along the way, with the approval of the Thread-Owner.
If we are going to be sticklers we might have to start the protocol by defining "Best". Whose best? Or does best mean craftsmanship? Does best mean a sea-change in the craft--content or form? I think we are happily stuck in the mire of indiviualism here, and if people give the reasons for why they think best is best, I am willing to accept lots of leeway. |
55. The Gold Cell by Sharon Olds
This is the first book by Sharon Olds I read, which hooked me so that I have had to read every other book she wrote, before or since. She has an honesty that makes me gasp, especially in terms of dealing with subjects that others turn away from and in focusing on her own life. I think she has taken a lot of flak for sensationalism, but she hasn't backed off from her uncompromising and, I would say, searing honesty. She was a lot more direct about sexuality than any other female poet I had encountered, and it is interesting that she has been attacked for that, too. Like Sylvia Plath she has become a lightning rod. But she changed the way I thought about what one can write about in a poem, and I find myself moved by her courage even when she makes me uncomfortable.
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I got it wrong first time people, but I got it right for Wright second time. Didn't I?
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56. View With A Grain of Sand, by Wislawa Szymborska
I had never heard of Szymborska until she won the 1996 Nobel Prize. I bought this book, a selection of her works from 1957 to 1993, and I fell in love with her immediately. I have three other volumes of hers, but this one remains my favorite for its consistent superb quality.
Szymborska has an instantly recognizable voice: unpretentious, even chatty, self-deprecating, wry, puckish, a bit philosophical, kind, and so very life-affirming. She is that rare poet whose books you’ll give your friends at Christmas or on birthdays – and later learn that they did the same. As I did, in fact, learn. She was amazed by, and wondered at, the singularity of life, of every life, and when I read her I think of Dickinson’s answer to TW Higginson when he asked if she ever felt the want of employment or social engagement: “the mere sense of living is joy enough”. Szymborska has a way with metaphor that often makes it seem light and amusing, but laden with meaning, at the same time. But for all her intelligence, for me what most comes through in reading Szymborska is the vast demesne of her heart; reading her, I feel the expansion of my own. Under One Small Star My apologies to chance for calling it necessity. My apologies to necessity if I'm mistaken, after all. Please, don't be angry, happiness, that I take you as my due. May my dead be patient with the way my memories fade. My apologies to time for all the world I overlook each second. My apologies to past loves for thinking that the latest is the first. Forgive me, distant wars, for bringing flowers home. Forgive me, open wounds, for pricking my finger. I apologize for my record of minuets to those who cry from the depths. I apologize to those who wait in railway stations for being asleep today at five a.m. Pardon me, hounded hope, for laughing from time to time. Pardon me, deserts, that I don't rush to you bearing a spoonful of water. And you, falcon, unchanging year after year, always in the same cage, your gaze always fixed on the same point in space, forgive me, even if it turns out you were stuffed. My apologies to the felled tree for the table's four legs. My apologies to great questions for small answers. Truth, please don't pay me much attention. Dignity, please be magnanimous. Bear with me, O mystery of existence, as I pluck the occasional thread from your train. Soul, don't take offense that I've only got you now and then. My apologies to everything that I can't be everywhere at once. My apologies to everyone that I can't be each woman and each man. I know I won't be justified as long as I live, since I myself stand in my own way. Don't bear me ill will, speech, that I borrow weighty words, then labor heavily so that they may seem light. http://www.amazon.com/View-Grain-San...awa+szymborska |
Thanks, Michael, for listing Wislawa Szymborska. I agree fully with all the praise you give her.
I have her work in Swedish and one book in English translation (Miracle Fair: Selected poems of Wislawa Szymborska , Joanna Trzeciak which won the Heldt prize for Translation in Slavic Studies. The poem you offered us (thanks) differs somewhat from the one I have (in the above book) and I wonder who the translator is. It is always interesting to see how different translators render a poet. Added in Sorry, I realized I could check your link and find out. It is by Stanislaw Baranczak and Clare Cavanagh. (sorry about not having the Polish alphabet to write the names) |
Michael, I agree wholeheartedly on Szymborska, and the Cavanagh/Baranczak translations are the best. She may end up having more universal appeal than any other poet who lived into the 21st century. "Nonrequired Reading", which is nonfiction, is also brilliant. Great choice.
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