12. Desperate Measures, George Starbuck
Perhaps we all have our under appreciated poets that we love to champion. If Nigel's is R. P. Lister, then mine is George Starbuck.
Since I am unable to choose his Collected (this century, not last), I'll choose Desperate Measures from 1979. I first read it, really read it, in a large and glorious and completely bare (save a sofa and chair) apartment in one of New York's wealthier neighborhoods (I'm a spectacular cat-sitter). The traps and tricks and treats that Starbuck constructs throughout are marvelous, and their intricate design and rococo architecture became the furniture in the apartment.
Anyone interested in form should study Starbuck's construction and technical virtuosity. His best double dactyls are collected here, and some of his most interesting experiments with sonnets and villanelles. He stuffs one poem with four-letter words like zoooogenous and disagreeee (the target of a disagreeor). One poem ends in 15 consecutive one-syllable rhymes. Another poem manages two rhymes for "bilge" before its narrator kills John Hollander, the inventor the double dactyl, with a steel beam.
You are either very confused or very interested at this point, so I'll stop.
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