[Bruce McBirney]

Julia Alvarez is probably best known for her novels How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents, In the Time of the Butterflies, Yo! (my favorite of her novels), and In the Name of Salome (a fine novel about a poet). But she was a poet before she was a novelist, and The Other Side/El Otro Lado is a memorable and moving poetry collection.

Many of the poems here are about being stretched between and enriched by two languages, two cultures, and family in two countries. But the poems span a variety of topics—the childhood loss of a beloved housekeeper who sang while working, but left suddenly one day with no goodbye (“The Gladys Poems”); the lovely but painful arc of a middle-aged romance that didn’t last (“The Joe Poems,” highlighted by the “The Last Love Story,” recounting the narrator's hopeful acceptance of her lover's struggle to let go of a prior lost relationship--as lovely a poem about love as I can recall); and the return as an adult to a childhood homeland that was left behind suddenly many years before (the long title sequence “The Other Side/El Otro Lado”).

Here is a link to a page with more information on this book (and Julia Alvarez’s other poetry books): http://www.juliaalvarez.com/poetry I think there are also links on that page to Amazon’s sales page for each book.

[Andrew Sofer]

Ted Hughes' THE EARTH OWL AND OTHER MOON PEOPLE? Admittedly a book of poems for children, but one that inspired a generation of British poets born in the 1960s to become poets.

[Alder Ellis]

I just have Grace Schulman's big collection of 2003, "The Poems of Marianne Moore." I don't know what the collections were during her life, but 2 of my favorites, "Marriage" and "An Octopus," are from the early 20s, & so maybe in the same collection. That would be my nomination for her.

& this I think would be the most scandalous omission up to here for an Anglophone top 100 list. Moore survives to a too great degree in that clever line about imaginary gardens with real toads in them. And "I, too, dislike it" -- from the same poem -- admittedly, well aimed. After all, isn't poetry, from a certain point of view, detestable? Moore got that, which is a wonderful thing about her. Her poems are smart & difficult. You can't just read them, she forces you either to live with them or to leave them, to make that choice. I'm just an amateur, a novice, in her curious world, but have seen enough to be convinced of its value.

[Alder Ellis]

I have the "Collected Poems" of 2004, in the TOC of which I see 3 of my favorites -- "Ode to a Dressmaker's Dummy," "Men at Forty," & "The Tourist from Syracuse" -- listed under Night Light (1967).

All 3 appear in this thread:

http://www.ablemuse.com/erato/showth...donald+justice

One thing about "Men at Forty" is that its title quotes a phrase from Wallace Stevens' "Le Monocle de mon Oncle." The contrast of sensibilities is, on the latecomer Justice's part, exquisitely knowing.

Justice was mainly a formalist but made significant ventures in free verse & in the halfway-house of syllabics ("Men at Forty" is free verse, "The Tourist from Syracuse" syllabics). He took nothing for granted, always played at the edges. You wouldn't say, based on Justice's practice, that formalism is the way to go. It doesn't come down that way, predetermined. It comes down with its eyes open.

[Michael F]

We seem to be approaching asymptotically 100, but too close as of now for me to refrain any longer from James Fenton. Alas, I only know him from his Selected; I gather that he was even out of print recently in the UK, a state of affairs that I find scandalous...and I am surely not the best person on this board to commend, to recommend, James Fenton – but here we are. I welcome other (more informed!) voices on him. (I'm not sure of the original publication date of the Selected, it may slip the cutoff, but the majority of the poems were published in the 20th century... so I plead dispensation.)

“Heir to Auden”, “the best poet of his generation”, good friend of Martin Amis and Christopher Hitchens, Oxford Professor of Poetry, acclaimed journalist – quite a nice pedigree. I stumbled on his Selected about 10 years ago, and was immediately taken with his technical facility, the colloquial, natural speech, the irresistible rhythms, the wit, the humor, and the range of subject matter. He wrote masterful poems on love (and hate), death, despair, friendship, politics and war… I think he most definitely lodged a few poems where they will not be easily got rid of. I’ll own that I don’t find in him the profundity of Auden – well, it is pretty rare -- Auden had a more penetrating mind, a more philosophic mind; but Fenton has a more musical voice, IMO, more natural rhythm, burnished by a kind humanity. He is also more accessible than Auden, who could on occasion get a bit pedantic or recherché. IMHO.

BTW, no one who admires either Auden or Fenton should miss Fenton’s piece on Auden in The Guardian dated February 3, 2007, “A Voice of His Own”. It is sublime. *** Edited in: I found it, here http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2007...en?INTCMP=SRCH

In Paris With You

Don't talk to me of love. I've had an earful
And I get tearful when I've downed a drink or two.
I'm one of your talking wounded.
I'm a hostage. I'm maroonded.
But I'm in Paris with you.

Yes I'm angry at the way I've been bamboozled
And resentful at the mess I've been through.
I admit I'm on the rebound
And I don't care where are we bound.
I'm in Paris with you.

Do you mind if we do not go to the Louvre
If we say sod off to sodding Notre Dame,
If we skip the Champs Elysées
And remain here in this sleazy

Old hotel room
Doing this and that
To what and whom
Learning who you are,
Learning what I am.

Don't talk to me of love. Let's talk of Paris,
The little bit of Paris in our view.
There's that crack across the ceiling
And the hotel walls are peeling
And I'm in Paris with you.

Don't talk to me of love. Let's talk of Paris.
I'm in Paris with the slightest thing you do.
I'm in Paris with your eyes, your mouth,
I'm in Paris with... all points south.
Am I embarrassing you?
I'm in Paris with you.

--James Fenton

I do not own Yellow Tulips. But I own this: http://www.amazon.com/Selected-Poems...=cm_cr_pr_pb_i

[Janice D. Soderling]

This thread seems to have been forgotten. I have one vote left, but maybe some of the newer members would like to have a say.

There are 15 slots left.

[Gail White]

I'm glad you revived this, Janice, as somehow I had overlooked it.

Assuming that anthologies count...

For #86, I nominate the anthology PEGASUS DESCENDING (A Book of the Best Bad Verse), edited by James Camp, XJ Kennedy, and Keith Waldrop, published in 1971.

Because
a) We need more laughter in this world, and
b) Poets are way too damn serious if they're not watched.

[Tony Barnstone]

Hi Folks,

How nice that this thread is coming back to life! Eventually, we will hit 100, and then it might be fun to put the whole thing into list form ....

Tony

[Andrew Mandelbaum]

Number 87
The Moscow and Voronezh Notebooks of Osip Mandelstam
published on paper in bitter and cold places and in the memory of Nadia Mandelstam. It is kinda two books but if as a poet you write your own death warrant in one and then record your sentence in the other, special arrangements must be made.

Number 88
Die Niemandsrose (The No-One's Rose) by Paul Celan 1963

Of course I only know the first in translation by Richard and Elizabeth McKane (Bloodaxe) and the second through reading the German (barely) alongside Festiner, Joris, and Hamburger but if this list went down without those names it would be wrong.

* I waffled between Celan books forever, or at least since this thread began.

[Wintaka]

Does light verse count? If yes, someone has to nominate the best known and best selling poetry tome (not counting nursery rhymes by Dr. Seuss) of the 20th century. It might as well be me:

89. "Songs of a Sourdough" by Robert Service