The Poet’s Corner by John Lithgow. On audiobook it’s a double treat, with actors as guest readers for nearly every poem. And each poet gets a short intro.
Any Mary Oliver book, but my favoritrs are American Primitive(which I believe is a Pulitzer prize winner), and Dream Works. Brian Turner’s Phantom Noise and Here Bullet, he is a combat veteran and poet, and Fear of Dreaming by Jim Carrol – The Basketball Diaries poet. All different from each other, but all very good.
I always like the yearly anthologies. “The Best American Poetry 2018” David Lehman and guest editor, Poet Laureate of California, Dana Gioia. I also do the one for short stories, and mysteries. It always gives me new authors to look at that I might not have heard of.
Ariel by Sylvia Plath. I am by no means a poetry connoisseur, but this collection of poems is so powerful. And generally short which is a bonus for me!
Any collection of Pablo Neruda and Rainer Maria Rilke, and A Little Larger Than The Entire Universe by Fernando Pessoa (as well as The Book of Disquiet by Pessoa – poetic prose).
W.H. Auden, collected poems (of W.H. Auden). Wonderful book, my favorite poet! ❤️
Hurricane Sisters by Ginger Andrews.
The Ninety-Third Name of God: Poems by Anya Krugovoy Silver
The Princess Saves Herself In This One, and The Witch Doesn’t Burn In This One, both by Amanda Lovelace
The Essential Rumi
How to Read a Poem: And Fall in Love with Poetry by Edward Hirsch…E E Cummings: Complete Poems 1904-1962….Selected Poems by William Carlos Williams…
The entire Poetry for Young People Series is fantastic.
Have you read any Mary Oliver? I don’t have the brain power for poetry to be honest but I love this poet. Try one of the anthologies of her work. https://www.amazon.com/New-Selected-Poems-Mary-Oliver/dp/0807068772
The Poet’s Corner by John Lithgow. On audiobook it’s a double treat, with actors as guest readers for nearly every poem. And each poet gets a short intro.
Any Mary Oliver book, but my favoritrs are American Primitive(which I believe is a Pulitzer prize winner), and Dream Works. Brian Turner’s Phantom Noise and Here Bullet, he is a combat veteran and poet, and Fear of Dreaming by Jim Carrol – The Basketball Diaries poet. All different from each other, but all very good.
Flying Out With the Wounded by Anne Caston. Very heavy and heartbreaking, but beautiful.
Any of Leonard Cohen’s works
I love Theodore Rothke…..or Dylan Thomas.
I always like the yearly anthologies. “The Best American Poetry 2018” David Lehman and guest editor, Poet Laureate of California, Dana Gioia. I also do the one for short stories, and mysteries. It always gives me new authors to look at that I might not have heard of.
I thought this was a fantastic memoir. The author tells her life story through the poems that most affected her and helped her through each stage:
Also love Blue Horses by Mary Oliver.
Anything Mary Oliver!
There are yearly collections made like these. https://www.amazon.com/Best-American-Poetry-2017/dp/1501127756/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1542773506&sr=8-1&keywords=2017+poetry
The Dark Between the Stars by Atticus.
Ariel by Sylvia Plath. I am by no means a poetry connoisseur, but this collection of poems is so powerful. And generally short which is a bonus for me!
Analysis here – https://www.bl.uk/20th-century-literature/articles/a-close-reading-of-lady-lazarus
Lady Lazarus
BY SYLVIA PLATH
I have done it again.
One year in every ten
I manage it——
A sort of walking miracle, my skin
Bright as a Nazi lampshade,
My right foot
A paperweight,
My face a featureless, fine
Jew linen.
Peel off the napkin
O my enemy.
Do I terrify?——
The nose, the eye pits, the full set of teeth?
The sour breath
Will vanish in a day.
Soon, soon the flesh
The grave cave ate will be
At home on me
And I a smiling woman.
I am only thirty.
And like the cat I have nine times to die.
This is Number Three.
What a trash
To annihilate each decade.
What a million filaments.
The peanut-crunching crowd
Shoves in to see
Them unwrap me hand and foot——
The big strip tease.
Gentlemen, ladies
These are my hands
My knees.
I may be skin and bone,
Nevertheless, I am the same, identical woman.
The first time it happened I was ten.
It was an accident.
The second time I meant
To last it out and not come back at all.
I rocked shut
As a seashell.
They had to call and call
And pick the worms off me like sticky pearls.
Dying
Is an art, like everything else.
I do it exceptionally well.
I do it so it feels like hell.
I do it so it feels real.
I guess you could say I’ve a call.
It’s easy enough to do it in a cell.
It’s easy enough to do it and stay put.
It’s the theatrical
Comeback in broad day
To the same place, the same face, the same brute
Amused shout:
‘A miracle!’
That knocks me out.
There is a charge
For the eyeing of my scars, there is a charge
For the hearing of my heart——
It really goes.
And there is a charge, a very large charge
For a word or a touch
Or a bit of blood
Or a piece of my hair or my clothes.
So, so, Herr Doktor.
So, Herr Enemy.
I am your opus,
I am your valuable,
The pure gold baby
That melts to a shriek.
I turn and burn.
Do not think I underestimate your great concern.
Ash, ash—
You poke and stir.
Flesh, bone, there is nothing there——
A cake of soap,
A wedding ring,
A gold filling.
Herr God, Herr Lucifer
Beware
Beware.
Out of the ash
I rise with my red hair
And I eat men like air.
Amanda lovelace
Rupi kaur
Any of David Whyte’s poetry books. My favorite is The House of Belonging. Also Parker Palmer’s annotated collection Teaching With Fire.
Oh! And best of all is The Gift poems by Hafiz.
Horses Make A Landscape More Beautiful by Alice Walker
Mind Platter – Najwa Zebian. Very deep and moving.
Martin Espada’s collection is wonderful.
For a general well-curated collection, I like Good Poems by Garrison Keillor
Any book of Billy Collins!!! Love him to pieces
I agree- I’m a Billy Collins fan!
Any collection of Pablo Neruda and Rainer Maria Rilke, and A Little Larger Than The Entire Universe by Fernando Pessoa (as well as The Book of Disquiet by Pessoa – poetic prose).
All the Shel Silverstein books.
101 Famous Poems. https://books.google.com/books/about/One_Hundred_and_One_Famous_Poems_with_a.html?id=7wpDrgEACAAJ&source=kp_book_description