Poet Recommendations

[Dual_Triode]

Greetings!

First, if this is the wrong forum to ask this question, please accept my humble apology in advance.

I am seeking recommendations for a poet or a collection of poetry that I might give as a gift. The recipient of this gift is a kind gentle man who is suffering through grief and loneliness due to the loss of a loved one. I would like to help this man see grief from another angle; to turn dark thoughts into joyous ones.

I am an author here on Lit, but not a poet. I have some collections from T.S. Eliot and E. E. Cummings, but I don't think they fit the bill. Any recommendations or pointer to an appropriate thread is greatly appreciated.

Cheers!

 

[bronzeage]

That is a tough one, as most poets are suffering grief and loneliness, for a variety of reasons.

Are you sure poetry is a good idea?

If you want something light and easy, with no philosophy to confuse things, I recommend Ogden Nash.

Peekabo, I Almost See You by Ogden Nash

Middle-aged life is merry, and I love to
lead it,
But there comes a day when your eyes
are all right but your arm isn't long
enough
to hold the telephone book where you can read it,
And your friends get jocular, so you go
to the oculist,
And of all your friends he is the joculist,
So over his facetiousness let us skim,
Only noting that he has been waiting for you ever since
you said Good evening to his grandfather clock under
the impression that it was him,
And you look at his chart and it says SHRDLU QWERTYOP,
and you say Well, why SHRDNTLU QWERTYOP? and he
says one set of glasses won't do.
You need two.
One for reading Erle Stanley Gardner's Perry Mason and
Keats's "Endymion" with,
And the other for walking around without saying Hello
to strange wymion with.
So you spend your time taking off your seeing glasses to put
on your reading glasses, and then remembering that your
reading glasses are upstairs or in the car,
And then you can't find your seeing glasses again because
without them on you can't see where they are.
Enough of such mishaps, they would try the patience of an
ox,
I prefer to forget both pairs of glasses and pass my declining
years saluting strange women and grandfather clocks.

 

[PandoraGlitters]

Though it is not poetry, I heartily recommend this book of short stories to anyone who is processing grief. It was really helpful for me.

http://www.amazon.com/Reasons-Live-Amy-Hempel/dp/0060976721

 

[Tzara]

I am seeking recommendations for a poet or a collection of poetry that I might give as a gift. The recipient of this gift is a kind gentle man who is suffering through grief and loneliness due to the loss of a loved one. I would like to help this man see grief from another angle; to turn dark thoughts into joyous ones.

These are not exactly books that "turn dark thoughts into joyous ones" but they are both books of poems that deal with the loss of a partner:

Donald Hall's Without is his chronicle of losing his wife, the poet Jane Kenyon, to cancer, after they had worried that he (Hall) would die from cancer. I found this a very moving book, even though I generally don't care for Hall's poems. I think some of Hall's subsequent books carry on the theme of his going forward in life.

Claudia Emerson's Pulitzer-winning collection Late Wife speaks to a number of things about loss--the author's own crumbling marriage, for example, but also about her new husband's relationship with his dying wife (i.e., his relationship with his wife before she died).

I don't know if either of these are at all relevant to your friend's situation. You should probably at least scan the books before gifting them.

 

[champagne1982]

Leonard Cohen Book of Mercy

Poem 50
I stopped to listen, but he did not come. I begain again with a sense of loss. As this sense deepened I heard him again. I stopped stopping and I stopped starting, and I allowed myself to be crushed by ignorance. This was a strategy, and didn't work at all. Much time, years were wasted in such a minor mode. I bargain now. I offer buttons for his love. I beg for mercy. Slowly he yields. Haltingly he moves toward his throne. Reluctantly the angels grant to one another permission to sing. In a transition so delicate it cannot be marked, the court is established on beams of golden symmetry, and once again I am a singer in the lower choirs, born fifty years ago to raise my voice this high, and no higher.

Leonard Cohen writes poetry that I find inspirational and very moving. I'm sure you've heard his song lyrics before, Hallelujah and Suzanne are just a couple of his famous ones. His poems are just as evocative and sensual.

 

[Dual_Triode]

Leonard Cohen writes poetry that I find inspirational and very moving. I'm sure you've heard his song lyrics before, Hallelujah and Suzanne are just a couple of his famous ones. His poems are just as evocative and sensual.

This was my first thought, as well. I have "Book of Longing", which is great, but not quite appropriate. I have also ordered "Book of Mercy".

Thank you for all of the fine suggestions.

 

[DeepGreenEyes]

I recommend Stephen Mitchell's translation of the Tao te Ching, as poetic a non-poem as I know. I find it particularly helpful for grief, and profound about uncertainty.

I wish you luck - you're a good friend.

 

[GuiltyPleasure]

Ooops

Sorry - wrong thread.