Whatcha reading?

[daughter]

Okay folks, I keep bellyaching that a serious poet reads so tell us who are you reading? Share with us why you would recommend the text.

Let's create a running list of poetry collections, reference titles, and writing aid texts about poetry. Please indicate in the subject line the type of title the book is.

Descriptions don't have to be long but try to give us the kind of information that will motivate us to pick up the book.

Thanks.

Peace,

daughter

 

[JUDO]

Hey D -

Still perusing "First Loves" (did you pick it up?). For those who don't know, it's a wonderful little book of poetry where poets introduce how poetry first captivated them and illustrate their beginnings with a poem that first inspired them to write.

The editor is Camela Ciuraru, former editor of The Journal of the Poetry Society of America, and has a foreward written by Alice Quinn, the poetry editor from The New Yorker.

The opening chapter is by Virgina Hamilton Adair who recalls playing rhyming games with her then Wall Street appointed businessman-father. Her poem of inspiration is called "Along The Road" by Robert Browning Hamilton.

Sixty-Eight more wonderful examples follow.

Outside of that, I'm currently reading two novels, one by Sue Grafton called "P is for Peril." If you like detective novels, mystery novels and a good read with well-developed sense of place and characters, go pick up "A if for Alibi" and see if Ms. Grafton is your cup of tea. The second novel is "The God of Small Things" by Arundhati Roy, a clever and witty wordsmith, whose debut is a delight to read thus far (I've just begun reading it for the third time).


- Judo

 

[Camille]

Hey Judo, I just finished "The God of Small Things"
Daughter, I'm reading "A Poet's guide To Poetry" by Mary Kinzie
It's a complicated and intense book certainly not for the beginner, but I’d recommend it to anyone who wants to take the next step in understanding poetry.

Cam

 

[Guest]

I'm reading the poetry section of a creative writing textbook, so I expect my poetry to get much worse before, hopefully, getting better. And "Scandalmonger" by William Safire. It's a historical novel about the press and politics from about 1790 to 1804. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

k-dog

 

[WriterDom]

I'm reading, better thanks to my Walmart reading glasses I got today, The Right to Write, by Julia Cameron. Like her other books, The Artist's Way, and Vein of Gold, there are assignments at the end of each chapter that I'm skipping over right now. If I can find my copy of The Artist's Way, I might go through it and actually finish all the assignments. Her books don't teach how to write. They focus on tapping into creativity, and overcoming the feeling of being blocked.

 

[Sweetwood]

A good read

For bedtime reading I currently am reading Adalbert Stifter, an Austrian Writer in the 1860. He has written a large collection of short stories and several novels of very unusual character for his time. He defied the new movement of social critical writing in and around Vienna at his time (people like Hebel, Marx etc are his contemporaries) and concentrated on crafting language in a way that seeks it's equal in literature.

He has a gift to anticipate content by the use of the language prior to the content being introduced. His stories are always very mild mannered, whole, good stories which develop drama more by the inner events than by action. He is a lifelong companion of mine, and I have read most of his work many times.

I have not found single link in english to his work.

For poetry all I can say is Rainer Maria Rilke. He is the paradigm of expressionist poetry, was good friends with Kafka, Morgenstern, Kandinski, Steiner, Modersohn and Heinrich Vogler. His Duinese Elegies are fantastic. As a sample I will post here a taste of one of his early poems, called sacrifice. The translation is mine and therefore somewhat choppy:

Sacrifice

My body blooms from every pore
Fragrant since I know you
Look I walk erect and straight now more
where d’you wait-: and who are you

See: I feel, how I discard
All that’s old, unrobing leaf for leaf
Yet your smile stands like a thousand stars
Over you and soon then over me

All that through my childhood years
Nameless then and touched with waters sparkle
I will name from you upon the altars
Which is lit by your hair’s candle
and woven lightly of the texture of your breasts

Another one is the Panther:

In the Jardin des Plantes, in Paris

His gaze, has from the passing bars
Become so tired, holding nothing
It is, as if the world is just a thousand bars
And beyond a thousand bars no world.

The soft stroll of feline strongest pacing
That turns within the smallest circle
Is like a dance of strength around one center,
In which stands dazed the greatest will

Just sometimes then - the veil of tired pupils
Arises without sound--. And in moves image
Moves through the limbs so tensely held in silence
And ceases in the heart to be

Rainer Maria Rilke (english in my translation)

A Rilke Site

It should ideally be read in the original language.

That's it for today

Sweetwood

 

[Lauren Hynde]

I'm currently reading, depending on my state of mind and time availability:

Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace, this is an epic, exuberant novel about the hollowness of contemporary American pleasures. It's a mixture of maniacal inventiveness and comic brio. A must read if there ever was one.

Kalevala by Elias Lönnrot, it's a collection of Finnish popular chants turned into national epopee. I hear there are still some men that sing the Kalevala in Karelia.

Poemas by José de Almada Negreiros. The complete work by this start of the 20th century portuguese poet. I couldn't find anything in English either and feel it would lose much if I did the translation, but he does have some poems written in French:

3 POÈMES DE CELLE QUI N'A JAMAIS FAIT L'AMÉRICAIN

ODE
Vitesse
Capitale du monde
dites
vite
avec toutes vos usines:
L'éternité existe
oui
mais bien plus vite que cela.

PORTRAIT DE JEUNE FILLE
Ni blonde
ni brune
ni grande
ni petite
ni grosse
ni maigre
elle se débrouille.

CHANSON PATRIOTIQUE
(temps de marche militaire)

Ô femmes venez venez
Ô femmes venez toutes
faire de la vraie sculpture
de celle qui plaît à Dieu

Ô femmes venez venez
Ô femmes venez toutes
faire de la vraie sculpture
comme la font les vrais animaux

Ô femmes venez venez
Ô femmes venez toutes
Femmes n'oubliez pas
Que vous êtes les seules machines
Pour faire des soldats!

(Paris 1919)

 

[Senna Jawa]

Keiko Imaoka -- sun of haiku, died two weeks ago

She was the modern Master of Haiku and Tanka, a worthy continuator of the great tradition Basho-Buson-Issa-Shiki. Many has learned a lot from her beautiful poems, including myself. Whether U r advanced or a beginner U can get immense satisfaction reading Keiko. Simply use Google and find a number of web pages which feature her poetry. If anybody would like to talk about her poems I will be very happy to do so too.

Best regards,

 

[KatPurrs]

I've got 3 going...

I'm working my way through In the Palm of Your Hand by Steve Kowit. It's referred to as "The Poet's Portable Workshop" and I'm treating it as such. It's very comprehensive, and has something to offer all poets, at every level. I've learned a lot already from this little gem.

For ha-ha's, I'm reading Stupid White Men ...and Other Sorry Excuses for the State of the Nation! by Michael Moore, the author of Downsize This! and the mind behind and director of the movie, Roger and Me. This books has me lmao, right off the bat and keeps me there. His satirical wit, is indescribable. A must read.

Then, for quiet times, I'm reading Bill Moyers' The Language of Life...A Festival of Poets What a lovely book it is! Bios, poems and interviews. 445 pgs. of incredible reading.

So much to read...so little time.

Kat~

 

[daughter]

Bill Moyers

Kat--

I love Moyers' commentary. Language of Life is one of my favorite collections. I discover Bly and Stafford through Moyers. Bly has edited a couple of good anthologies.


Peace,

daughter

 

[RisiaSkye]

I'm currently rereading the feminist dystopian novel The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood, as I'm teaching it in Summer School and haven't read it in a few years.

Flipped through Paul Monette's poetry collection West of Yesterday, East of Summer today, reading whichever ones caught my eye. I still love that book; he's just brilliant.

I recently read A Literate Passion, which is a collection of the correspondence between Anais Nin and Henry Miller--it's beautifully wrought, emotionally intense, and sometimes incredibly sexy.

Oh, yeah. I also just finished In a Sunburned Country, a very engaging and frequently hilarious travel memoir about Australia by Bill Bryson.

I hope everyone's summer is off to a good start! (Okay, technically it isn't summer yet, but let's not get technical. Agreed?)

, Risia

 

[karmadog]

I just started Henry Miller's "Under The Roofs Of Paris". Absolutley disgusting, filthy pornography. I can't recommend it highly enough. Anais Nin for the boys.

 

[NemoAlia]

As far as poetry goes, a book of Mary Oliver's selected works is currently in residence on my nightstand.