These are some of the books that have inspired me to keep writing through the tunnels of failure. I'll add plenty more later. Click here for non-poetry suggestions. -- Delights and Shadows - Ted Kooser This is the book that did it in for Ted Kooser and made him a star of poetry. He is old and his experience in writing seeps out from every page and every line. Without a doubt, my most favorite compilation of poetry. -- Selected Poems - C.K. Williams This poet is particularly interesting because he seems to narrate in a poetic manner rather than just write poetry. Every poem is humanely insightful even if it is more to the unorthodox side of writing poetry. -- Selected Poems of Langston Hughes - Langston Hughes An unforgettable selection of some of the finest poems of American history. Langston Hughes helped me enjoy poetry when I thought it was unreadable. Includes pretty much all of Hughes' most famous poems, like "Raisin in the Sun". This also helped put some jazzy influence into my writing. -- The City in Which I Love You - Li Young Lee Wow, where to start with this wonderful book of poetry? Like the title seems to imply, the book is strongly narrative and contains some of the most artful stories of this poet's apparently turbulent childhood. I definitely did not understand about 80% of the poetry when I first read it, but rereading it opened my lyrics up to some very interesting possibilities and ideas. On that note, I always feel the poetry that's hardest to understand is often the most likely to inspire new ideas when writing. -- The Redshifting Web - Arthur Sze Ah, the master of juxtaposition. Arthur Sze is singlehandedly the best poet when it comes to conjoining images together into an organic, beautiful whole without ever sounding cheesy. This is a collection of his previous works alongside some newer works. This is the second book I would most highly recommend, without a doubt, next to "Delights and Shadows" by Ted Kooser. |
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