285 Near Perfect Books of Poetry

 

This page grew out of a number of postings on the Lilliput Review blog, Issa's Untidy Hut.  The following list is culled from those postings and has become something of an ongoing project.  If you have a suggestion of a title of a perfect or near perfect book of poems for this list (and it is accepted) and would like to receive the two current issues of Lillie for free (or have your current subscription extended), send your suggestion, along with your mailing address, to lilliputreview at gmail dot com (spelled out to avoid spam bots) or to the Lilliput snail mail address in the sidebar to the right. 

 

The List 

The Clean Dark by Robert Adamson

The Golden Bird by Robert Adamson

Selected Poems by Anna Akhmatova 

The Fall — Jordie Albiston

A Nostalgist's Map of America by Agha Shaid Ali

Chrysanthemum Love by Fay Aoyagi

Once in Vermont by Bob Arnold

Where Rivers Meet by Bob Arnold

The Double Dream of Spring by John Ashbery

Rivers and Mountains by John Ashbery

Some Trees by John Ashbery 

Salute--to Singing by Gennady Aygi

Restoration Poems by Ed Baker

Pencil Flowers by Johnny Baranski

Back Roads to Far Towns by Bashō, translated by Cid Corman and Kamaike Susumu                           

Bashō And His Interpreters by Makoto Ueda  

Bashō: The Complete Haiku, translated by Reichhold & Tsujimura

On Love and Barley by Bashō, translated by Lucien Styrk

The Flowers of Evil by Charles Baudelaire (any & all translations)

Weeping for Lost Babylon — Eric Beach

Actual Air by David Berman

The Sonnets by Ted Berrigan

Openings by Wendell Berry

Dream Songs by John Berryman

Complete Poems, 1927-1979 by Elizabeth Bishop 

The Cities by Paul Blackburn

Silence In The Snowy Fields by Robert Bly     

Talking into the Ear of a Donkey by Robert Bly 

Turkish Pears in August by Robert Bly

Kerrisdale Elegies by George Bowering                   

The Pill Versus The Springhill Mine Disaster by Richard Brautigan

Poems of Madness & Angel by Ray Bremser 

Life Supports by William Bronk

Moment to Moment by David Budbill

The Last Night of the Earth Poems — Charles Bukowski

Mockingbird Wish Me Luck by Charles Bukowski

Sifting Through the Madness for the Word, The Line, the Way - C. Bukowski

Complete Poems by Basil Bunting 

Dreaming of Robert de Niro — Grant Caldwell

The Last Time I Saw Ameila Earhart by Gabrielle Calvocoressi

Thirst by Patrick Carrington

Scrambled Eggs and Whiskey by Hayden Carruth 

Glass, Irony and God by Anne Carson

Fear of Dreaming by Jim Carroll

Woman Haiku Master by Chiyo-ni 

The Hundred Thousand Places by Thomas A. Clark

String by Thomas A. Clark

White Thought by Tom Clark

No Ordinary Woman by Lucille Clifton

The Art of Drowning by Billy Collins

Sailing Alone Around the Room by Billy Collins 

Sun Rock Man by Cid Corman

Selected Poems by Robert Creeley

73 Poems by E. E. Cummings

Places/Everyone by Jim Daniels 

Totem by Luke Davies

Forth A Raven by Christina Davis

And Her Soul Out of Nothing by Olena Kalytiak Davis 

Variations by Bill Deemer  

Loba by Diane Di Prima (Wingbow, Penguin) 

Revolutionary Letters by Diane di Prima

Griffon by Stephen Dobyns

Hello La Jolla by Ed Dorn 

Small Favors by Barbara Drake

Space Before A by Barbara Drake

Streets of the Long Voyage — Michael Dransfield

Drifting Boat: Chinese Zen Poetry, tr. J. P. Seaton & D. Maloney 

The Caged Tiger by Louis Dudek 

Rapture by Carol Ann Duffy

Roots and Branches by Robert Duncan 

What Goes On: Selected & New Poems by Stephen Dunn

Miracles of the Sainted Earth by Victoria Edwards Tester  

Things Stirring Together or Far Away by Larry Eigner

The World and Its Streets by Larry Eigner

Then, And Now by Ted Enslin 

The Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats by T. S. Eliot

Prufrock and Other Observations by T. S. Eliot

The Waste Land by T. S. Eliot 

Rebellion is the Circle of a Lover's Hand by Martin Espada 

Tryst by Angie Estes

Donna Juanita and the Love of Boys, by Gabrielle Everall

Against the Forgetting by Hans Faverey 

Coney Island of the Mind by Lawrence Ferlighetti 

The Whole Song: Selected Poems by Vincent Ferrini 

Gathering the Tribes by Carolyn Forché

From the Country of Eight Islands, ed. by Hiroaki Sato & B. Watson

From the Other World: Poems in Memory of James Wright, ed. by B. ---Hendrickson & R. Johnson

West-Running Brook by Robert Frost

A bud — Claire Gaskin

Poet in New York by Frederico Garcia Lorca (trans. by B. Bellitt)

Prose Poems by Kahlil Gibran (translated by Andrew Gahreeb

Refusing Heaven by Jack Gilbert

Howl and Other Poems by Allen Ginsberg

Kaddish by Allen Ginsberg

The Wild Iris by Louise Glück

Insects of South Corvallis by Charles Goodrich

Mosquito and the Ant by Kimiko Hahn

Without by Donald Hall

The Haiku Anthology, 3rd edition, edited by Cor van den Heuvel

Letters to Yesenin by Jim Harrison

Braided Creek: a Conversation in Poetry by Jim Harrison & Ted Kooser 

book of resurrection by mark hartenbach

Essential Haiku edited by Robert Hass

Station Island by Seamus Heaney 

My Life by Lyn Hejinian 

Best of Adrian Henri 

Barbarian in the Garden by Zbigniew Herbert

Phosphorus by Alicia Hokanson

Spring Essence by Xuân Hu’o’ng Ho, tr. by J. Balaban

The Never Ending by Andrew Hudgins 

Working on My Death Chant by Albert Huffstickler

Weary Blues by Langston Hughes  

Birthday Letters by Ted Hughes

Crow by Ted Hughes 

Tales from Ovid by Ted Hughes

Tread the Dark by David Ignatow

The Dumpling Field by Kobayashi Issa, trans. by Lucien Styrk

A Few Flies and I: Haiku by Issa

Inch by Inch by Issa, translated by Nanao Sakaki

The Year of My Life by Kobayashi Issa, translated by Nobuyuki Yuasa

Jade Mountain: anthology of Chinese Poetry, ed. by W. Bynner 

Lost World by Randall Jarrell

The Beginning of the End by Robinson Jeffers

The Book of the Green Man by Ronald Johnson

Hojoki by Kamo Chomei

The Ancient Rain by Bob Kaufman

Otherwise: New and Selected Poems by Jane Kenyon

Book of Haikus by Jack Kerouac

The Saint of Letting Small Fish Go by Eliot Khalil Wilson

Knock Upon Silence by Carolyn Kizer

The Essential Etheridge Knight by Etheridge Knight

Flowers of a Moment by Ko Un

Three Way Tavern by Ko Hun

The Art of Love by Kenneth Koch

New Addresses by Kenneth Koch

California Poems by James Koller

Geography of the Forehead by Ron Koertge 

Pleasure Dome  by Yusef Komunyakaa

Delights and Shadows by Ted Kooser

All This Everyday by Joanne Kyger

The Blood of the Air by Philip Lamantia 

O Taste and See by Denise Levertov 

The Sorrow Dance by Denise Levertov

What Work Is by Philip Levine

Lord Weary's Castle by Robert Lowell 

For the Union Dead by Robert Lowell 

The Lost Lunar Baedeker by Mina Loy 

Knowledge Never Knew by Steve McCaffrey

Verso by Pattie McCarthy 

Touch to My Tongue by Daphne Marlatt

dogwood & honeysuckle by john martone

Ksana by john martone

ordinary fool by john martone 

After All by William Matthews

The Nice Narrows: New and Selected Poems by Samuel Menashe

Asian Figures by W. S. Merwin 

The Lice by W. S. Merwin

The Shadow of Sirius by W. S. Merwin

The Vixen by W. S. Merwin

At Dusk Iridescent by Thomas Meyer

Sixty-Seven Poems for Downtrodden Saints by Jack Micheline 

Temple Dusk by Mitsu Suzuki 

Cuttlefish Bones by Eugenio Montale

Forever Home by Lenard D. Moore 

The Dillinger Books (various) by Todd Moore

Deadly Nightshade by Barbara Moraff

The Gallows Songs by Christian Morgenstern

Cloudless at First by Hilda Morley

Eyes: the Poetry of Jim Morrison

The True Keeps Calm Biding Its Story by Rusty Morrison

The Memory of Water by Jack Myers

Naked Poetry: Recent American Poetry, ed. by Stephen Berg 

New American Poetry, 1945-1960, ed. by Donald Allen

100 Love Sonnets by Pablo Neruda

Twenty Love Poems & A Song of Despair, Pablo Neruda tr. Merwin

The Chimeras by Gérard de Nerval, translated by Peter Jay

Next Room of the Dream by Howard Nemerov

Call Me By My True Names by Thich Nhat Hanh 

Still Water by bpnichol

The Granite Pail by Lorine Niedecker 

My Friend Tree by Lorine Niedecker

Collected Poems by Frank O'Hara

Lunch Poems by Frank O'Hara 

American Primitive by Mary Oliver

Dream Work by Mary Oliver 

Owl and Other Fantasies by Mary Oliver

West Wind: Poems & Prose Poems by Mary Oliver

Only Companion: Japanese Poems of Love and Longing, translated by Sam Hamill

Of Being Numerous by George Oppen

Why Not by Joel Oppenheimer 

100 Poems from the Chinese, ed. by Kenneth Rexroth

The Dead and the Living by Sharon Olds

Strike Sparks by Sharon Olds

The Distances by Charles Olson

In Cold Hell, In Thicket by Charles Olson 

Spearmint and Rosemary by Charles Olson

The Ink Dark Moon by Onono Komachi and Izumi Shikibu, trans. by Jane Hirshfield and Mariko Aratani

Primitive by George Oppen 

The Yellow Floor by Gil Ott

Right under the big sky, I don't wear a hat by Hosai Ozaki, tr. Hiroaki Sato

Great Balls of Fire by Ron Padgett 

Selected Poems by Kenneth Patchen

Notes Towards a Family by John Perlman

Three Years Rings by John Perlman

Ariel by Sylvia Plath 

Collected Poems by Sylvia Plath 

Plath: Poems by Sylvia Plath (Everyman's Library Pocket Poets) 

Collected Early Poems by Ezra Pound

The Yuan Chen Variations by F. T. Prince

Collected Poems by Sally Purcell

Clouded Sky by Miklós Radnóti

Droles de Journal by Carl Rakoski 

Raising the Dead by Ron Rash 

The Waiting Room at the End of the World by Jeff Rath

zen tele-grams by paul reps

The Heart's Garden, The Garden's Heart by Kenneth Rexroth

Jerusalem the Golden by Charles Reznizoff

Book of Images by Rainer Maria Rilke 

Dunio Elegies by Rainer Maria Rilke (translated by David Young)

New Poems (1908), the Other Part by Rainer Maria Rilke (tr. Snow)

Uncollected Poems by Rainer Maria Rilke (trans. by Edward Snow) 

The Concrete River by Luis Rodriquez

Say Uncle by Kay Ryan

Rainswayed Nights by Max Ryan

Awesome Nightfall by Saigyo 

Poems of a Mountain Home by Saigyo

The Kingdom by Frank Samperi

Quadrifariam by Frank Samperi

Spiritual Necessity by Frank Samperi 

Chicago Poems by Carl Sandburg  

Investigative Poetry by Ed Sanders 

Grass and Tree Cairn by Santoka, translated by Hiroaki Sato 

The Morning of a Poem by James Schuyler

Buffalo Head Solos by Tim Seibles

Hammerlock by Tim Seibles 

Collecting Evidence by Hugh Seidman

Selected Poems by Anne Sexton        

The Sonnets by William Shakespeare   

Itinerary by Reginald Shepherd

Sweeping the Light Back into the Mirror by Nathan Shepherdson

Selected Poems by Masaoka Shiki

Axe Handles by Gary Snyder

Turtle Island by Gary Snyder

Elements of San Joaquin by Gary Soto

The Darkness Around Us is Deep: Selected Poems by William Stafford

Learning to Live in the World: Earth Poems by William Stafford

The Battlefield Where the Moon Says I Love You by Frank Stanford

China Basin by Clemens Starck 

Journeyman's Wages by Clemens Starck

Traveling Incognito by Clemens Starck

The Steel Crickert, variations/translations by Stephen Berg

The Color Wheel by Timothy Steele  

Paradise Poems by Gerald Stern

Harmonium by Wallace Stevens

Bunch Grass by Robert Sund

New Math by Cole Swenson

Poems New and Collected by Wisława Szymborska translated by S. Baranczak and C. Cavanagh

View with a Grain of Sand by Wisława Szymborska

Poems to Eat by Takuboku, translated by Carl Sesar

Memoir of a Hawk by James Tate

Return to the City of White Donkeys by James Tate

Collected Poems - Dylan Thomas

Bittersweet by James Tipton

Here, Bullet by Brian Turner

The Invisible Lost Book of Deep Ocean Fish by Robert Vander Molen

Goodstone by Fred Voss 

Argonaut Rose by Diane Wakoski

Cap of Darkness by Diane Wakoski 

Collected Greed Parts 1-13 by Diane Wakoski

Inside the Blood Factory by Diane Wakoski

Helping the Dreamer by Anne Waldman 

Hermit Poems by Lew Welch

The Hotel Wentley Poems by John Wieners

Scenes of Life at the Capital by Philip Whalen 

Severance Pay by Philip Whalen 

Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman 

Blues and Roots/Rue and Bluets by Jonathan Williams

Paterson by William Carlos Williams

Spring and All by William Carlos Williams 

The Prelude by William Wordsworth

Sinking of Clay City by Robert Wrigley 

Littlefoot by Charles Wright

The Beforelife by Franz Wright 

Walking to Martha's Vineyard by Franz Wright

The Branch Will Not Break by James Wright.

Selected Poems by James Wright

This Journey by James Wright

Radiant Silhouette by John Yau

The Tower by W.B. Yeats

Elegy on Toy Piano by Dean Young

River of Stars by Yosano Akiko, tr. S. Hamill & K. Matsui Gibson

Where Time Goes by Sander Zulauf