Bob HicokMy favorite collection by Hicok is Words for Empty, Words for Full. He is not as accessible as some other poets I read, but I love how he creates a scene. In his poem, Whimper, one of my favorite lines is: "...lost if you need to find us/is where we are." And in the poem, In the Loop, there's this line: "...like a scarf left on a train/and nothing like a scarf left on a train,/like the train, empty of everything but a scarf,"
Margaret AtwoodShe writes poetry as well as prose and I love all of her writing. This is one of my favorite poems of hers. It is often anthologized.
This is a Photograph of Me by Margaret Atwood
It was taken some time ago. At first it seems to be a smeared print: blurred lines and grey flecks blended with the paper; then, as you scan it, you see in the left-hand corner a thing that is like a branch: part of a tree (balsam or spruce) emerging and, to the right, halfway up what ought to be a gentle slope, a small frame house. In the background there is a lake, and beyond that, some low hills. (The photograph was taken the day after I drowned. I am in the lake, in the center of the picture, just under the surface. It is difficult to say where precisely, or to say how large or small I am: the effect of water on light is a distortion but if you look long enough, eventually you will be able to see me.) Here are audio/videos of readings.
T. S. Eliot reads The Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock. Maya Angelou recites Still I Rise. Elizabeth Alexander reads Ars Poetic 100. Here are some links to poems and poets I love.
Sharon Olds reads Self Portrait, Rear View to a live audience. Lee-Young Li is a marvelous poet who has a fascinating heritage. He has a few books out and they are all gems. Here is a link to Immigrant Blues. Other Poets to Read:
Mary Oliver's Evidence and Redbird
Billy Collins' Sailing Alone Around the Room Donald Hall's White Apples and the Taste of Stone and Without Ted Kooser's Delights and Shadows and Splitting an Order Kim Addonizio's Lucifer at the Starlite (I have taken six online workshops with Kim and I traveled to Italy to partake in a two-week workshop with her there. She has made my poetry truer; she never lets me flinch.) Here are some you may not have heard of: Jennifer Richter--She taught a Stanford Online course I took and was a major influence on my work. She has two books: Threshold and No Acute Distress. Matt Rasmussen's Black Aperture--Here are a few lines from his work: "At the base/of each bare tree/ someone has spilled/a bucket of shadow." "All night, snow fell/like ash through a glass of water./ Everyone's lawns sleep/under a large empty page." |