poetry book club: four books that changed my writing
I think that reading is one of the most fruitful activities a poet can undertake, because it is such a varied source of inspiration.
Inspiration can come in many forms, from immersing yourself in your environment to listening to music. For me, reading other poets has been my greatest source of inspiration, because I can see the way in which theme and craft mingle in a successful poem or group of poems. Reading can benefit poets in the same way that studying art history benefits painters and watching sports reels benefits athletes.
While I will read any book of poetry, any time and any place, there have been a small handful of books of poetry that have altered the course of my writing. The four books below have broadened my subject matter or changed the way I see language.
1. An Atlas of the Difficult World: Poems 1988-1991 by Adrienne Rich
When I was in college, I immersed myself in women writers. I felt that the traditional canon of poets didn’t necessarily speak to my experience as a woman at the end of the twentieth century. So, of course, I read a lot of Adrienne Rich. While I enjoyed her early poetry, because it is so full of rebellion and rage, I fell in love with An Atlas of the Difficult World.
Many of the themes Rich addresses throughout her work, from social justice to the complexity of human relationships, coalesce in this collection. Her rage is still here, but it is muted and mired in ambiguity. By reading this book, I realized that there is more than one way to write when in conflict with one’s culture.
2. Ultramarine by Raymond Carver
While I was openly reading rebellious women poets in college, I was secretly crushing on defiant male poets. Raymond Carver topped my list of favorites. One of the strengths of this collection is that Carver reveals the beauty in that which is broken and discarded. For instance, his poem “The Car” uses a repetitive chat to mediate on his conflicted relationship with his broken down car. He describes it alternatively as “The car without brakes” and “Car of my sleepless nights.” When I’m stuck on a poem, I still use a chant to break up my ideas, years after first reading this poem.
3. The Complete Poems: 1927-1979 by Elizabeth Bishop
Through a strange coincidence in course planning, I took a series of classes in graduate school that required me to read Elizabeth Bishop’s complete collection five times in a row. In one semester, I had to read it twice for two separate classes. As I read Bishop’s poems over and over (and over), I gained a greater sense of awe and admiration for what she accomplishes in a single poem. Years after graduate school, I still return to this book and her work.
Bishop achieved a precision in her language that seems almost inhuman. Whether she used form, as she did famously with villanelles and sestinas, or in her free verse, each word she employed takes on multiple nuances and connotations.
While I aspire to her control of language, I don’t envy her process. (She was notorious for revising poems upwards of 20 times.) If you are interested in learning more about Bishop’s obsessive revision techniques, I would strongly recommend picking up Edgar Allen Poe & The Juke-Box, a new collection of Bishop’s unfinished work.
4. Poems for the Millennium: The University of California Book of Modern & Postmodern Poetry Edited by Jerome Rothenberg and Pierre Joris
I will warn you that this series of books could cause severe back strain. This three volume anthology tops 800 pages each, and chronicles all of the major experimental poetry movements, beginning with William Blake and moving through to the twentieth century. Taken together, this collection of poems provides a rich chronicle of our relationship with (and against) language and form in poetry.
Now, I don’t profess to have read all, or even most, of the poems in these anthologies. It would take a lifetime. I prefer to use these volumes as a source of quick inspiration. I can select a volume, flip open to a random page and learn something new, maybe picking up a writing technique or a line fragment along the way.
There they are — the top four books that have inspired me and deepened my understanding of what poetry can accomplish. I’m convinced that without them, I’d be a different writer.
Now it’s your turn. What are the four books that have changed your writing?
~Jessica.
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Hard to pick just four, but these are certainly among those with the greatest impact - aside from Mother Goose and Dr. Seuss - on how I hear poetry: Roots and Wings: Poetry from Spain 1900-1975, edited by Hardie St. Martin; Ai, Cruely/Killing Floor; Lucille Clifton, Next; Tomas, Transtormer, The Great Enigma (Robin Fulton trans.).
It is a (minor) petpeeve of mine when people turn a question around to suit their own purposes, and completely avoid the original intention of the person who wrote the question, which is of course the perfect lead-in for me to do just that:
Four Events that Most Changed My Writing:
1. The death of my father when I was 18
2. My sister giving me a copy of “Picnic, Lightning” by Billy Collins
3. The birth of my two boys, the suns around which I circle
4. The death of my mother when I was 36
The first resulted in some very angry poetry. The second forced me to question if what I was writing was in fact poetry. The third infused my work with an unquestioning sense of wonder over things I previously took for granted. The fourth tempered the third and instilled a more thoughtful look at life (and death).
Sorry to go off topic, but Dave’s post seemed so lonely…
I love this question. Four books that most changed or influenced my writing life, if I had to pick four:
The Complete Poems of Anne Sexton has to be on this list. Stumbled on this while reading much dustier assigned poetry in junior high, and the raw power of it all felt like it was going to blow the back of my skull off. There are lines of hers that will always be written on me.
The Dead and The Living, Sharon Olds. This was one I carried everywhere for years, read and read and re-read. Olds has always struck a chord with me, her voice, the shape she gives to her work.
The Great Fires, Jack Gilbert. This one… ah. He just transformed everything for me. This is in my “still carry everywhere” collection. These poems transcend the personal for me; this is god on paper.
And tied, I’ll say, sneaking in a fifth: (1) Long Walks In The Afternoon, by Margaret Gibson. She’s my godmother, and growing up in her company gave a face and reality to the work of poetry. (2) The Brand X Anthology of Poetry. Much beloved, dogeared, pieces scribbled down and passed on to friends. Among other reasons, I love this collection for teaching me not to take poetry TOO seriously.
The pleasure and pain of this kind of question is that my answer will change every ten minutes. With that in mind I offer:
1. The Collected Poems of W.B. Yeats — sitting in the quiet of the library when I was a teenager and realizing I could understand what a poem says and how it says it.
2. Selected Poems, W.H. Auden, when I found what voice and form could do for, with and against each other
3. Les Fleurs du Mal by Charles Baudelaire when I first realized what could be said in and by a poem
4. The Outlaw Bible of American Poetry — helped me decide to quit working on my PhD and start paying attention to poetry that’s alive outside the academy.
I own and read a number of poetry books. On of my favorite poets is Gary Snyder. The man mezmorizes me.
But, the year 1995 was, for me, a profound and pivotal year, with regard to my poetry. I had written casually up to this point of my life, having gotten started in 1961, writing lyrics for original songs for my first rock & roll band — we even recorded a couple of those.
But writing was more in the backgraound of my life. I enjoyed it, but was not compelled to write. However, four powerful events occurred in my life, in the year 1995 that sparked my writing poetry in earnest - and I hasn’t slowed since.
1. The first thing that happened that year; I had a business partner renege on a business contract that caused me significant financial setback, one from which I’m still recovering. That stirred a bitter sense of betrayal in my soul.
2. One of the best things that happened to me in my life then followed, rocketing my spirit sky high. I invited to become part of Lucasfilm LTD! I was exhilarated, having my office on Skywalker Ranch, immersed in the remarkable energy of that environment — it set my creative juices flowing like a raging river.
3. Right on the heels of that remarkable positive shift in my life, I experienced the greatest horror of my life to date. My 18-year-old son Aaron was killed. I was totally devastated to the point of a nervous breakdown. Thankfully, I was blessed by friends and family that drew near, and I was fortunate that Lucasfilm stood solidly by me — but I was in the throws of debilitating depression.
4. In the midst of these tumultuous emotional episodes I discovered something that slowly began to lift me back up. Bill Moyers was doing an 8-part special on PBS entitled: “The Language of Life - A Festival of Poets”. The program slowly pulled me in, show by show, until I was consumed by it.
Torn between unfathomable grief and great creative joy — I was going mad. I finally lost myself in Bill’s series of shows focused on remarkable poets and their work. Subsequently I bought the book that was spawned by that series, and which bears the same title.
I still read it frequently. I also have the audio recorded from the series, with interviews and poets reading their work. For me, it is incredibly inspiring. It saved my life, and accelerated my poetry writing dramatically. I still feel that poetic spark ignited by “The Language of Life - A Festival of Poets”.
1995 was truly the best of times and the worst of times in my life. Thankfully, the ultimate result is a ever-growing passion to write — especially poetry. That, and my art, now fill my spirit — as does the love of my wife and my two surviving children.
Thank you Bill!
I agree that it is very hard to limit this choise to just four. I have to honostly say though that Erica Jong’s early poetry really blew my hair back. She showed me what was possible in poetry. Sometime after that I picked up Natalie Goldberg’s “Writing Down the Bones” and the music of story and poetry has never stopped. My favorit book of highly poetic story writing is “Any small thing can save you”…a wonderful book.
-Lynn
Thre are many books. However two I read fairly recently. Those truly changed my perspective.
1) A Poetry Handbook by Mary Oliver
2) The Sounds of Poetry by Robert Pinsky
I have reviewd them here:
http://firmlyrooted.blogspot.com/2008/06/guiding-lights.html
I cannot really say that any one book, poetry or otherwise, has influenced my life or the expression through words I put on paper. I have always believed we are all a composite of our experiences. Poets leaning to the psychiatry of the pen (or keyboard) to let out inner demons. The comments by Nibblepoems and Rob Kistner pretty well get into the grist of life that has the most volatile impact upon ones literary efforts. This site does not have the gigabytes necessary for me to reveal mine. At sixty-five, I tote a big load.
However, I tend to lean on the words and influences of persons considered to be the masters of story and poetry. I pulled four books off the shelf for your consideration.
Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman, 1855 edition - This genius gave so much to the world of poetry. He opened up the craft to common people and gave us all ‘free verse’. Whether you agree with his politics or his life’s preferences is not relevant to the impact of the earthy prose he left. When I read the book I smell the expressions he uses to impact my awareness of life. My grandmother gave me this book which she first acquired in the late 1800’s.
Poe’s Poems published by Ward, Lock, Bowden and Company, 1879 edition- This book was also given to me by my grandmother which she read when in high school. It was the first book of poetry I had ever seen. I dearly love Poe. Although considered part of the Romantic Movement in the early 1800’s, Poe is a true science fiction writer, maybe the first. His delving into the dark side of human nature and his depth of expressive love, longing, and hopelessness is a reflection of his inner turmoil and incompleteness. Things we all carry with us.
Collected Poems 1947-1980 by Allan Ginsberg - What can I say? If you have ever picked up a work by Ginsberg it only fuels the desire to read more. If angst can be expressed poetically then Ginsberg has reached into the American psyche, pulled it out of our posterior orifice and given the world a visceral voyage into what makes good old USA tick. He was is as relevant today as he was in the time that influenced his writing. Reading Ginsberg gives you a reality check.
Robert Frost: Collection of Poems, Prose, and Plays by Robert Frost: Robert, you are our America’s Poet! Frost was a poet when he was in high school and he continued until his death a poetic catalog of everything that we brush up against in society. While a great deal of poetry today strikes a disingenuous or menacing tone, Frost allows one to become part of the optimistic view of life. If you have ever visited or lived on a farm, where people really worked the earth and care for animals with their hands, you have brushed up against Robert Frost. Every poet should read this work and consume the expressive ability he gave us in his writings to feel the how fields of crops speak to us.
Well now, I think that about does it. Thanks for the opportunity. This was an interesting and soul searching prompt.
Great post, Jessica. I have put your books on my poetry wish list. Sigh.
Here are four from me, which date to my college days:
Collected poems of Federico García Lorca, Yeats, Wallace Stevens, Emily Dickenson, plus the Norton Anthology of Modern Poetry.
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