(Part 2) Best products from r/Poetry

There's the Giant Book of Poetry which is over 700 pages and basically spans all of written history (from years BC to poets born in the 1980's). There's bound to be something you like in there.

There's also The Vintage Book of Contemporary World Poetry (vintage here refers to the publisher, in case you were thinking "vintage" and "contemporary" were contradictory lol). This book has a wide variety of poets that might be lesser known since they aren't American, but still includes some well loved poets including Pablo Neruda and Seamus Heaney. This is a great one too.

I've recommended this a few times on here but there is also the Best American Poetry Series. It comes out every year. Basically, a prominent poet is chosen as the editor each year and they choose the best (totally subjective, but still) poems that were published in literary magazines that year. While it's limited to American poets, it provides a huge variety of poets both established and emerging. Also, it comes out every year, so that's pretty awesome too. The most recent one is Best American Poetry 2013 whish was edited by one of my favorite poets, Denise Duhamel. Totally recommend it. Good luck, hope this was helpful!

I'm not arguing with your asking of the question. I'm arguing with the idea that the standards are the same between poetry and other arts and therefore poetry isn't important or relevant.

You're holding (many people hold) poetry up to a false standard. Big corporations don't make huge cash from poetry: That's the only way that poetry isn't as highly valued as film, painting or music.

I can assure you to the THINKING public poetry is valued. Maybe not to the GENERAL public.

Now, think really hard about the GENERAL public. They like The Walking Dead, Interstellar, Imagine Dragons, Kanye West, (I'm hesitant to put contemporary art on this list because i suspect the average person doesn't really doesn't know) Jeff Koons, Marina Abramovic, etc etc etc.

What I'm proposing is that that work and the work of those artists has several large, hulking, wampum-powered machines behind them that tell the average person to like them. NPR, NYT, press agencies, ArtForum, paid bloggers, etc, stand beside Jeff Koons and send up fucking fireworks. Why would you not pay attention?

So what does that say about the (non-monetary) value of the work? NOTHING. What does that say about the relevance of the work? Well, that's a more complicated question...

This is a similar question to the one the news industry is going through.

News is devalued because news is powerful and unpredictable and often bites the hand that feeds it. (Sound familiar.) Think about the patrons of the great poets. Think about Jeff Bezos and the Washington Post. (A thin analogy perhaps, I'm not in JB's head: I don't know his intentions (vanity? profit? enlightenment? adventure?))

So is your question: "How can we make poetry THRIVE!?" or "Why isn't poetry thriving?"

or is it:

"Why isn't poetry relevant?"

Because poetry is relevant (because I say so, and you can, too) and its importance is manifold.

Like I said: Poetry can kill or save or lift a people up or clarify thought (a la that very apropos quote via u/purplemarker) or do nothing or slither under your skin.

The great thing about poetry is anyone can do it.

The terrible thing about poetry is anyone can do it.

Writing it requires great intelligence and creativity and blood-curdling persistence.

Writing it only requires a decent pen a brain.

Reading it, however... well, reading it, unlike many other arts... requires the same set of tools that the author/artist possesses. I hadn't thought of that before. That's another INTRINSIC value of poetry. Can't sell it, but there it is.

So, I guess the answer to your question is two-fold: externally poetry isn't as widely appreciated anymore because there are many arts now that require much less of the observer. Poetry will always be "JUST WORDS." (And that's a great thing.) This makes poetry's potential market share ... como sei dici ... umm ... negligible? (That's not exactly the right word, but, moving on...)

[Side note: When you intro a new dynamic format for poetry — slam, parole in libertà, for example — you will bring more consumers into the fold. Some will translate into readers others will return to the popular culture unfazed. So it goes.]

Secondly, a base analogy: poetry is like fucking. It's great. It's risky. It's a challenge. It's invigorating. It's transcendent.

Masturbation is always an option, but it just doesn't have the same charge to it.

No one has to justify the pleasures of sex to you. However, some people don't like it. Some people don't have great experiences, memories, whatever, around it. That's fine. Your experience with fucking shouldn't be hitched to John Smith's sexual realities. You keep fucking (reading, writing) BECAUSE IT'S FUUUUCCCCKING.

And then there's that nasty, inconvenient love part...

And then there's that nasty, inconvenient propagation part...

(I could go on for ever with this analogy.)

Anyway, read poetry and you'll find your answer. Read criticism and you'll find more answers. Surround yourself with poetry and you'll go super saiyan with love and empathy and respect and good will.

Your question is a fine one, the answer isn't so simple. Instead of quoting or linking you to someone else's passion, I told you mine.

Nonetheless, here are some links to enrich yourself that have definitely touched me:

• http://www.writing.upenn.edu/~wh/
  
• http://www.poetryfoundation.org/features/audiolanding
  
• https://soundcloud.com/newyorker
  
• http://www.amazon.com/New-Media-Poetics-Contexts-Technotexts/dp/0262513382/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1417527570&sr=1-1
  
• http://www.amazon.com/Attack-Difficult-Poems-Essays-Inventions/dp/0226044777/ref=sr_1_5?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1417527630&sr=1-5&keywords=charles+bernstein
  
• http://epc.buffalo.edu/authors/bernstein/
  
• http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/30/the-art-of-poetry-no-87-paul-muldoon
  
• http://www.righthandpointing.net/
  
  (Also go see poetry readings.) etc etc etc
  
  Thanks for asking about poetry.

Here are some books I've read that I guess you could call "craft" books. I'm not speaking against craft books. They can be helpful, but again I would remind you that the best teacher is poetry itself. Craft books have to be taken for what they are, which is often that poet's own perspective on poetry that may conflict fundamentally with your own. But, there are some things that are helpful, and I know some of them may seem kind of "basic" but trust me they are helpful. You should never think you have poetry figured out. Once you feel that way I think you've already lost.

Anyway here are some books I've read, not always through classes but some are.
A Broken Thing: Poets on the Line- Edited by Emily Rosko & Anton Vander Zee. This is a collection of short essays by poets on the poetic line. Look at it as a way of collecting ideas about what lines can do, because many of these essays will contradict each other. It's not because one is wrong, it's because the line can do a lot of things. https://www.amazon.com/Broken-Thing-Poets-Line/dp/1609380541/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1524596709&sr=8-1-fkmr0&keywords=a+broken+thing+preston+the+line

The Making of a Poem by Mark Strand and Eavan Boland is a great book if you want to study forms more closely. It is an anthology of poetic forms, so it gives you the basic "rules" of the form, and then a ton of old and modern examples of the form. A good way to do a close study of specific forms. https://www.amazon.com/Making-Poem-Norton-Anthology-Poetic/dp/0393321789/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1524596728&sr=1-1&keywords=making+of+a+poem

Sound:
Two come to mind. One is The Sounds of Poetry: a Brief Guide by Robert Pinsky. This is one that will feel somewhat basic because Pinsky frames it for beginners, but I promise it is helpful to review. He really understands sound better than most. https://www.amazon.com/Sounds-Poetry-Brief-Guide/dp/0374526176/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1524596743&sr=1-1&keywords=sounds+of+poetry

Two, if you want to understand meter better, which every poet should, this is the best book on meter: Poetic Meter and Poetic Form by Paul Fussell. It's out of print but you can probably find a copy at a local library, or at a university library. You may have to pay for access to it, but it's cheaper than a $100 for a used copy.

Finally, Singing School by Robert Pinsky. Again, going to feel a bit basic. The whole book's purpose is to teach you to write and read poetry by doing imitations. Do not devalue the importance of imitating better poets than yourself. Every poet, even Keats, started by doing imitations. This book is a good guide to starting a practice of imitating. Imitations actually help you discover yourself as a writer better because you realize where you can and can't sound like another poet. Those are good things because often those can't's are what you find to be the things that make you unique. It also just really hones some basic skills every poet should have.
https://www.amazon.com/Singing-School-Learning-Studying-Masters/dp/0393348970/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1524596763&sr=1-1&keywords=singing+school

Hope this helps! Best advice I can give you is read actual poetry and write every single day.

Man, yesterday I was all ready to write an essay about this, I have it like 1100 words in and lost momentum, mostly because I revisited another race-poetry kerfuffle a friend of mine got in a couple years back, or, really more a brother of a friend but anyway, it really dissuaded me from bothering putting my opinion out there in a more official manner. I'm just going to give some bullet points here, I may finish the essay and post, still very much on the fence. (edit—looks like I spent a lot of time on this post now, great.)

Hicok's essay in my eyes: It is kinda like an old hippie who used to make money selling merch about air and water pollution who noticed a dip in sales, and he is grappling with his own selfish desire to sell as much merch as he used to sell, and the comfort that the air and water are getting better which is why his merch isn't selling, and ending at it being good for everyone even if he's taking a personal financial hit. And damn did he repeat so many times how great he thought it was. He was terrified as being seen as a self-pitying rich white man for expressing his feelings at a situation he and many others in his milieu are experiencing. The essay wasn't aimed at me, though in a number of ways we're similar-ish, I think he's putting too much weight on his sexual/racial status and not enough on a possible lack of keeping up with the times, or more likely, just that people are excited by the new. He's the seasoned. He's also afforded many opportunities because of his connections and reputation, which he acknowledges. For me it was too long by quite a bit, I thought he spent too much of the essay reiterating how good multiculturalism is for literature and the world—we agreed with you the first ten times you said it in various ways—especially when the method of the day is to cherry-pick quotes out of context, which Yu definitely did. Onto that.

Yu's response was more combative than I felt Hicok's essay called for, if it was supposed to be a part of a discussion and not an irritated yelp review. He treated Hicok's essay like an editorial as opposed to a personal essay, which it seemed to me to clearly be. Yu saw it as a call to action, even pointing to the so-called hypocrisy of having the spotlight put upon him for a piece that laments losing the spotlight. Who do you think was directing that spotlight? People outraged that someone might be a little bummed they're not as cool as they used to be. The first sentence Yu quotes is cherry-picked to not even show the entire sentence, some bush-league shit right there, very disengenuous. Maybe I noticed it more because I'd just read Hicok's essay so it was fresh in my mind, but it put me on edge right away with its trickiness. Here's a little bit I'd drafted regarding that quote:

>His selective quote early on omits a section that undercuts his point of Hicok being an old straight white man crying on his mountain of gold. Here is the fuller quote with the omitted section included. “In American poetry right now, straight white guys are the least important cultural voices, [as was inevitable, given how long we’ve made it difficult for others to have their say.]”

>This is an example of trying to make a simple point and couching it in an apology because people are so reactionary. I would argue that it’s a valid point, due to supply and demand. The straight white male writer’s perspective has saturated the market and while there will still be a demand for that perspective, with more options there will be fewer readers of any given poem, especially if it's more of the same perspective that had been readily available before. By taking the second half of the sentence away, Yu transforms the use of the word ‘important’ into one of ‘prominence’, whereas in context it is to be understood as ‘needed’.

Yu does rightly point to problematic language in the "inversion of the hierarchy" but it also seems to be out of line with the rest of Hicok's essay which is praising the levelling playing field. If I were workshopping that essay I'd recommend rephrasing. But I'd also say that he tried to hard not to offend people... yet here we are.

Yu then sites data that's kinda relevant, but not entirely. Hicok said that it's something he's noticing and not something that is canonical. Yu even calls Hicok's observations a 'harbinger'... then he sites Pulitzer numbers... see how those don't line up? Yu should have sited, among others, Amazon sales, but then he'd be faced with the fact that neither of them addressed, which is that the majority of people don't buy poetry to read it closely. The top 30-50ish is almost entirely stuff clearly bought for an English class (Homer, Chaucer, Shakespeare, Maya Angelou—Joy Harjo has a bump for being the Laureate which is rad, she's a great poet), a couple celebrities, and mostly Instagram poets. An example of one of their highlighted poems (in its entirety) would be:

>Distance often gives you a reason to love harder.

That's right. An idiom reworded to be worse. And there are quite a few poets of that ilk in the top 20 (Claudia Rankine's in the top 30 to which is good, I have her collection "Don't Let Me Be Lonely" in my 'to read soon' stack). Hicok didn't seem to be talking about the apparatus of publishing or the established canon, he was talking about hype, about the poets who were being talked about, who're going the poetry version of viral. Kind of like how Richard Siken was the hottest shit for awhile around Crush. Maybe he still is, but my point is that people are drawn especially to the new, to new discoveries, new voices. Nick Flynn is another one kind of around that era who was 'hot' around the release of his first collection Some Ether and Another Bullshit Night in Suck City(both around $5 used with shipping at those links, both great books in case even one person reads this haha). Poets sometimes will get 'hot' around their first collection or around prizes. Hicok was just saying that in addition to lower sales (I think he specifically says readers, but, ipso facto, the only real metric is sales) he noticed that the 'hottest' writers were of a more multicultural background than he.

Yu points to Hoagland, which is where I went to right away while reading Hicok's essay. I guess I'm of a somewhat different viewpoint because I've never seen poetry as a way for me to confess my life story, but as a way to entertain. I'll add in some real life elements if they fit and are better than fiction, but I've never seen first person poetry as being strictly the person's voice and read all of Hoagland's What Narcissism Means to Me as an exaggerated/invented persona with some real life elements likely worked in and shrugged at the pov. Someone brought up the controversy when I was in grad school and I revisited the poem and yeah, there's certainly problematic areas and Hoagland's narrator was a bit too close to his own POV that the tribalism he expressed wasn't properly addressed...

There were two other recent dust-ups in the poetry community regarding race in the last decade that I know of: the aforementioned poem "How To" by Anders Carlson-Wee in The Nation—here's a NYT article on the controversy and the Yi-Fen Chou/Michael Derrick Hudson issue from Prairie Schooner and Best American Poetry. Here is Sherman Alexie's essay regarding the BAP selection. I think both are pretty silly to be honest. In "How to" the voice is pretty clearly not the poet, but it didn't have anything racial in it. Perhaps I've just spent more time around homeless people but nothing in the poem made me think that the speaker was black or white. It wasn't important to the poem or to me. I was more concerned with small inconsistencies in the voice but even that was tolerable. Calling it 'ableist' is absurd. I'm saddened that the poetry editors felt forced to put that apology up, whether it was pressure on them from the outside, or from higher up editors scared of the wrath of Twitter. The Yi-Fen Chou issue is interesting mostly because nothing in the poem has anything to do with the pseudonym, there's no appropriation of anything other than using a fake author name. I don't recall the poet's reasoning, but it is intriguing that people gave so much of a shit. It shows that the cover letter does matter as much as the poem, to some people, but for not for elitism, for inclusivity (Alexie's essay is really good, if you haven't read it I highly recommend it). But, not many journals claim to read submissions blind, that incident reminds you of that. What really bugged me the most about that whole story was that Prairie Schooner didn't accept simultaneous submissions at the time, (I know more than the average bear about literary magazines from my years of research and reading) and in Hudson's BAP notes he talked about 49 rejections prior to publication. I know how long it can take if you're simultaneously submitting, to pull a poem from being submitted and waiting until you get all replies if you want to submit it to a journal that doesn't take SS's. It's possible but unlikely that the poem was actually only submitted to Prairie Schooner. Sorry, long aside there)

I've run a certain Haiku exercise with great success. You may need to alter the exercise to make it more accessible for your non-native speakers, but maybe you can find a way to make some or all of it work:

Start with a brief, accessible description of Haikai no Renga. Have the students pass a piece of paper around and create their own version that captures the spirit of the exercise.

Next, give a brief history on Basho and the way he morphed Linked Verse into Haiku. Go over the subtle intricacies of traditional Haiku, everything beyond the simple syllabic rules--cutting (kiru), seasonal references (kigo), etc. Have the students create their own classical haikus.

Finally, using Haiku as a base, give the students some insight into the incredible formative power of translation. The introduction to Hass' Essential Haiku is a goldmine of eloquent insight.

A highly effective professor once had my class read different translations of Rilke's [Archiac Torso of Apollo] (https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/archaic-torso-apollo) and discuss the differences, something else you might want to try.

Good luck, hope this suggestion helps!

As for reading, check out The Poetry Foundation. They have a huge archive of poetry for you to check out. Hang out in this subreddit and read the poems posted. If you like a poem, post a comment and ask which poets are similar to that style, then look them up. The OCPoetry subreddit has a wealth of original poetry content - but keep in mind that the caliber of work there will obviously be mixed. But it's good to see the contributions of ordinary people, either as a way of engaging with a community or as a barometer of your own abilities once you start writing.

And as for writing, I can't recommend this book enough: Ted Kooser's Poetry Home Repair Manual. It's worth the 10-15 bucks or whatever to order it. It contains lots of examples of poetry from many authors, and Kooser's advice is indispensable.

And always remember - with any art, you want to take in more than you put out. Read more than you write. Absorb everything you can. I get the impression that most mediocre OCpoetry that I read is probably written by people who haven't taken the time to actually read poetry. It's essential. Good luck!

In grad school, I taught an Intro to Creative Writing course and poetry was, by far, the hardest to get students into. They all had read the usual Frost, Yeats, Williams, etc. and knew about alliteration, metaphor, etc., but they didn't know anything about how poetry was written now or who wrote it. I'd recommend Legitimate Dangers for an anthology or any good literary journal for new stuff online, just to get a sense of if you like any of it. Once you find a poet you like, check out their bio to see where they've been published and then look to those journals for similar work.

If you want modern American Poerty I HIGHLY recommend this [book] (http://www.amazon.com/Outlaw-Bible-American-Poetry/dp/1560252278).

It covers so many of the best poems by many of the famous Contemporary Beat Poets. As well as incredible lesser known beat's like DA Levy, and Bob Wallace. Some of my favorites, are Richard Brautigan, Bukowski, Jack Micheline, Ray Bremser, Neal Cassady. There is even, an incredible poem by Jackson Pollock.

Most of his poems are available in some form online, but I highly recommend this volume: https://smile.amazon.com/Complete-Poems-Fragments-Volumes-II/dp/0701188413

The editor has gone back to the manuscripts, as well as letters from Owen to his mother, siblings, and other poets (notably Siegfried Sassoon) and given a comprehensive two-volume set containing every known poem and fragment, as well as drafts, in chronological order. You can actually viscerally feel Owen's resolve steeling as he matures as a poet, reading this alongside "Collected Letters" - I don't understand why Owen isn't really taught at all here in the USA...

Joy: You may be familiar with the German photographer, August Sander, who did many portraits during the years of the Weimar Republic. Poet, Adam Kirsch, did a book of poems inspired by Sander's work. The title is "Emblems of the Passing World". The preview on Amazon's website includes several photos and accompanying poems. You may want to have a look. I think your project sounds wonderful.

https://www.amazon.com/Emblems-Passing-World-Photographs-August/dp/1590517342

What you want to publish is called "ekphrastic" poetry BTW.

PDF scan here.

This essay is from Harold Bloom's excellent poetry anthology The Best Poems of the English Language which I highly recommend.

No specific feedback on that poem (I honestly don't think it would help you at this point, if you're just starting out), just some general advice:

It takes a long time and a lot of work to become a good poet. Just try to write regularly and read poetry regularly - every day, or at least 4-5 days a week, if you can. Most of what you write will be pretty bad, and some of what you read you won't fully understand. But that's okay. You'll improve as you write your first few (dozen, hundred) pieces.

>I've never taken a poetry class

There are lots of resources you can use on your own. There are many resources online, and if you want a book to get your feet a little wetter check out one of the following:

http://www.amazon.com/How-Write-Poem-John-Redmond/dp/1405124806

http://www.amazon.com/Wingbeats-Exercises-Practice-Scott-Wiggerman/dp/0976005190/ref=pd_bxgy_14_2?ie=UTF8&refRID=1444QQJWP5YABHPKME64

http://www.amazon.com/Crafty-Poet-Portable-Workshop/dp/193613862X/ref=pd_bxgy_14_3?ie=UTF8&refRID=1444QQJWP5YABHPKME64

Nimenoz, nice first attempt. You should read this if you're interested in the historical basis for haiku and why certain elements are included and other elements not included in traditional haiku. I guarantee your haiku writing will improve dramatically in a small amount of time.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Essential-Haiku-Versions-Basho/dp/0880013516

Here's a sneak peak: http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/poets/g_l/haas/haiku.htm

One of my favorite poetry books is "A Book of Luminous Things: An International Anthology of Poetry," edited by Czeslaw Milosz. The poems aren't difficult to understand yet are diverse and really wonderful. https://www.amazon.com/Book-Luminous-Things-International-Anthology/dp/0156005743/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=A+Book+of+Luminous+Things&qid=1565830406&s=gateway&sr=8-1

You might look into an anthology for this age range. Something like this.

Alternatively, a project aimed at this age range. Something like this. (My personal favorite is #8!)

The best book I have ever read about writing poetry is Richard Hugo's The Triggering Town: Lectures and Essays on Poetry and Writing. I honestly cannot recommend it highly enough.

Here are some choice quotes from the book.

I don't either. I've started reading http://www.amazon.com/Wingbeats-Exercises-Practice-Scott-Wiggerman/dp/0976005190 and one of the first things the author says is to write everyday. Even if it doesn't feel like it's your best.

I think this practice sharpens you for when you get those moments of inspiration. I also think we are not the best judge of our work. Several people will see it and they will determine if it speaks to them.

Now I should follow that book's advice and write a poem today!

edit: grammar fix.

You can check out modern visual or concrete poetry. At least two anthologies (The Last Anthology https://tactileword.files.wordpress.com/2012/05/vispoanthology.pdf and https://www.amazon.com/Anthology-Concrete-Poetry-Emmett-Williams/dp/098513643X) and lots of webzines you can examine and join with your works. As a matter of fact I am an editor of Zinhar, a web and printed zin for visual poetry in Turkey. You can see our work at https://www.flickr.com/photos/zinhargaleri

​

Best

I know this was a month ago, but check out the Restored Edition of Ariel here: http://www.amazon.com/Ariel-Facsimile-Manuscript-Reinstating-Arrangement/dp/0060732601/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1418412768&sr=1-1&keywords=ariel+plath

The original was published by Hughes, who reorganized the collection and left out a couple poems. It might have what you're looking for.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0803259786/?tag=googhydr-20&hvadid=175889210347&hvpos=1t1&hvnetw=g&hvrand=16092539645369287285&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=b&hvdev=t&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9015276&hvtargid=kwd-5336653994&ref=pd_sl_54wk6f3vk6_b

Best book I've come across.

Some examples:

The Norton Anthology of Poetry

The Best Poems of the English Language: From Chaucer Through Robert Frost

The Vintage Book of Contemporary World Poetry

If you're interested in writing poetry, I recommend picking up The Triggering Town by Richard Hugo.

You might want to look into Robert Hass's translations of haiku by Basho, Buson, and Issa.

Cleaned up: https://www.amazon.com/dp/0803259786/

here: https://www.amazon.com/Triggering-Town-Lectures-Essays-Writing/dp/039333872X