Originally Posted by
stlukesguild
Poetry is probably the literary genre I read and have read the most. I enjoy everything from ancient Greek (Homer, Sappho, etc...) and earlier (Biblical poetry, Gilgamesh) through contemporary poets such as Anne Carson, Adam Zagajewski, Yves Bonnefoy, and Geoffrey Hill. There are brilliant works of poetry by non-Western poets that I have greatly admired (Ferdowsi, Wang Wei, Omar Khayyam, Nizami, Hafez, Matsuo Bashō, Akiko Yosano, etc...) but I probably read more poetry from the Romantic/Post-Romantic and early Modern period (1800-1950) by British, French, German, American, and Spanish poets than anything else... with Italian, Russian, and Latin-American falling not too far behind. I can't say this amounts to a favorite style because even within this limited range there are examples of epic poetry, long and short lyric poetry, poetry that rhymes and poetry that doesn't, sensuous lush poetry, and poetry of crystalline simplicity. There are also works of poetry that fall well outside of this range that I count among my absolute favorite including Dante's Comedia, Spenser's Amoretti and Epithalimion, Ferdowsi's Shahnameh, etc...