If you were to introduce someone to Poetry, what collection(s) would you suggest?

[Razeus]

I'm interested in reading some poetry in addition to my literature readings. I don't know where to begin, and I sure as heck don't want to waste time reading someone's babble. What collection of poems and/or author's would you suggest?

[subterranean]

I have Pinguin Modern Poets collection, consisting best poems from Dom Moraes, Kingsley Amis, and Peter Porter..

I love them..very nice, not too complicated to comprehend, funny, and entertaining as well.

[mono]

Hmmm, difficult to say, thinking of the differences of tastes in poetry, ranging from Romanticism to Realism. I would merely suggest a decent poetry anthology that introduces all styles; a good one I have found: Immortal Poems of the English Language, edited by Oscar Williams.
Other than that, there never seems failure in introducing William Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Geoffrey Chaucer, Robert Browning, Elizabeth Barrett-Browning, Rumi, some of the less harsh works of D.H. Lawrence, T.S. Eliot, John Keats, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Arthur Rimbaud, Sylvia Plath, and Robert Frost.
Good luck!

[Molko]

I really enjoy poems from Edgar Allan Poe. The Raven is an absolute must read!!!! :)

[Isagel]

I could not help it - I started a collection thread, so that we can make a collection for you. ( I would also recommend all those collections they use in schools. They will help you to get a broad knowledge of different kind of poetry so that you can find what kind of poetry you like) Welcome to the forum Razeus.

[baddad]

A belated welcome to the forum Razeus! Mono's suggestions are, of course, highly touted poets which would be hard to avoid in any rendering of quality/famous poetry. And Mono knows his stuff!! But I would like to add this thought: Each time period, culture, and country has its poets of merit, and one must probably experimentally read a little from each region you find yourself attracted to in order to get the full rich experience. The spectrum of available poetry is both diverse and mindbogglingly GINORMOUS. Good luck, and share with us the best of what you find.........

P.S. IMHO.......there is some cutting edge poetry being posted on this site....

[kilted exile]

I would suggest reading some stuff by either Norman McCaig or Iain Crichton Smith, both are reasonably easy to read, whilst still dealing with important subjects. The main problem you may have is the use of the scottish dialect.

[mono]

But I would like to add this thought: Each time period, culture, and country has its poets of merit, and one must probably experimentally read a little from each region you find yourself attracted to in order to get the full rich experience. The spectrum of available poetry is both diverse and mindbogglingly GINORMOUS. Good luck, and share with us the best of what you find.........
I entirely agree here, and could not have said it better myself; why I did not even think of it perplexes me. :p
Well, for specific poets . . . hmmm . . . boldfaced I recommend highly for their era/genre. I apologize for any information over-load. :eek:
In terms of old classical (most realism): Geoffrey Chaucer, Ben Jonson, John Donne, William Shakespeare Edmund Spenser, Sir Thomas Wyatt, John Skelton, Christopher Marlowe. These poets, however, I find relatively difficult to read, especially for a beginner trying to decipher all of those alternate Old English spellings.
Good romanticism (for suckers like me): John Keats, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Mary Shelley, Robert Browning, Elizabeth Barrett-Browning, Andrew Marvell, Sir Walter Raleigh, William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Lord Tennyson, Edgar Allan Poe, Lord Byron, D.H. Lawrence, the Brontë sisters, Matthew Arnold, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.
Transcendentalists: Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, William Ellery Channing.
Some revolutionaries/vigilantes during their time: Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, E.E. Cummings, Jack Keruoac, Allen Ginsberg, Lawrence Ferlinghetti.
Beginnings of free verse: T.S. Eliot, Sylvia Plath, Ezra Pound, W.B. Yeats, Robert Frost, William Carlos Williams, Wilfred Owen, Dylan Thomas, Richard Brautigan, W.H. Auden, Langston Hughes.
Modern verse: Raymond Carver, William Stafford, Theodore Roethke, Margaret Atwood, Mary Oliver, Maya Angelou.
Eastern poets (quality over quantity): Rumi, Hafiz, Lao Tzu.
Other non-English good stuff: Dante Alighieri, Petrarch, Arthur Rimbaud, Petronius, Pythagoras, Homer, Virgil, Pablo Neruda.

Whew! Happy reading!

[Nerd]

I love the Romantics: Whitman (LOVE!), Wordsworth, Tennyson, Browning, Emerson (huge emerson fan!), Yeats, &c. You can't go wrong with these babies. :)

[IrishCanadian]

I like this question (hi i'm new here) I'd start them off with something light like R.L. Stevenson and then go into Wilium Butler Yeats. Eventually we'd read lots of Willium Blake and other stuff for the sake of loving it, like Poe and Wordsworth.

[Maxos]

Quite simple question:
my answer is "Canzoniere" (Rerum vulgarium fragmenta) by Francesco Petrarca, the first modern poet and real father of the Renaissance, a book that had a major influence on western literature at least until the nineteenth century and continues to represent a paradigma of that peculiar but very general poetic theory called "Classicism" (Montale is still affected by Petrarch's language in his poems)

I just post here the opening sonnet of the collection, hoping that you could appreciate it anyway, without a translation.


Voi ch'ascoltate in rime sparse il suono
di quei sospiri ond'io nudriva 'l core
in sul mio primo giovenile errore
quand'era in parte altr'uom da quel ch'i' sono,

del vario stile in ch'io piango et ragiono
fra le vane speranze e 'l van dolore,
ove sia chi per prova intenda amore,
spero trovar pietà, nonché perdono.

Ma ben veggio or sí come al popol tutto
favola fui gran tempo, onde sovente
di me medesmo meco mi vergogno;

et del mio vaneggiar vergogna è 'l frutto,
e 'l pentersi, e 'l conoscer chiaramente
che quanto piace al mondo è breve sogno.

[raptor]

I'd recomend Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience by William Blake.

[PistisSophia]

Without hesitation: Poetry: An Introductory Anthology edited by Hazard Adams U of Cal, Irvine.

[Belial]

The best portable, introductory anthology I've come across is 'Staying Alive' ed Neil Astley (Bloodaxe, 2002). Strongly orientated towards recent verse and has a decent amount of translation. Hugely enjoyable. It's what I give to friends who (to paraphrase Dunmore's endorsement) 'don't know they like poetry', and is also one of the two or three books I won't be parted from.

The 'New Penguin Book of English Verse' ed Paul keegan (2000) is a great tome of a thing and prints the poems chronologically, so that you get a sense of the dialogue each poet was writing into. Starts in the 1300s.

Individual poets... Anyone say Lowell? Donne? Milton, TS Eliot,

Actually I've just realised that this thread is from ages ago and has been resucitated. Anyway, I've typed it up now so there.

[subterranean]

Now I'd surely recommend E E Cummings poems :thumbs_up

[vidyanjali]

I would recommend simple ones like Wordsworth first to let the person understand the basics. Romantics are easy to apprecite because their poetry exhibit a truly poetic nature. So Shakespeare, Shelley, Keats, William Blake are good for a start. Some of their poems which must be read is: 'The World is a stage', 'Quality of Mercy', 'Ode to a Nightingale', 'Upon Westminster Bridge', 'The Solitary Reaper', 'Ode to a skylark','Tiger' and many more.

Intellectual poetry like that of John Donne, Pope, T.S.Eliot, etc is a higher level one. Any beginner must necessarily develop a certain sensitivity towards the art of poetry in order to appreciate it...

Vidyanjali.

[jon1jt]

I respectfully disagree with all the above suggestions. I strongly recommend the book, 'The Best Poems of the English Language" selected with commentary by Harold Bloom. Bloom is a genius, providing concise introductions to poems and periods and it's comprehensive. Every house should have one along with, of course, 'The Oxford Book of English Verse' and one on American verse. Waste not a second more, go out and get one!!! Good luck!

[jon1jt]

Consider this: Robert Frost loved carrying around his Oxford Book of English Poetry! There must be something in there for us to enjoy too! (And Frost is, in my mind, the greatest poet of the 20th Century!)