Poetry Reading Group Redux- Nominations

Here is the chance to nominate a couple of poets or poetry compilations for consideration for more in-depth reading by those interested. Limit your nominations to 3 works/collections. Try to chose something you have not read but have wanted to read (or something you haven't read in great depth). Consider how difficult the work nominated will be to come by by the group as a whole. In nominating a collection such as the collected works of Yeats we can always choose a few poems to focus upon. You may wish to add a few details about the poets you nominate. After a given period of time (shall we say 1 week... less?) we'll hold a vote in which we each choose our top 3 choices eliminating all but a few works. The selection will come from a final round of voting.

My first 2 nominations are:

Michael Drayton- Nimphidia, the Court of Faery

Thomas Lovell Beddoes- Selected Poems

Both authors are available on the internet. I read part of the Drayton poem some years ago and nothing by Beddoes.

I'll nominate this one: http://www.amazon.com/Book-Songs-Anc...6298170&sr=8-4

And this one: http://www.amazon.com/Butterflys-Bur...6298388&sr=1-1

And as a third a preferably Elizabethan or nevertheless early translation of Petrarch's Canzoniere.

I'll nominate two volumes of poetry I have recently (yesterday!) purchased but have not yet read:

- Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair: Pablo Neruda
- Les Fleurs du mal: Charles Baudelaire

Hardly unheard of selections (with two threads already floating around on French and Spanish poetry), but both are relatively modern and famous.

Would also not mind Il Canzoniere.

I'd like to nominate Lorca:

http://famouspoetsandpoems.com/poets...ia_lorca/poems

and Robert Graves:

http://www.poemhunter.com/robert-graves/

I'd be happy to do any of the above though.

Three collections: Jackstraws: Poems by Charles Simic / Search Party: Collected Poems by William Matthews / Telephone Ringing in the Labyrinth: Poems by Adrienne Rich

Timon of Athens - Shakespeare

Purgatory - Dante

Goethe - Faust (part 1)

For my 3rd choice I'll nominate the selected poems of the Russian, Marina Svetaeva.

Giacomo Leopardi
Theophile Gautier

I’ll forward these two. Both of them have been on my “to do” list for too long and should be easily available on the internet for all. I don’t have any particular collections or poems in mind, but if one of them did come out I’m sure that we could agree upon a few choice pieces. Originally, I wanted to forward some Eastern poets, something a little further afield, something Chinese, Persian/Arabic but to be honest I wouldn’t know where to even start here properly. However, I would be happy to read whatever is suggested though I think easy, immediate access – as in the internet – has to be a factor so all can get to the material easily.

(I can certainly sympathise with Mac’s suggestion of Purgatory but I think length is an issue for most people too, unless extracts were involved. Maybe another thread, another time, would be a good idea for that one – I know I’d certainly like to go over Dante sometime in a little more depth anyway.)

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Originally Posted by JBI

I'll nominate this one: http://www.amazon.com/Book-Songs-Anc...6298170&sr=8-4

And this one: http://www.amazon.com/Butterflys-Bur...6298388&sr=1-1

And as a third a preferably Elizabethan or nevertheless early translation of Petrarch's Canzoniere.

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Hi JBI
Do you mind me asking where your interest in Classical Chinese poetry comes from?

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Originally Posted by Paulclem

Hi JBI
Do you mind me asking where your interest in Classical Chinese poetry comes from?

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I study Chinese, but beyond that, once you begin to understand it, you realize it is a very interesting area of literature, certainly as if not more interesting than any other number of traditions that get too much discussion time here.

Really though, you have to read it to understand, and that translation I recommended seems to be very accessible for English, especially since it is early 詩 poetry, and therefore more simple folk poetry than elaborate literati poetry.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by JBI

I study Chinese, but beyond that, once you begin to understand it, you realize it is a very interesting area of literature, certainly as if not more interesting than any other number of traditions that get too much discussion time here.

Really though, you have to read it to understand, and that translation I recommended seems to be very accessible for English, especially since it is early 詩 poetry, and therefore more simple folk poetry than elaborate literati poetry.

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That's interesting. My wife tried Chinese at her uni, but didn't get on with it. She's good at German and French. My kids both like Japanese, and the lad has applied to study it at Uni. I'm afraid I'm virtually monolingual though.

Chinese could be a good language to acquire with the opportunities China offers these days. My work colleague has a Chinese wife, and when they were visiting relatives in the summer they were both offered work in language schools. Lucrative too.

1. Poetry of Robert Browning; any of his poems may do. I've been meaning to study him for a while.

2. Any of Percy B. Shelley's work. I've not delved into him either, but really wish to.

Oooh! A couple of interesting suggestions. I love Gautier's tales, but haven't read many of his poems... yet I recently found an on-line translation of his Enamels and Cameos. Robert Browning is also an interesting suggestion... someone I was just thinking that I have barely read myself... although he may certainly not be as unknown to others.

JBI... what have you come across among Elizabethan of other early translations of Petrarch? I know of the Wyatt and Chaucer translation of a few pieces... but little else.

Neruda, Baudelaire, and Leopardi all sound great to me.