New to poetry

[Nadia Scores]

One of my favorite poets is Robert Frost. Frost is known for creating simple poems that can be interpreted on many different levels. He also loved to inject everyday, colloquial speech into his poems. He was big on sounds, often talking about how the sounds of words carry more meaning than the words themselves. In his classic poem, “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening,” Frost seems almost hypnotized by the woods. He is compelled to stop and stare at them on the freezing, dark winter evening. His language is simple and beautiful and the lines are difficult to forget long after you have put the poem down. If you want to know more about Frost or even about poetry in general, visit Shmoop. It will really help you start things off.

[March Hare]

There is a Poetry handbook by Mary Oliver which isn't too boring. And I remember one by John Hollander or John Gardner, I think, which I found interesting and informative.

A nice anthology of mostly shorter English (country, not language) poems was edited by Robert Penn Warren. Six Centuries of English Verse, maybe.

[stlukesguild]

Too often Blake is underestimated. On the surface his Songs of Innocence and Experience are accessible... but they have more depth than that one might initially grasp. A good deal of Blake's poetry is actually among the most challenging verse to read. Personally, I would recommend a good anthology and just pick and choose. When you find something that really grabs you, then look into reading more by that author.

[mayneverhave]

My first major introduction to poetry was the Norton Anthology of English Literature (8th ed.), which gives such a broad selection of the major authors that I could basically read whatever I wanted. My first attractions were to the Romantics, especially Keats, and also Yeats and (somewhat contradictorally) T.S. Eliot.

My early undergrad English classes had us buying so many different anthologies that you can quickly learn the "big players" in literature with only a little scanning.

Also, I agree with stluke. Blake is hardly what I would call an accesible poet.

[JBI]

My first major introduction to poetry was the Norton Anthology of English Literature (8th ed.), which gives such a broad selection of the major authors that I could basically read whatever I wanted. My first attractions were to the Romantics, especially Keats, and also Yeats and (somewhat contradictorally) T.S. Eliot.

My early undergrad English classes had us buying so many different anthologies that you can quickly learn the "big players" in literature with only a little scanning.

Also, I agree with stluke. Blake is hardly what I would call an accessible poet.

Strangely enough, Eliot can, and has been read as a romantic figure, despite the modernist label. The Waste Land, and much of the Four Quartets seem very romantic in fashion, though an argument can be made against that for the Waste Land, and there is still much strife in discourse on that subject. Four Quartets though, is most certainly a romantic poem - he even breaks his rules and directly puts autobiographical bits in there (essentially all section Vs of the poems, with the exception of The Dry Salvages). Of course though, nobody should really read the late Eliot stuff, or even The Waste Land, until they have fed on much of the earlier work.

It seems, as a sort of method, most people begin by jumping in at Wordsworth, and then somehow work back to Jacobean verse, and then forward until they hit modernism. Wordsworth is essentially everyone's introduction to poetry, though personally, mine was, strangely enough, John Donne, by some fluke - I had read a bit of him in one of my classes, and somehow months later ended up picking up the completed poems. From there I went to all the popular canonical poems, then worked my way around, starting with the Romantics, then doubling back, and then forward. Contemporary poetry, which seems my real interest, came late, as is expected - though, I did have a decent grounding in the classics before I read anything substantial, so that helped - I memorized a reference of Greek mythology, so I essentially get every reference without effort. In truth though, the most practical place to start is contemporary poetry, as the sounds and images are rooted in today, though the Romantics are still the introduction of choice for essentially everybody.

[Jozanny]

t seems, as a sort of method, most people begin by jumping in at Wordsworth, and then somehow work back to Jacobean verse, and then forward until they hit modernism. Wordsworth is essentially everyone's introduction to poetry, though personally, mine was, strangely enough, John Donne, by some fluke - I had read a bit of him in one of my classes, and somehow months later ended up picking up the completed poems.

Kind of an odd observation JBI, though there may be some truth to it. Unlike most of you, I am getting on a bit to remember my advanced course work prior to university, but I do remember an unwieldy textbook, and the class focusing on Wordsworth.

I blew up at my mother because she had a Ron McKuen paperback or something--not up to Googling to get it right--and as with many things, feel guilty there, though as far as being a kid goes, I think I used McKuen as an excuse and the blow up had another trigger.

My father, curiously enough, liked Arabic poetry, and read me some in translation, and I found the Beats on my own, as I previously posted, but I think you are right about Wordsworth, at least in formal study.

[mayneverhave]

Kind of an odd observation JBI, though there may be some truth to it. Unlike most of you, I am getting on a bit to remember my advanced course work prior to university, but I do remember an unwieldy textbook, and the class focusing on Wordsworth.

I blew up at my mother because she had a Ron McKuen paperback or something--not up to Googling to get it right--and as with many things, feel guilty there, though as far as being a kid goes, I think I used McKuen as an excuse and the blow up had another trigger.

My father, curiously enough, liked Arabic poetry, and read me some in translation, and I found the Beats on my own, as I previously posted, but I think you are right about Wordsworth, at least in formal study.

You're slightly more lucky than I am. My discovery of poetry was all my own effort - aside from a more cultured cousin of mine handing me a copy of Dylan Thomas's and Oscar Wilde's Collected Poems.

My mother, when she reads, reads Nora Roberts, or some other such nonsense. Wiki says that the woman wrote 165 romance novels. Really, I wonder how much variety is in those 165. Is it really necessary to continuously revisit that genre? My father enjoys ghost-written autobiographies of professional wrestlers.

[JBI]

You're slightly more lucky than I am. My discovery of poetry was all my own effort - aside from a more cultured cousin of mine handing me a copy of Dylan Thomas's and Oscar Wilde's Collected Poems.

My mother, when she reads, reads Nora Roberts, or some other such nonsense. Wiki says that the woman wrote 165 romance novels. Really, I wonder how much variety is in those 165. Is it really necessary to continuously revisit that genre? My father enjoys ghost-written autobiographies of professional wrestlers.

She wrote 165 yes, but didn't actually write them, perhaps. Major romance writers like that often (not saying she did, though it usually is the case with these sort of mass-produced authors) hire ghosts and merely stick their name on the cover. Style like that isn't that difficult to emulate.