Poetry Reading Group Redux- Nominations

[Paulclem]

When should we take this to votes - I think we aught, for the first vote, to cut down all nominations by three, so for instance, 10 people nominated 3 each, then just list your top ten, and the bottom 20 will be cut or something, but we'll have it so we cannot vote for our own nominations, to make things more interesting.

Here are my 10 nominations:

Marina Svetlana
Book of Songs - Ancient chinese Poetry
Baudelaire
Charles Simic
Leopardi
Neruda
Thomas Lovell Beddoes
Browning
Adrienne Rich
Gautier

They all look very intersting. This should be great.

[Virgil]

Hey this is great. I can't wait until we start one.

[LitNetIsGreat]

I think this democracy is taking a little bit too long; can’t we get a good old despotism or monarchy in instead?

I’ve gone through what is been selected, and apart from my choices, obviously, I’ve gone with the following, though it seems a bit odd picking ten when there aren’t that many choices available, maybe we should have chosen less? Anyway these are mine:

1 Pablo Neruda - Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair (solidly number one)
2 The Book of Songs: The Ancient Chinese Classic of Poetry
3 Charles Baudelaire - Les Fleurs du mal
4 Petrarch – Canzoniere
5 Mahmoud Darwish – The Butterfly's Burden
6 Thomas Lovell Beddoes
7 Lorca
8 Rainer Maria Rilke
9 Michael Drayton
10 Robert Browning

I must say though that it depends on the availability of the poems. For me if they are not available online then it is not going to work because it is going to take too long to order things in, and if such is the case from any of the above then I withdraw my vote for them on this basis. More than anything though I just want to get down to the literature as soon as possible. Incidentally, I've picked up the Neruda today from the library so I'm going to read that tomorrow regardless anyway, I was quite interested in him myself and almost nominated him too.

[stlukesguild]

So how are we scoring this vote? 10 points for a poet getting a number 1 vote. 9 for a number 2, etc? Then a final vote on the three finalists with the most votes?

1. Theophile Gautier
2. Robert Browning
3. Giacomo Leopardi
4. Charles Simic - Jackstraws: Poems
5. Federico Garcia-Lorca- Selected Poems
6. Robert Graves
7. Pablo Neruda - Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair
8. Charles Baudelaire - Les Fleurs du mal
9. Rainer Maria Rilke
10. Petrarch – Canzoniere (unspecified translation)

Seriously... there was not a whole lot that I haven't read in part. Gautier seemed a clear first choice for me (seeing we've excluded voting for our own nominations). Browning is someone major I must admit to not having read much of... and I'd certainly like a reason to purchase a good Leopardi translation. Simic, Neruda, Lorca, Neruda, Baudelaire, and Rilke are like old friends... but I wouldn't be adverse to reading them. I just thought I might aim toward someone I'm not so familiar with.

[Virgil]

So i have to pick ten poets for the nomination? Ok.

Rilke
Robert Lowell
Stanly Kunitz
John Ashberry
Walt Whitman
Pablo Neruda
Lorca
Leopardi
Keats
William Matthews

[JBI]

I think we'll have a running vote, and choose 3 or something, so we'll keep the top 10 scorers now, and then go from there.

[mal4mac]

Can we knock Shakespeare, Dante and Goethe off of there - those aren't the right genre...

Besides the list seems to defy the purpose of such a discussion to an extent - I mean, it seems like most people just nominated poets they have already read, or who they could easily make a thread for on their respective subforum.

stlukesguild did not specify genre or length. If you want to start your own 'short poetry for a specific genre' thread then go ahead.

I nominated them because I have either just started reading them, or will in the near future.

[JBI]

stlukesguild did not specify genre or length. If you want to start your own 'short poetry for a specific genre' thread then go ahead.

I nominated them because I have either just started reading them, or will in the near future.

Okay... no need to be rude, but have you read the first post? Poetry not Drama, that knocks off two, and then if you read closely it is trying to deal with something that can be broken into shorter single poems for discussion, so unless you plan on digging out Canti from La Comedia...

There is no need to debase me, as you would note, unlike many of the voters here, and posters, I actually have participated in all our former book clubs, and the whole idea itself originated from just a few of us, who have been participating since the beginning, whereas others have been nominating and not reading, or merely nominating things they have no intention of reading, or are unable to read because a given work is too rare, or too long to be read and broken down easily.

As it is though, nobody has yet voted for them, and by general rule, you cannot, so perhaps this point was frivolous. Seriously though, there is no need for rude remarks - some people just don't understand, I guess, that "poetry reading group" implies poetry and not drama.

[LitNetIsGreat]

I think also it’s because this thread is a carry-over from Paul's thread where we discussed that length was an issue for many people, due to other commitments and reading loads.

Personally, I would certainly be happy to contribute to a separate Dante thread in particular, at a later stage, though at the moment I couldn't fully commit to a full re-reading of this text because it would be too much for me at present.

[mayneverhave]

My 10 selections excluding my own nominations:

- Leopardi
- Shi Jing (Book of Songs)
- Petrarch
- Browning
- Lorca
- Rilke
- Shelley
- Gautier
- Graves
- Robert Lowell

The only problem we run into is selecting from each author. Although I suggested books (Twenty Love Poems and The Flowers of Evil), most of you did not. Among the poets in the list with whom I'm familiar, we'll have to choose selections from Browning, Lorca, Rilke, Shelley, and Leopardi (probably The Canti).

However, from the actual books, we may have to skim down as well. Leopardi's Canti might work, but the Canzoniere is long (366 lyrics?), as is The Book of Songs. Among my nominations, The Flowers of Evil is long, and might have to be edited for this purposes of this group.

For Rilke - perhaps The Duino Elegies and/or Sonnets to Orpheus plus a selection from his shorter lyrics?

The rest of the poets, I leave in your hands.

[OrphanPip]

Since I proposed Amy Lowell, I guess I'll suggest Men, Women and Ghost from 1916, it is in the public domain and available on Project Guttenberg. The collection contains what is probably her most famous poem, "Patterns" as well as some early experimental poetry in free verse, and what Lowell called "polyphonic prose". I don't think she has a chance of being chosen though. haha

[JBI]

Since I proposed Amy Lowell, I guess I'll suggest Men, Women and Ghost from 1916, it is in the public domain and available on Project Guttenberg. The collection contains what is probably her most famous poem, "Patterns" as well as some early experimental poetry in free verse, and what Lowell called "polyphonic prose". I don't think she has a chance of being chosen though. haha

To be honest, I read her "Selected Poems" and wasn't very impressed, so I don't think I'll be reading much more of her, unless she wins. Though, I still get a giggle at the fact Pound dubbed her "hippopoetess" because of her obesity, offensive, but hey, it's still kind of funny.

[OrphanPip]

To be honest, I read her "Selected Poems" and wasn't very impressed, so I don't think I'll be reading much more of her, unless she wins. Though, I still get a giggle at the fact Pound dubbed her "hippopoetess" because of her obesity, offensive, but hey, it's still kind of funny.

I'm not too attached to the nomination anyway. Pound also derided her form of Imagism as "Amygism".

[mortalterror]

So far, there have been almost no names put forward which I would not enjoy reading.

1.Neruda
2.Baudelaire
3.Leopardi
4.Petrarch
5.Rilke
6.Keats
7.Browning
8.Lorca
9.Shi Jing
10.Graves

I could live with any of those. As far as them being known quantities and represented elsewhere on these boards, I just have to wonder if they've already been done as well as they could be. Have they received the full measure of scrutiny which Roethke or Pasternak enjoyed when the Poetry Club reviewed them? While I have read all of the authors I mention above, I don't feel like I've given them the kind of deep reading they deserve, and that's what I'd like to do this time. As far as Baudelaire goes, it's been a decade since I read Flowers of Evil, and I'd gladly accept the opportunity to reacquaint myself with his work.

[Lynne50]

I guess I'll add my two cents since I've been reading more poetry than anything else lately. How about some Russian poets, Akhmatova, Pasternak or maybe Czech Jiri Orten?
Also Louise Gluck, has a new collection out. Haven't read any of them.