Words to Live By
Poetry Month is coming to an end. Events such as poem in your pocket day, which encourages the carrying around of a poem in your pocket; thirty poets, thirty days, a celebration of poets through tweets; and the spring books list, reproduced below, a specially-compiled list of great new collections of poetry, celebrate the power of the poem to provide beauty in the everyday, and soul food for a lifetime.
What I mean by soul food is that the reading of poems amplifies not only our understanding of the world but our feeling of it and for it: we become part of a profoundly personal experience — both the writing of the poem and the event, emotion, or landscape about which the poem is written — and we change through being part of that double experience. The same thing can happen when we read a novel or a memoir or look at a painting or listen to music. One person created an expression of an experience and we received that impression and made it ours, through our experience of it.
Experience broadens the soul, whether through actually living an event or through reading words or viewing images or hearing music. And I believe the broader my soul, the more fully my life is lived, the more my family and friends are loved, the deeper the beauty around me is understood, and the more appreciative I am, for everything.
I read at least one new poem a week (thanks to a wonderful poetry-sharing group I am part of) and I often go back to poems I’ve read to find again and again the beauty, the wisdom, the experience offered in their words.
There are poems that offered all new experiences — The Charge of the Light Brigade by Tennyson, for example, and then there are the ones that reflect my experiences exactly, offering me the comfort of company and of being understood, as in the poem sent to me by a friend, Poet as Housewife by Elisabeth Eybers, with the great final line:
Leave her alone — let her read.
The FSG Book of Twentieth-Century Latin American Poetry
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
edited by Ilan Stavans
Birds, Beasts, and Seas: Nature Poems
New Directions
edited by Jeffrey Yang
Poem in Your Pocket for Young Poets
Harry N. Abrams, Inc.
edited by Bruno Navasky
The Blue Tower
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
by Tomaž Šalamun
Northerners
New Issues Press
by Seth Abramson
Compression & Purity
City Lights Publishers
by Will Alexander
Money Shot
Wesleyan University Press
by Rae Armantrout
Waifs and Strays
City Lights Publishers
by Micah Ballard
American Fanatics
University of Pittsburgh Press
by Dorothy Barresi
Burning of the Three Fires
BOA Editions
by Jeanne Marie Beaumont
Vertigo
Copper Canyon Press
by Marvin Bell
Pinko
Hanging Loose Press
by Jen Benka
The Selected Poems of Ted Berrigan
University of California Press
by Ted Berrigan
Intruder
Alfred A. Knopf
by Jill Bialosky
Poems
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
by Elizabeth Bishop
Talking into the Ear of a Donkey
W.W. Norton & Co.
by Robert Bly
Walking the Dog’s Shadow
BOA Editions
by Deborah Brown
The Infatuations and Infidelities of Pronouns
Bright Hill Press
by Christopher Bursk
Death Obscura
Sarabande Books, Inc.
by Rick Bursky
Solar Throat Slashed: The Unexpurgated 1948 Edition
Wesleyan University Press
by Aimé Césaire
Forest of Eyes: Selected Poems of Tada Chimako
University of California Press
by Tada Chimako
The Sun-fish
Wake Forest University Press
by Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin
Selected Poems
Alfred A. Knopf
by Amy Clampitt
The Whalen Poem
Hanging Loose Press
by William Corbett
The Double Truth
University of Pittsburgh Press
by Chard deNiord
California
Four Way Books
by Jennifer Denrow
Flies
Copper Canyon Press
by Michael Dickman
The Wind Blows Through the Doors of My Heart
Alfred A. Knopf
by Deborah Digges
Sasha Sings the Laundry on the Line
BOA Editions
by Sean Thomas Dougherty
The H.D. Book
University of California Press
by Robert Duncan
Here and Now
W.W. Norton & Co.
by Stephen Dunn
Noose and Hook
University of Pittsburgh Press
by Lynn Emanuel
Click and Clone
Coffee House Press
by Elaine Equi
The Trouble Ball
W.W. Norton & Co.
by Martín Espada
Ian Hamilton Finlay: Selections
University of California Press
by Ian Hamilton Finlay
Night of Pure Breathing
Hanging Loose Press
by Gerald Fleming
The Captain Asks for a Show of Hands: Poems
Graywolf Press
by Nick Flynn
Core Samples from the World
New Directions
by Forrest Gander
Bringing the Shovel Down
University of Pittsburgh Press
by Ross Gay
Aftermath
W.W. Norton & Co.
by Sandra M. Gilbert
The Dance Most of All
Alfred A. Knopf
by Jack Gilbert
Threshold Songs
Wesleyan University Press
by Peter Gizzi
Heart First into the Forest
Alice James Books
by Stacy Gnall
Spindrift
Wake Forest University Press
by Vona Groarke
The Needle
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
by Jennifer Grotz
The Back Chamber
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
by Donald Hall
Things Come On: An Amneoir
Wesleyan University Press
by Joseph Harrington
Selected Poems
Alfred A. Knopf
by Anthony Hecht
Hoodwinked
Sarabande Books, Inc.
by David Hernandez
Words for Empty and Words for Full
University of Pittsburgh Press
by Bob Hicok
Heaven & Earth Holding Company
University of Pittsburgh Press
by John Hodgen
Journal of American Foreign Policy
New Issues Press
by Jeff Hoffman
Sightseer
Persea Books
by Cynthia Marie Hoffman
Crossing State Lines
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
by Bob Holman
That This
New Directions
by Susan Howe
Bone Fires: New & Selected Poems
Sarabande Books, Inc.
by Mark Jarman
Imaginary Logic
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
by Rodney Jones
Space, in Chains
Copper Canyon Press
by Laura Kasischke
Ennui Prophet
BOA Editions
by Christopher Kennedy
I Love a Broad Margin to My Life
Alfred A. Knopf
by Maxine Hong Kingston
Selected Poems
Wake Forest University Press
by Thomas Kinsella
The Chameleon Couch
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
by Yusef Komunyakaa
The Last Usable Hour
Copper Canyon Press
by Deborah Landau
The Book of Men
W.W. Norton & Co.
by Dorianne Laux
Young of the Year
Four Way Books
by Sydney Lea
Testify
Coffee House Press
by Joseph Lease
Sky Burial
Copper Canyon Press
by Dana Levin
News of the World
Alfred A. Knopf
by Philip Levine
lie down too
Alice James Books
by Lesle Lewis
A Hundred Doors
Wake Forest University Press
by Michael Longley
Remnants of Another Age
BOA Editions
by Nikola Madzirov
Becoming Weather
Coffee House Press
by Chris Martin
This Strange Land
Alice James Books
by Shara McCallum
Of Indigo and Saffron: New and Selected Poems
University of California Press
by Michael McClure
The Man Who Wrote On Water
Hanging Loose Press
by Pablo Medina
When I Was a Poet
City Lights Publishers
by David Meltzer
Invisible Strings: Poems
Graywolf Press
by Jim Moore
Dark Archive
University of California Press
by Laura Mullen
Taller When Prone
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
by Les Murray
The Memory of Water
New Issues Press
by Jack Myers
On the Other Side, Blue
Four Way Books
by Collier Nogues
Clean
Persea Books
by Kate Northrop
Songs and Stories of the Ghouls
Wesleyan University Press
by Alice Notley
Metropole
University of California Press
by Geoffrey G. O’Brien
The Cold War
Sarabande Books, Inc.
by Kathleen Ossip
How Long
Coffee House Press
by Ron Padgett
Thread
New Directions
by Michael Palmer
Traveling Light
W.W. Norton & Co.
by Linda Pastan
The Animals All Are Gathering
University of Pittsburgh Press
by Bradley Paul
Double Shadow
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
by Carl Phillips
The Hunger Moon
Alfred A. Knopf
by Marge Piercy
Selected Poems
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
by Robert Pinsky
Apples from Shinar
Wesleyan University Press
by Hyam Plutzik
In a Beautiful Country
Four Way Books
by Kevin Prufer
Voyager
University of California Press
by Srikanth Reddy
Diwata
BOA Editions
by Barbara Jane Reyes
Tonight No Poetry Will Serve
W.W. Norton & Co.
by Adrienne Rich
Illuminations
W.W. Norton & Co.
by Arthur Rimbaud
Otherwise Elsewhere: Poems
Graywolf Press
by David Rivard
The Wrecking Light
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
by Robin Robertson
Paper Anniversary
University of Pittsburgh Press
by Bobby C. Rogers
Undone
New Issues Press
by Maxine Scates
Red Clay Weather
University of Pittsburgh Press
by Reginald Shepherd
the new black
Wesleyan University Press
by Evie Shockley
Stranger in Town
City Lights Publishers
by Cedar Sigo
Army Cats: Poems
Graywolf Press
by Tom Sleigh
Life on Mars: Poems
Graywolf Press
by Tracy K. Smith
Selected Poems
Alfred A. Knopf
by Wallace Stevens
The Iovis Trilogy
Coffee House Press
by Anne Waldman
Your Father on the Train of Ghosts
BOA Editions
by G. C. Waldrep
Blinking Ephemeral Valentine
Four Way Books
by Joni Wallace
Ghost in a Red Hat
W.W. Norton & Co.
by Rosanna Warren
Spring and All (Facsimile Edition)
New Directions
by William Carlos Williams
Address
Wesleyan University Press
by Elizabeth Willis
Falling Out of Bed in a Room with No Floor
Hanging Loose Press
by Terence Winch
World Tree
University of Pittsburgh Press
by David Wojahn
The Book of Ten
University of Pittsburgh Press
by Susan Wood
Fall Higher
Copper Canyon Press
by Dean Young
Torn
Four Way Books
by C. Dale Young
Dear Darkness
Alfred A. Knopf
by Kevin Young
Field of Light and Shadow
Alfred A. Knopf
by David Young
Ardency
Alfred A. Knopf
by Kevin Young
Almond Town
Bright Hill Press
by Margaret Young
The Ada Poems
Alfred A. Knopf
by Cynthia Zarin
The Book of Things
BOA Editions
by Aleš Šteger
