My poetry plan was to re-read all of Donald Justice — maybe in honor of his passing. Instead, I find myself reading and re-reading “Man on the Dump” by Stevens. I must have read it 11 times in the past 24 hours. It’s so bad that I get annoyed if I’m in the middle and the phone rings or I have to do something.
I don’t know why this poem has me by the throat, but it reminded me of a conversation I had with someone recently. He read a book of poetry by a younger poet. Then, he read one Richard Wilbur poem for two hours. He said that experience made him notice the difference in quality and depth between the kind of poem you don’t — or can’t — spend that much time reading and a poem like Wilbur’s that you could spend all day reading.
What poem could you spend all day reading? Anyone else have an obsession with a poem?
The! The!
{ 12 comments… read them below or add one }
“Poppies,” by Mary Oliver.
http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~richie/poetry/html/aupoem142.html
I have quite a number of poems I could spend all day reading over and over. The two that pop into my mind are “Song” by Brigit Kelly and “Meditation at Lagunitas” by Robert Hass. I learn something from each of those poems every single time I read them. I want to write poems like those when I grow up.
I used to know Mediation at Lagunitas by heart! I love that poem, and it goes without saying that I have read “Song” at least 100 times.
Suzanne–
Thanks. I’m heading over to read that poem now.
–dba
Right now, I can’t stop reading two poems. Robert Hayden’s “Middle Passage” and James Merrill’s “After Greece.”
Two perfect poems.
Carolyn Forche: “Ourselves or Nothing”
Adrienne Rich: “Diving Into the Wreck”
Louise Gluck: “Mock Orange”
Allen Ginsberg: “Howl”
Sylvia Plath: “Edge”
to name a few . . . but I could read all day, given the chance!
–Peter
Oh, I do love “Mock Orange.” So much in such a spare poem. Hell I love that entire book. “Mock Orange” is a poem that shifts completely between two worlds. It is about Achilles and Patroclus, supposedly in the voice of Patroclus. But it is written is such a way that most readers just assume the speaker is a woman (many assume it is Gluck). I remember Sandy McClatchy talking about this poem. The relationships are solid but mutable. An incredible poem.
Peter,
You might like the essay at this link:
http://www.poems.com/essahoa2.htm.
Tony Hoagland writes about Gluck and others.
–dba
Too many to mention, but at the moment:
Cesar Vallejo’s “Los Heraldos Negros”, and by pure coincidence
Donald Justice’s “Variations on a text by Vallejo”
Neruda’s “Sonnet 20” of Twenty Sonnets
Randall Jarrell’s “A Prayer at Morning”.
Ok. I’ll stop. (Wordsworth is getting mighty jealous.)
Alberto
DBA:
Thanks for the link to the Hoagland essay. I missed it the first time around. It is INCREDIBLE; very well written and insightful. My favorite line was about Gluck: ” . . . the exaltation one experiences in the presence of clarity . . .” Bingo. That is exactly how I feel reading her.
–Peter
Cliche, perhaps, but these come to mind quickly…
Bishop’s The Armadillo
Dickey’s Sheep Child
Larkin’s High Windows
Heaney’s Oysters
Justice’s The Tourist from Syracuse
Kinnell’s Little Sleep’s-Head Sprouting Hair in the Moonlight
Stafford’s Traveling through the Dark
Sze’s Kaiseki
Pinsky’s The Pleasure Pier
Plath’s Mirror
Heyen’s The China Bull
Strand’s Keeping Things Whole
Catullus 12
Wei’s Bamboo in the Grove
Peter–
You are very welcome. I thought you would enjoy it. Tony Hoagland is onen of THE best poetry essayists around these days.
–dba