Best poets to study

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invisiblewitnes

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Hi,

I have an interest in poetry, but am not very good at interpreting or understanding a lot of it. Does anyone have suggestions for good poets to read, and also books or authors who write about how to study, and get the most out of poetry, what the function of poetry is and how to share poetry with others? I will greatly appreciate any suggestions for good poets to read and help for how to understand and enrich oneself and others through the study of poetry of others and also the composition of new original poetry. Thank you for any suggestions.

God bless you all. Amen.
 
check out sturgeon’s law:“ninety percent of everything is ****.” theodore sturgeon was a science fiction writer…his term seems to approach some understanding of literature including poetry…which becomes a task to read…
so, poets: Elizabeth Barrett Browning-her work seems to reflect human love and could be reused as expression of divine love…
E. E. Cummings…
Emily Dickinson
(I find her life interesting-her poems turn not so nihilistic…but more humble to express
human terms of life and death)
an opinion of some famous poems and poets… there is a religious language-yet cancels out God, as hidden invitation to do so, very sneaky reading-promotes self discover without God) this , at least, is what to look for…as inquiry before reading some poets/.takes a dark path, away from the innate grace and knowledge of baptism…hinders faith by offering ‘new’ ideas about the connection of God and man…anyway, i mention this just to learn-there are such dangers that change your mind…reading such poetry temps-but in the end faith and chruch are stronger.
Sylvia Plath-a dead poet-died by suicide/interesting biography/
i mention her-in that there are many dead poets, who died by their own hand/ the poetry that i have written…is finished at a time when i might be so polarized in emotional states, that one is light and the next very dark/the reason that i read and write dark poetry is to let the subconscious let loose of hurtful feeling, as poetry is very intuitive and feeling/seems to promote a relief valve so that i am not so repressed neurotic-to hide everything/of course on this forum, there are saints and sinners…my poems review the darkness in myself-unrequited love or anger or fear…then at least i got it out and put it on paper…Going to God with these-i must remember to remind myself of God’s rich mercy-…thx patrick
 
Talk to your English teacher at school. You may want to try contacting the English Department at a local community college or university. However, your best bet is to actually sign up for courses at a post-secondary institution. If you are not pursuing a post-secondary certificate or diploma, you can audit classes for a lower cost. You will not be required to take tests nor will you receive credit for having taken the course.
William Blake is good. Yeats, Donne, Shakespeare.

Reb Levi
 
I like T.S. Eliot and ee cummings.

My English professor said the T.S. Eliot is the greatest poet of the 20th century.
 
Wordsworth. Copious amounts of Wordsworth! 🙂 He was an absolutely brilliant poet and a leader of the British Romantic genre of poetry.
 
You can’t get enough of the Divine Comedy. Though, the language is extremely archaic.
 
Sample. Taste. Explore. 🙂 You’ll learn as you go.

I like The Poetry Foundation’s website:
poetryfoundation.org/foundation/about

Poem of the Day
poetryfoundation.org/poem/173660

Audio Poem of the Day
**feeds.poetryfoundation.org/PoetryFoundation/PoemOfTheDay

**
“God’s Grandeur” is a favorite of mine, especially read aloud.
**poetryfoundation.org/poem/173660

**
God’s Grandeur

*The world is charged with the grandeur of God. *
  • It will flame out, like shining from shook foil; *
  • It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil *
    *Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod? *
    *Generations have trod, have trod, have trod; *
  • And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil; *
  • And wears man’s smudge and shares man’s smell: the soil *
    *Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod. *
*And for all this, nature is never spent; *
  • There lives the dearest freshness deep down things; *
    *And though the last lights off the black West went *
  • Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs — *
    *Because the Holy Ghost over the bent *
  • World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.
*Gerard Manley Hopkins
 
It really depends on your personal taste. There are the Latin poets like Ovid, favoured for his love poems; or the traditional, like Shakespearean sonnets. Or classical English poets like the Romantics Keats and Shelley. Then there are the more robust story tellers such as Tennyson or Kipling.
The war poets such as Robert Brooke and others are hard going I find, but I am easily depressed.

I love Oscar Wilde and T.S.Elliot, but have difficulty with Walt Whitman.
Religious poets such as Thompson, (read his Hound of Heaven) can be very inspiring. Wilde’s poetry strongly seeps spirituality in some strange sense.

Check out Yeats’ “Second Coming” It is beautiful in a frightful way.

Poetry is one of the most beautiful forms of literature, but so often ignored in the modern curriculum.
I would not look at academic studies on poetry until you fall in love with a specific poet. Then start your studies from there.
 
invisiblewitnes said:
Hi,

I have an interest in poetry, but am not very good at interpreting or understanding a lot of it. Does anyone have suggestions for good poets to read, and also books or authors who write about how to study, and get the most out of poetry, what the function of poetry is and how to share poetry with others? I will greatly appreciate any suggestions for good poets to read and help for how to understand and enrich oneself and others through the study of poetry of others and also the composition of new original poetry. Thank you for any suggestions.

God bless you all. Amen.
Click to expand...
I would recommend Paul Fussell’s “Poetic Meter and Poetic Form”. It’s a classic study of how meter works in the English language, a bit dense and worth repeated readings.

I also enjoyed Terry Eagleton’s “How to Read a Poem.” There are a lot of books of this genre out there to choose from, but some are better than others, and this is one of the better ones.

Other than that, try to read as many poets of differing backgrounds, from different time periods modern and classical, and those writing in languages other than your own (in translation). Try to read as broadly as possible.
 
invisiblewitnes said:
Hi,

I have an interest in poetry, but am not very good at interpreting or understanding a lot of it. Does anyone have suggestions for good poets to read, and also books or authors who write about how to study, and get the most out of poetry, what the function of poetry is and how to share poetry with others? I will greatly appreciate any suggestions for good poets to read and help for how to understand and enrich oneself and others through the study of poetry of others and also the composition of new original poetry. Thank you for any suggestions.

God bless you all. Amen.
Click to expand...
i even though i nearly hate or forcibly dislike nigh on most of the poetry i have read so far; i recommend limericks, most Irish poets before 1940, and a quantifiable amount of poetry from the “old lands.” ( eg: east-ish of Europe and some island types "

God bless
 
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