Anyone and everyone should write poetry. However, if you want to become dedicated to the craft, i really truly believe you need to consume as much poetry as you physically can. Once you find the groove of what you like in poetry, you will find your style, and you will start to love your own poetry. even the most self hating writers find bits and pieces of others in their writing that they enjoy.
1. you have to begin with the basics and i apologize for that but it is more worth it than anything in the world. you dont need to read keats and tennyson and wordsworth and yeats, but you must read dickinson and whitman. the 19th century does not exist with out them. poetry would not be what it is today without them.
Dickinson must reads
- hope is the thing with feathers
- there is a certain slant of light
- i heard a fly buzz
- i felt a funeral in my brain
Whitman must reads
- song of myself
that's really it (its really long)
if you are deeply committed to the cause then you should read dickinsons collected poems and whitmans leaves of grass. but just those few poems will do as well.
2. enter the twentieth century and read as much as you can from these early 20th century poets (especially my poems of choice by them). modernism on the rise, tradition to the wind, all of this poetry is an attempt to break out of the traditions that poetry was, and is preparing for what poetry will become.
— langston hughes
Blues in Stereo
Harlem
Mother to Son
— Sylvia Plath
Daddy
Lady Lazarus
Pursuit
— Audre Lorde
Power
Never to Dream of Spiders
Coal
—Elizabeth bishop
The Shampoo
The Fish
One Art
3. The late twentieth century is the best era for poetry and i believe that with all of my heart. i could list approximately 10 billion poems i think everyone needs to read from this time but i will whittle it down to three because i am so kind
— Allen ginsberg
howl
a supermarket in california
america
— Eileen Myles
peanut butter
snakes
— Maya Angelou (especially if you are interested in performing poetry and not just writing)
i know why the caged bird sings
still i rise (everyone has heard this poem but i implore you to read it again with a pencil in hand because the more you read it the more beautiful it becomes)
— diane seuss
i met a dying man
it is abominable
intimacy unhinged
4. We finally arrive to the 21st century. let's get contemporary let's get awesome lets say bye to all tradition and make shit up! anyone who tells you that contemporary poetry isnt as good as the classics is stupid and needs to be killed.
— Terrance Hayes
please just read his entire collection lighthead as it is one of the most beautiful poetry collections i have ever read. i cannot recommend it enough.
— Ocean Vuong
on earth we're breifly gorgeous
DetoNation
you guys
— Mary Oliver (she fits into late 20th as well but she is just so prolific that i could put her in either. her work is unique enough to be put in this category.)
wild geese
dog songs
the summer day
There are so many I couldnt include if you want to read my collected poetry anthology which has many of my favorite poems let me know because i want everyone to read every poem that has shaped me as a writer.
5. Please please read letters to a young poet by Rainer Maria Rilke. You dont even need to read any of his poetry, just read his poetic advice. It changes the way you think about writing and construction and passion and form and beauty and everything. I use his words every day when i write. I think it is a necessity to a new poet.
6. Discover on your own! start at whichever era you enjoyed the most, google prominent writers during that time, read as much as you can, absorb their structure, word choice, themes, and it will become incredibly present in your writing.
