highly recommended-but by no means
complete
parenthetical books are the especially loved ones i wanted to highlight
poets
- adrienne rich (diving into the wreck; the dream of a common language;
your native land, your life; an atlas of a difficult world)
- federico garcia lorca
- yiourgos seferis (the mythistorima cycle)
- sharon olds (the dead and the living)
- james wright (the branch will not break)
- rainer maria rilke (the book of images; the duino elegies)
- pablo neruda
- c.d. wright (tremble)
- ntozake shange (for colored girls...; the love space demands)
- odysseus elytis (the axion esti)
- judy grahn (the work of a common woman/a woman is talking to death)
- john keats
- muriel rukeyser
- lousie gluck (the wild iris)
- t.s. eliot (don't forget old possum's book of practical cats)
also: sylvia plath, robert duncan, jack spicer, diane di prima, aaron
shurin, belle waring, john yau, brenda hillman, michael palmer,dylan
thomas, denise levertov, h.d., anne sexton, marina tsetaeva, ezra pound,
daisy zamora, artie rimbaud, emily dickinson, any rothenberg
anthologies,
i could go on and on but i'll stop here...
poets on poetics and other important stuff
- adrienne rich (what is found there; blood, bread and poetry)
- robert hass (twentieth century pleasures)
- lorca (duende & deep song)
- t. roethke
- lousie gluck (proofs & theories)
- letters of rilke, keats, elizabeth bishop
- a. shurin (narrativity)
- h.d. (notes on thought and vision)
- charles olson (projective verse)
- alice notley (close to me and closer...(the language of heaven) &
desamere) IMHO
- pound (abc of reading)
- rachel blau duplessis
okay, this is a list dashed off the top of my head & i'll sit down w/
it later- because sharing good works that we found with each other is an
important part of self-educating communities- but for now, here we go
with...