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Favorite Poets
I have not yet read enough poetry collections of individuals to have favorite poets. Even with novels and books, I usually read something by an author and move on to another author. There is so much to read!Before I started reading a poetry, I read A Rose that Grew from Concert by Tupac Shakur, it was a perfect book for someone who didn't read poetry. He has to be one of my favorite poets, but for his lyrics and not his poems. My favorite poem by Tupac is "A Rose that Grew from Concert."
I randomly came across Ross Gay while doing this blog. If I had to choose a favorite poet right now, it would be Ross Gay. I love his perspectives, use of dialect, and dialogue. My two favorite Ross Gay poems are "The Truth" and "A Small Needful Fact."
A Few Favorite Poems:
How it all started
I went back to school to become an English Language Arts teacher in 2013. About half way through my master of education program, I realized that I had next to zero confidence with poetry as a subject matter. I was pretty concerned because I wanted to be a good teacher, and I didn't realize that poetry is pretty non existent in most ELA classrooms, unfortunately (very sad face).I emailed a few friends, and my friend AJ was excited to read a poem everyday with me. We started our original poetry club on email and then Google Sheets. We read and discussed a poem everyday for most of 2015 before our club faded away a couple months into 2016. Our poetry club was resurrected with Read Good Poetry. Now we have a few readers and visitors, and even fewer commenters. Welcome! And enjoy!
How poetry changed me
At first I would read poems over and over again searching for some secret or hidden meaning that may or may not have been there. I struggled to make sense of most poems and just didn't get it. Discussing them with AJ really helped me at first. She saw so many things I missed and she was an excellent model for me to think about poems and see little, big, and or personal things. Introduction to Poetry by Billy Collins pretty much summed it up.One day, I cannot recall how long after, maybe a couple months, I just got it. Most poems made sense. I noticed a couple other things: I really enjoyed reading and discussing poems; my reading skills improved especially reading out loud (another thing I was nervous about as a future teacher); my analysis of language and literature improved; and I even wrote poems for fun, occasionally.
I am a much better thinker, reader, and writer because of poetry.
Advice for beginners...
Unless you read a lot of fiction or write lyrics, you might not get a lot of the poems at first. No worries! Just enjoy it for what it is. Learn new words, appreciate cool phrases, enjoy the rhyme or rhythm, or think about a new perspective or idea.If you're not enjoying poetry, you're doing something wrong. I'd be more than happy to help you find a couple good poems to start. Click here for suggestions I made for someone once. I don't recall who, why, or when.
Ross Gay- will revisit!
ReplyDeleteEmily Dickinson is mine. Reading her in junior high when I first found poetry in middle school English gave me hope to be a Thinker, a female Thinker and dreamer who had her own rhythm and poise...she captivated me...and still does, not just by her beautiful wording and phrasing , but by the Feeling of it all. When you read her poems you become exactly where she was when she wrote them.
Now, when I read her, after experiencing first-hand a majority of the emotions she writes about, I can feel her rhythm even more...so many of her poems isolate and also connect through isolation ("I'm Nobody, who are you? Are you Nobody, too?"), so many personify inanimate objects ("Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul") so many bring Hope back to Wonder and possibility. She is so honest in her wonder as well as her grief...I just love the black and white and grey that she has always shown to me.
Poetry Club was a turnpixel in my life as well. It made me realize how much time we make in our lives for the trivial happenings and just how beautiful setting aside time for one poem and response per day can change everything about it. How, if you sit down to read just one you end up reading 20 and journaling and thinking and writing yourself. And how, as all best things in this life, Beauty (in our case, poetry and Thinker thoughts) is always better when shared.