Quick Update from Recent Reads

I've fallen behind on my list here. Just a few to update from recent reads that I recall.

• Anne Sexton, Several from her books Love Poems and All My Pretty Ones.
• Alan Britt
• Erin York
• Steve Gehrke
• Susan Terris (great poem that won a Pushcart Prize)
• W.S. Merwin
• Kay Ryan
• Missi Rasmussen

Atwood On Sleep

I've read a number of Margaret Atwood poems over the years and I've always enjoyed her range of diversity from political to humorous to serious. It shows her talent well as a writer.

Last night, I read her poem, Variations On The Word Sleep. The poem captures so well a very intimate presence.

This weekend catching up on some poets I've read before...

Reading from Robert Lowell's Selected Poems also delved into Everything Else In The World by Stephen Dunn. Two remarkably different poets. Both with a serious approach to the art. They just get there differently.

This one was new to me

I had the pleasure of reading several poems by J Michael Wahlgren. The tone of his work is very complementary to what I like to hear in poetry.

Recent Reads....

Little behind on this....

Kelli Russell Agodon - Small Knots - Fabulous!!

W. S. Merwin - Reading in his book The Moving Target - I continue to be impressed by Merwin's style and broad topical range.

Ruth Stone - Readin in her book Ordinary Words. What a remarkable person.

Last Night

At a poetry workshop I attended last night - we warmed up reading some individual poems. I read an Anne Sexton. Also - upon arriving home - flipped through my latest copy of the New Yorker and read a poem by W. S. Merwin titled A Letter To Su T'ung Po. I really found Merwin's poem striking. I loved the way it meshed the past with the present. A most memorable line: "...thinking of you one your river that one bright sheet of moonlight..."

This weekend....

I am today reading The Book of Folly by Anne Sexton. Published in 1972 it was a winner of The Pulitzer Prize for Poetry.