Many of us admit to the love of reading, but what about poetry? The golden years to appreciate the best poetry books seem to be our school days. Think hard, and a fragment is sure to come into your recollection from your English reader or a book of poetry. This is where most of us begin to appreciate classics like Robert Frost’s poems, the collected poems of other English poets like William Blake, the sonnets of William Shakespeare or works on the natural world like Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman. But once we’re done with academia, poetry glides into our lives very rarely.
Many celebrities, however, admit to a love of the genre and make sure poetry is an integral part of their lives. Former US President Barack Obama revealed that he loves Urdu poetry in an interview with US political news website Politico. Famous director Steven Spielberg is said to love the work of Irish poet John O’Donohue. In fact, renowned Bollywood actor Amitabh Bachchan, son of a famous poet (Harivansh Rai Bachchan), writes poems himself.
Furthermore, some filmmakers find ways to incorporate poetry into their movies, giving the poems a new lease of fame and shining a light on this genre of literature. Some of the notable instances include Interstellar (2014), which referenced poems from Dylan Thomas’ Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night and Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994), which features verses from WH Auden’s Funeral Blues.
Since one can’t only look to films for poetry recommendations, how does one choose a book of poetry to read? One way of casting the net wide is to browse through the shelves at a local library or bookstore. But perhaps a more unusual way is to follow the recommendations of poets themselves, of the collected poems and books of poetry that they felt compelling enough not to put down.
Books for poetry lovers, chosen by poets
Angles of Ascent
About the book: Angles of Ascent is an anthology of over 70 African-American poets since the 1960s. These poems demonstrate what happens when writers in a marginalised community collectively turn from dedicating their writing to political, social and economic struggles and instead devote themselves to the art of their poems and to the ideas they embody.
Why read it? This book is one of the favourites of Amanda Gorman, who shot to international acclaim when she recited The Hill We Climb at the 2021 inauguration of US President Joe Biden. Gorman says, “If you’re looking for something to really sit with poetically that centres on Black authors, I totally suggest the anthology Angles of Ascent. Each section contextualises the social and political situation in which Black writers were writing during that time period. So, it’s looking over 200-plus years of what it means to be writing while Black and really understanding that history.”
Love Poems
About the book: One of America’s greatest poets, Anne Sexton’s Love Poems features 25 poems celebrating the sensual frontiers of her time. Sexton’s understanding of what all lovers share, seen in the specifics of romance, carries her work to the furthest limits of poetry and into the realm of great literature.
Why read it? This book holds a special place in the heart of Deborah Landau, author of five poetry collections. An NYU professor, she was introduced early to the work of Sexton by her mother when she was 13, which sparked her interest in the Pulitzer-winning poet. In a New Yorker poetry podcast, she said, “This was a heady book for a 13-year-old and I couldn’t believe that you could do these things in poems. I started reading and writing sort of passionately after that.”
Sun in Days
About the book: This is a powerful collection about the frailty of the body, the longing for a child, and the philosophical questions raised when the body goes dramatically awry. The poems give voice to the experience of illness, the permanence of loss and invigorating moments of grace. O’Rourke traces an arc from loss and illness to the life force of pregnancy and motherhood.
Why read it? Mark Bibbins, the author of four collections of poetry, including Sky Lounge (winner of a Lambda Literary Award), highly recommends Meghan O’Rourke’s Sun in Days. This book includes the work Poem for My Son. Bibbins says, “I am moved by the deep physicality of this poem, its small but significant moments of transformation, in which the mundane is made resonant and weird. How do we love someone we’ve never met, yet is already a part of us? O’Rourke’s poem does not offer an easy answer to this question.”
The Selected Larry Levis
About the book: American poet Larry Levis’s poems, as outlined in his book The Selected Larry Levis, transcend borders, break down barriers and explore the loneliness of human existence.
Why read it? Andrés Cerpa, the author of poetry collections Bicycle in a Ransacked City: An Elegy, and The Vault and the recipient of various fellowships, speaks highly of this poetry book. According to Cerpa, “My first poetry teacher, Jeanne Murray Walker, gave me the book as a gift during my senior year of college. Not only was I astonished by the expansive imagination in the poems, I was, and continue to be, fascinated by Levis’s development from book to book. I continually study his trajectory in an effort to move myself forward as a writer.”
Buy The Selected Larry Levis here
Your Crib, My Qibla
About the book: Nigerian poet Saddiq Dzukogi now lives and works in Nebraska in the USA. Your Crib, My Qibla chronicles the pain felt by the poet after the loss of his daughter 21 days after she was born. In these poems, the memory serves as a space of mourning. They explore grief, the fleeting nature of healing, and the constant obsession with memory as a language to reach the dead.
Why read it? Grief is always a potent theme for poetry, which is why Mexican-American poet Rigoberto González loves the poems of Saddiq Dzukogi. According to González, “If you follow Saddiq Dzukogi like I do on social media, you’ll be familiar with the different times he pays tribute to his daughter, Baha. In the poetry collection Your Crib, My Qibla, Dzukogi chronicles the grief of losing a loved one, but of note is how the collection keeps the dead alive through streams of memory and artifacts.”
Buy Your Crib, My Qibla here
Translation Zone
About the book: Brian Cochran lives and writes in St Louis, USA. His selected poems have appeared in Ninth Letter, Denver Quarterly, Cimarron Review, UCity Review and other journals. Translation Zone has been hailed as a collection of extraordinary poems which explores the porosity of borders inside the imagination. This collection of experimental lyric poems includes prose pieces on topics such as jazz, the Great Plains, hummingbird migration, river confluences and the ‘translation zones’ of language.
Why read it? Cintia Santana, who recently released her first poetry collection, The Disordered Alphabet (2023), teaches fiction and poetry workshops in Spanish, along with literary translation courses at Stanford University. She has a profound appreciation for Cochran’s work. Santana says, “Translation Zone is a first book by a friend, Brian Cochran. His poems are these acts of emotional and linguistic magic. I’ve been his fan for a long time, and over the last few years his work has reached a level such that I’m always asking myself after reading a poem, ‘How did he get there?’”
Allegiance
About the book: Francine J Harris was born in Detroit, USA, and many of her poems explore socio-cultural life in the city. However, this collection is about life in a city where order coexists with chaos and where both social and physical breakdowns result in significant losses.
Why read it? Gala Mukomolova, a poet born in Moscow and raised in Brooklyn, holds a deep admiration for American poet Francine J Harris. Mukomolova brings her own unique perspective to Harris’s work and shares, “My friend Francine has this amazing poem in her first book, Allegiance, that catalogues the sorrow and grace of ordinary angels. I think about that poem all the time too.” Mukomolova’s own full-length book, Without Protection, published in 2019, explores her multiple identities as a Russian, Jewish, refugee and New Yorker.
Buy Allegiance here
The August Sleepwalker
About the book: Bei Dao’s The August Sleepwalker (1986), which includes The Answer poem, is experimental and subjective while remaining passionately engaged in the individual’s response to a disordered world. The book was banned by the Chinese government after the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests.
Why read it? Sally Wen Mao is the author of selected poems The Kingdom of Surfaces (2023) and a finalist for the 2023 Maya Angelou Book Prize. She is an admirer of Chinese poet Bei Dao, the nom de plume of Zhao Zhenka. Mao singles out Dao’s The Answer, a poem written after the first Tiananmen protest in 1976. She says, “The Answer was used as a protest poem during student demonstrations. That is a very concrete example of the ways in which poetry can manifest directly into social action and social change, although it was a pretty bleak outcome. I got to meet Bei Dao when I first went to Kundiman (an organisation based in New York). I was completely struck at the fact that I was in a room with him. I didn’t even know he was still alive.”
Buy The August Sleepwalker here
The Prophet
About the book: Lebanese-American poet Kahlil Gibran’s works are now considered classic poems. His well-known poetry collections include The Madman (1918) and Twenty Drawings (1919). However, it is The Prophet (1923) that continues to interest readers. The book features 26 prose poems delivered as sermons by a wise man called Al Mustapha, who is setting sail for his homeland after 12 years in exile on a fictional island.
Why read it? Canadian poet Rupi Kaur, author of New York Times bestseller Milk and Honey, singles out The Prophet from her favourite poetry books. She says, “This is my life bible. Whenever I am down, I can go and find so many gems in the book. It’s the one book I travel with all the time. I always have it in my backpack and it’s kind of a safety blanket for me.”
blud
About the book: These poems inherit, reject and forgive the gifts and curses of a fraught bloodline. They transform the stigma assigned to mental illness, abuse and abandonment and project a fierce love for family, home and the self.
Why read it? Richard Blanco has been a practising engineer, writer, and poet since 1991. He is an enthusiast of spoken word poetry and its rendition by American poet Rachel McKibbens. He says, “She is one of my all-time favorites for her fierce yet vulnerable voice, as powerful on the stage as it is on the page. Her collection, blud, continues to inspire me with the richness of its metaphors and raw energy. You don’t just read these poems — you feel them.”
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
– What is the most popular poetry book?
Classics by English and American writers, such as Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman, William Shakespeare’s sonnets and The Complete Poetry of Edgar Allan Poe, can be numbered among the most popular poetry books to date.
– What is a good poetry book to read?
One can start with some of the best classic poetry collections, such as the epic poem The Iliad, selected poems by William Blake and even contemporary poems by young poets like Amanda Gorman and Rupi Kaur.
– Who reads the most poetry?
It is hard to say because of the lack of data. However, according to one survey in the USA conducted between 2012 and 2017, the adult readership for poetry had grown from 6.7 per cent to 11.7 per cent.
(All images: Courtesy Amazon; Hero image: Courtesy Amazon); Feature image: Priscilla Du Preez / Unsplash)+