What "means the most"???
Peter, Anne, and the PINUPS have all been posting the ten poems that "mean the most"or something like that. I love how much crossover there is when a conversation like this gets started.
Because who wouldn't take the bible to a desert island if they could only grab 10 books? Deep down, we all have a lot in common. And when you only get 10 picks, hipster status (that impulse to want a CD in your collection that nobody else knows at all) tends to fall away...
Not surprisingly, these are poems I've known forever, and reread a lot, the "Bob Dylan" poems... the "meatloaf" poems... the poems that are embedded in me and my writing.
I'm thinking about them now, with regards to the Now & Later theory...
My ten poems:
In the Waiting Room, Bishop
Lying In A Hammock At William Duffy's Farm In Pine Island, Minnesota, Wright
Dreamsong 14, Berryman
I Know a Man, Creeley
The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, Eliot
The Chicken Without a Head, Simic
Song of a Wandering Aengus, Yeats
They Feed They Lion, Levine
For Grace, After a Party, O Hara
Ruth, What is Happiness?, Amichai
Because who wouldn't take the bible to a desert island if they could only grab 10 books? Deep down, we all have a lot in common. And when you only get 10 picks, hipster status (that impulse to want a CD in your collection that nobody else knows at all) tends to fall away...
Not surprisingly, these are poems I've known forever, and reread a lot, the "Bob Dylan" poems... the "meatloaf" poems... the poems that are embedded in me and my writing.
I'm thinking about them now, with regards to the Now & Later theory...
My ten poems:
In the Waiting Room, Bishop
Lying In A Hammock At William Duffy's Farm In Pine Island, Minnesota, Wright
Dreamsong 14, Berryman
I Know a Man, Creeley
The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, Eliot
The Chicken Without a Head, Simic
Song of a Wandering Aengus, Yeats
They Feed They Lion, Levine
For Grace, After a Party, O Hara
Ruth, What is Happiness?, Amichai
3 Comments:
Laurel:
"In the Waiting Room, and "I Know a Man" -- poems I could list, too.
On a given day.
--Peter
Hi, Laurel--we haven't met, but I was one of the early "Top 10" posters too &'ve been admiring your blog. I also picked The Feed They Lion, surprising myself--the Bible, like you said. In that case, the sound & rhythm & anaphora bible.
A prof I deeply respected once described Wright's "William Duffy" as total crap...after I'd just made my mom a copy of it that still hangs in her dank cubicle--she loves it: "I have wasted my life"
best,
em
poesygalore.blogspot.com
These lists are making me add lots of names to my "I read this poet long ago, didn't pay enough attention, and should go back to him/her" list! I like the "Bob Dylan" analogy -- it's such a good feeling, every now and then, to take a fresh look at the poems you know so well you almost don't have to read them anymore -- just like going back and putting on a well-worn album you haven't listened to in years.
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