Anyone who has read my “Who and What I’m Looking For” post on this site may be aware that poetry is not a genre I represent. I know, I know. Your poetry is different, and it would force me to make an exception. I hear you. But the likelihood of selling a book of poems is somewhere between nil and nada, even for you. I love you, but it’s true. (See how that rhymed?)
And writing poetry, as a regular discipline or distraction, can work wonders for writers of every ilk—even those who are, sadly, ilkless. A poem in progress can incite new ideas and excite new ways of approaching a topic. A line of poetry may sometimes stick in the mind, suggesting a title or a snippet of dialogue. It can inject confidence or playfulness into a writer’s mind. It can even, on occasion, dispel writer’s block.
So, I recommend poetry to you; and, even though you didn’t ask, I herewith offer a baker’s dozen of my favorite poets:
1. William Shakespeare
“Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player …”
2. Robert Frost
“Two roads diverged in a yellow wood …”
3. Emily Dickinson
“Each life converges to some centre/Expressed or still …”
4. Wendell Berry
“Even while I dreamed I prayed that what I saw was only fear and no foretelling …”
5. Mary Oliver
“I thought the earth remembered me …”
6. Gerard Manley Hopkins
“Glory be to God for dappled things …”
7. Robinson Jeffers
“The wild God of the world is sometimes merciful to those/That ask mercy, not often to the arrogant …”
8. Christina Rossetti
“Then He shall say, ‘Arise, My love,/My fair one, come away.'”
9. Albert Orsborn
“I know Thee who Thou art/And what Thy healing name …”
10. Edgar Lee Masters
“Out of me unworthy and unknown /The vibrations of deathless music …”
11. Richard Wilbur
“I can’t forget/How she stood at the top of that long marble stair/Amazed …”
12. George Herbert
“Who would have thought my shriveled heart/Could have recovered greenness?”
13. Ann Weems
“On the edge of war, one foot already in,/I no longer pray for peace:/I pray for miracles.”
How about you? Do you read poetry? Does it affect your writing? Who are your favorite poets?
