I write poetry. I read a lot of poetry, too. If you glanced over yesterday’s post, the list of titles read last year, you saw many poetry titles, maybe even a poet or two you’ve heard of. I finished a collection by Walt Whitman, for instance. I plucked it from Kent’s bookshelf and started reading it in 2023. I read slowly and I read several books at once, so it often takes me a long time to get to the end of a heavier book. No Whitman poems appear in the list I am posting today — not because I have chosen against declaring any of them “best.” Rather, I haven’t spent enough time with individual poems yet. Likely some will show up among the 2025 “Best Poems.” We’ll see. In any case, that’s my method. When reading a book of poems I keep handy a stack of placemarks. If I want to reread a poem, I slide in a placemark. I come back to the poem, read it again and again. If I decide it’s something I don’t want to leave behind I hand copy it and save it in a three-ring binder. I have tried to figure out what my criteria are, without much success. I like sounds. I like transformations. I like double meanings. I like humor. I like surprise. I dislike poem-as-wisdom. Given the same sources, a different reader would choose different favorites. A “best” list by you, would not be mine.
Tim Długos ….. Incredible Risks
Tim Dlugos ….. Nerves
Tim Dlugos ….. To Clear Things Up, Scott
Tim Dlugos ….. Wall Street Sauna
Federico Garcia Lorca ….. Landscape of the Vomiting Multitude
Hsin Ch’i-chu ….. En Route to Po-shan
Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz ….. Divine Laura, my life was always yours
Jacqueline Kudler ….. January 2007
Lu Chi ….. from Rhymeprose on Literature
Oktay Rifat ….. In the Street
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