Saturday, July 26, 2008

50 Near Perfect Books of Poetry


For those who contributed, have been following or are just interested in the idea, the Near Perfect Books of Poetry list has hit 50 titles. I've begun to receive contributions from offline readers of Lilliput Review, so the list will continue to grow as long as I continue to receive nominations. Suggestions may be sent to lilliput review at gmail dot com and for your efforts you will receive the two current issues of Lilliput Review for free. If you are currently a subscriber, your subscription will be extended by two issues. So, here's the 50 near perfect books of poetry and good reading ...


The List


Chrysanthemum Love by Fay Aoyagi

Basho And His Interpreters by Makoto Ueda

Silence In The Snowy Fields by Robert Bly

The Pill Versus The Springhill Mine Disaster by Richard Brautigan

Thirst by Patrick Carrington

And Her Soul Out of Nothing by Olena Kalytiak Davis

Variations by Bill Deemer

Miracles of the Sainted Earth by Victoria Edwards Tester

The Waste Land by T. S. Eliot

Rebellion is the Circle of a Lover's Hand by Martin Espada

Coney Island of the Mind by Lawrence Ferlighetti

West-Running Brook by Robert Frost

Essential Haiku edited by Robert Hass

Birthday Letters by Ted Hughes

A Few Flies and I: Haiku by Issa

Book of Haikus by Jack Kerouac

The Haiku Anthology, 3rd edition, edited by Cor van den Heuvel

Letters to Yesenin by Jim Harrison

book of resurrection by mark hartenbach

My Life by Lyn Hejinian

Weary Blues by Langston Hughes

Pleasure Dome by Yusef Komunyakaa

For the Union Dead by Robert Lowell

Verso by Pattie McCarthy

dogwood & honeysuckle by john martone

The Vixen by W. S. Merwin

Forever Home by Lenard D. Moore

The Dillinger Books (various) by Todd Moore

100 Love Sonnets by Pablo Neruda

Strike Sparks by Sharon Olds

The Ink Dark Moon by Onono Komachi and Izumi Shikibu, translated by Jane Hirshfield and Mariko Aratani

Right under the big sky, I don't wear a hat, by Hosai Ozaki, translated by Hiroaki Sato

Raising the Dead by Ron Rash

The Waiting Room at the End of the World by Jeff Rath

One Hundred Poems from the Chinese tr. by Kenneth Rexroth

New Poems (1908), the Other Part by Rainer Maria Rilke (tr. Snow)

The Concrete River by Luis Rodriquez

Say Uncle by Kay Ryan

Chicago Poems by Carl Sandburg

Grass and Tree Cairn by Santoka, translated by Hiroaki Sato

The Morning of a Poem by James Schuyler

Selected Poems by Anne Sexton

The Sonnets by William Shakespeare

Elements of San Joaquin by Gary Soto

Harmonium by Wallace Stevens

Collected Poems - Dylan Thomas

Here, Bullet by Brian Turner

Leaves of Grass - Walt Whitman

The Prelude - William Wordsworth

The Tower by W. B. Yeats


best,

Don

7 comments:

Greg said...

Great list, Don! I've already added a few of those books to my "to-read" list, and found some authors I never would have otherwise discovered.

Charles Gramlich said...

I've only read about five or six of these. Man, a lot of good reading ahead of me. I'm gonna see what I can find next time I put in a book order.

Issa's Untidy Hut said...

Glad you like the list. I've got some reading to do here myself, lots to catch up on.

A new title was added this morning, starting on the next 50.

Don

Rebel Fan said...

This is a great list. I see about a dozen to add to the to-be-read pile beside my rocking chair on the front porch.

Issa's Untidy Hut said...

Thanks, RF. If you have a favorite poetry book or know of a near perfect collection, just let me know and I'll add it to the list and send you the two current issue of Lilliput Review free.

best,
Don

joaj34 said...

Wonderful, thougtful list. I have an ashamedly as yet unread copy of a collection of Harrison's poetry. I'm planning on buying a copy of Ginsberg's collected poems soon, though, and you've encouraged me to add some of these to my list.

Issa's Untidy Hut said...

j0aJ34:

This list will keep growing, if slowly. Check back occasionally. Ginsberg's "Kaddish," poem for his mother, is very powerful.

Don @Issa's Untidy Hut