I’ve done a lot of debating on this and next to my giant stack of fiction books that I would love to read, I’ve decided to focus this summer on, of course, poetry.
Here are the five books (on or about Poetry) that I plan to read this summer.
- Singing School by Robert Pinsky, I love Pinsky and have a read a couple of his books. My first exposure to his work was his book, The Sounds of Poetry which was a concise and vivid text. I found Pinsky’s work to be invaluable and would highly recommend it to any poet of any age.
- Poets on Poetry edited, with an Introduction, by Charles Norman. I got this book at the UofU’s book sale this Spring and it has been in a stack of books by my desk for a couple months now. It has articles and pieces written by well-known poets defending, or attempting to explain Poetry. My copy is from 1962 and is published by THE FREE PRESS, New York.
- The Contemporary Poet as Artist and Critic, eight symposia edited by Anthony Ostroff, again this is an older book that I picked up at the UofU book sale. It was published in 1964 by Little, Brown and Company in Boston and Toronto. This book contains critiques done by Poets on Poetry. The poets that critique include Adrienne Rich, Theodore Roethke, Karl Shapiro, W.D. Snodgrass, May Swenson and W.H. Auden among many many more.
- T.S. Eliot: A Collection of Critical Essays edited by Hugh Kenner, I bought this book also at the UofU booksale and was so excited since I had just finished reading one of these Critical Essay books (Twentieth Century Views) on F.Scott Fitzgerald which I thought to be extremely valuable. The Twentieth Century Views books are a series devoted to collections of Critical Essays on writers and poets. These books are from the 1960’s and were published by Prentice-Hall, Inc. in Englewood Cliffs, N.J.
- Yeats: A Collection of Critical Essays edited by John Unterecker, this is another Twentieth Century Views book, this time on Yeats. Published by Prentice-Hal, Inc. in Englewood N.J. in the 1960’s.
I know that most of these books may be difficult to get since some are more than 50 years old and out of print. But I enjoy reading older books on poetry that I find so that I can compare what people said about Poets/Poetry to what they say now. I have a few anthologies that are only twenty years apart that have stark contrasts in content, style, and attitude towards particular poets and poetry, which is fascinating.
By the end of the summer I hope to have read if not all of these books at least three out of the five. I also have a giant stack of fiction books that I want to read as well. I plan on posting that list soon, within a week or two.
I have also been speculating on posting a book list containing my favorite books on how to write and read poetry and short fiction. I have many of these and usually during the summer time I will reread a few to keep my mind fresh.
I hope that if any of you have suggestions for Poetry books or Short Fiction to read that you leave the title and author information in a comment below.
If you are reading this Thank You for taking time out of your day to read my writing! I hope you return in the future!
-Alina
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