I guess I should start by saying that this isn’t necessarily “recent poetry” – it’s poetry that I’ve discovered recently and loved. But I’ve been trying, for the past few months, to read at least a little poetry every day (which also means working through my backlog of unread poetry books), and I’ve run across some books that I’ve really thought were great. So here we go, four recommendations from me for books that are objectively (my opinion is objective, right?) great books of poetry.

The Darkness Around Us Is Deep by William Stafford

I am not sure how I had never run into William Stafford before in my reading – I didn’t know anything about him. But he was the Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress in 1970 (the position that is now Poet Laureate), so he’s hardly obscure. I actually had this book on my bookshelf, and when Robert Bly died recently, I noticed that he had written the introduction to this, so it caught my eye.

It’s a fantastic book that also has the bonus of a very good introduction (I always like to hear poets talking about other poets, especially when they knew each other as in this case). And Stafford’s poems are clear yet deep; he looks at the world around us, but he also makes those beautiful leaps that leave you feeling not confused but awed.

Continue reading “Recent Poetry I’ve Loved” →

This week, I asked Sheboygan Poet Laureate Lisa Vihos if she’d be willing to close out National Poetry Month by sharing some recommendations for poetry she loves! She was kind enough to do so, and here’s what she wanted to share:

When someone asks me “who is your favorite poet?” I am usually at a loss because I don’t have just one favorite poet. I have many! I don’t even have one favorite kind of poetry. By that I mean, I’m not more partial to free verse than I am to formal poems (like haiku, sestinas, sonnets or villanelles). I like them all! If you are writing poems, forms are fun to experiment with because they provide a structure that needs to be maintained, but without sounding forced. That is always a great and interesting challenge. I recently learned of a Vietnamese poem form called a luc bat in which the lines alternate between six syllables and eight syllables, and in which the rhyme scheme is rather complex across the lines:

x x x x x A

x x x x x A x B

x x x x x B

x x x x x B x C

x x x x x C

x x x x x C x D

etc. as long as you want to go! I actually wrote several luc bat poems for the recent project, Poetry by Post, that will be on view in the display case on the first floor of the library in the month of May. See if you can find the luc bats!

As for some favorite poets, I’ll give you a few who I always love to return to, as well as one poet who I just recently discovered. Head to the stacks and look for:

Rumi: Bridge to the Soul by Rumi

Rumi was a 13^th century Persian poet and Sufi mystic. What I love about his poems (in translation, of course!) is the way that they sound very contemporary to me, even though they were written eight centuries ago. His words are so full of wisdom and show the interconnectedness of all things.

Continue reading “Finding a Favorite Poet (Guest Lisa Vihos)” →

I’ve pulled a few new poetry books from our shelves of new materials. Rather than try to describe the works themselves, I thought I’d give little samples instead; after all, these poets spent a lot of time choosing their words, so why not feature them! And more seriously, no amount of description of poetry will tell you whether you want to read it; only actually seeing the poetry can.

It’s also an opportunity to link to the area in our catalog that lists our new poetry, which you can now see as a list here!

The First Free Women: Poems of the Early Buddhist Nuns by Matty Weingast

Continue reading “A Poetry Sampler” →