Favorite Poetry Collections (2021)
What poetry books a poet returns to when looking for inspiration and craft.
As a writer, I actually don’t read a lot of poetry. I prefer to read books on the craft of poetry (best book is Mary Ruefle’s Madness, Rack, and Honey—hands down the best book of craft I’ve read), academia books, journalism articles, or novels. For my writing style, this completely makes sense, since I tend to construct fictional worlds and then place the speaker in them. Even my self-portrait poems are heavily constructed to be a idealized version of myself living in a fantasy world. In a way, I manipulate my speakers to be more fictionalized with some autobiographical elements—thus reading fiction and prose makes more sense to me.
But when I do read poetry, these are the collections that I find myself returning to again and again. You’re going to notice that this list almost entirely is composed of one of three groups A) LGBTQ+ individuals B) women C) BIPOC individuals. Even the white women I constantly turn to (cough cough Millay and Doolittle) were known for their bisexual escapades on the streets of NYC and England. That’s just the 1920s, baby, in secret: lots of gay stuff going on behind the scenes in the arts world.
This also was a really tough list to make, since I have so many favorite poets. I also wanted to choose books that are more accessible, since I know some of the things I read can be extremely niche. As much as I love the Korean poets that line my bookshelves, I literally had to hunt down translations of some of those books. When I last went to Korea, I should’ve bought some Korean poetry books. That’s my regret—next time I’m going to do some research before I go and then stock up. Trying to crank up my translation game!
I’ll also probably evolve this list in the future, since there’s so much more I want to read. Tagore! Ghazals! Qiu Jin whenever someone actually translates her (it’ll be me, I swear out of frustration)! Jericho Brown! My list is endless. Will I have time for all of this? Nah. One day I’ll get to a good chunk of it though.
Night Sky with Exit Wounds by Ocean Vuong
Ocean Vuong is a master of language, and, if you haven’t read his full-length novel, you’re sorely missing out on what is pretty much a religious experience when it comes to poetic language. Night Sky with Exit Wounds is very similar, as it has this gorgeous rhythm throughout the poems and language that is both tragic and makes you want to sing. My copy was given to me by literary classmate in high school, a former National Student Poet, so it is one of my treasured books. It’s a humble reminder of where I came from as a writer, starting out at a little arts school crowded in a circle on a couch to workshop.
Oculus by Sally Wen Mao
This was the collection I read that made me decide to taking becoming a poet and a master of this craft way more seriously. I was absolutely in love with Mao’s Anna May Wong collection of poems, and so when I found out they were in this book, I had to get it. My best friend bought it for me and I devoured the entire full-length immediately. I never realized how one could really incorporate art, film, and history in their poetry until I read this, and it set my head on straight and I was ready to take on the world.
The Collected Poems by H.D. / Hilda Doolittle
H.D. is actually my favorite poet, so I’m a bit biased here. This is the compilation of all of her works, from her early Imagist years and the war eras, up until her death in 1961. Doolittle was very curious about the human psyche, especially after her brother’s death in WWI, her depression and anxiety, her traumatic divorce, and the exploration of her sexuality. And this is what all her poems tend to cover, especially in the post-war eras. She wrote of loneliness, and I find much to admire in her work.
Four-Legged Girl by Diane Seuss
I absolutely adore Four-Legged Girl and when I’m writing this post, I return to it daily as I’m exploring similar themes in my own work. We explore the inner workings of femininity in this collection, going back to old school NYC full of drugs and violence, and Seuss uses such explosive, vibrant language to describe her narratives. It’s stunning and I see why it was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize when it first came out. Since this seems to be a post where I reflect where I got these books; in the middle of Iowa City, on my program at the International Writing Program, I picked this beauty up at the used bookstore near a diner.
DMZ Colony by Don Mee Choi
An excellent example of multimedia poetry and visual arts. I checked this out of the library just knowing it won the NBA and had no other expectations. I was blown out of the water. The most memorable section to me is the letters written in English, as the poem, about orphans describing how all their families were brutally murdered, and then in their handwriting in Korean write after that. It was so detailed. So childlike. So traumatic, but so innocent at the same time.
You Ask Me to Talk About the Interior by Carolina Ebeid
I just truly love this collection and I cannot say any more than that! So many beautiful images and language utilized throughout—a true gem found within the interior.
The Collected Poems by Edna St. Vincent Millay
Edna St. Vincent Millay is literally my role model. I picked up Nancy Milford’s extensive biography on her, Savage Beauty, and I fell absolutely in love with who Millay was and why she did what she did. A revolutionary woman, a flapper girl, one who did experimental theatre and suddenly found major fame as a poet at 21. She also was famous for being a celebrity—she wasn’t just a poet. She earned celebrity status for her work, her fashion, and her image, which was absolutely amazing. Read her poetry to find out why. Her earlier work is better than her later work in my humble opinion, but you have to read and break down the collection to see why.
Yin by Carolyn Kizer
I don’t think this book is in print anymore, which is absolutely tragic considering this won(?) the Pulitzer Prize in 1984. Kizer was an amazing woman; she spoke Mandarin, English, and Urdu, worked in Pakistan as a literature specialist, and she was published in The New Yorker when she was only seventeen years old. You can really see the depth of her craft in Yin, and I recommend it if you can hunt down a copy somewhere. I found mine at the Iowa City bookstore, the used one called The Haunted Bookshop.
Sin by Forough Farrokhzad
My old conservative Iranian father hates Farrokhzad, which adds to my love of her so much more. Sin was translated by the lovely Sholeh Wolpe, who is a poet herself. I cannot read Farsi, due to a lack of said father figure in my childhood, and so the English translation was still really good. It does justice to the auditory components I’ve heard in the original language, that’s for sure. She was controversial in Iran for how open she was, and it was tragic that her life was cut short so soon. In a time where there were very little female writers in Iran, she truly was brave, and you can see that in this collection.
