Last poem read

In a previous topic I mentioned that I intended to read a poem a day (at least).

Today's poem is

The Fern Owls Nest by John Clare

Good luck with this. I try to do the same but half the time I either forget or don't get round to it. You did just prompt me to attack today's though, which was 'No Matter What, After All, and that Beautiful Word So' by Hayden Carruth (I'm reading my way slowly through Being Alive, an anthology edited by Neil Astley).

Well, the last poem I read was from Poets.org's Poem-A-Day ("The Hurricane" by William Carlos Williams); otherwise, I have been reading James Schuyler's collected. I'm enjoying it, but at times I feel like I'm just plowing though: I think I may just need to give myself permission to skip around ...

I'm now reading Byron's Don Juan (all 500+ pages of it) for study.

I have been reading it for pleasure and am absolutely loving it, the way it gallops along with such zest and the gibes against the politicians Byron gets in along the way.

#5 I should have said that, unlike a lot of my study books so far this year, this one is also for pleasure - love Byron! After Milton and Blake it's just so good to read someone who had a sense of humour, raucousness and irreverence.

Ah sounds to me as if you are doing the OU MA! I'm not as keen on Blake as I used to be when I was younger but my love of Milton increases each time I read him. At the moment though I am obsessed with 20C poetry, particularly R S Thomas, which I find puzzling as I am not a believer, but his poems are so strong and direct and really challenge you, and W S Graham, and I'm developing a passion for Wallace Stevens

yes - RS Thomas - good choice! He needs more advocates. Good reading

#7&8 -- thanks for the RS Thomas plug; I read a lot of 20C poetry but had not heard of him!

#7 You got it brunhilde! Do I detect another OU-er?

#Hope you enjoy, hmajor. Individual Thomas books are very expensive now and my personal recommendation would be the Collected Later Poems 1988-2000 - his poetry became sparer and more intense as he got older.

#Yep Booksloth - from 1987-2008 with several interruptions from life!

Last poem read - just got back from a night away where my slim Selected John Berryman accompanied me for the train and hotel (daughter bought a kindle and sold it again and I can't imagine using one so travel books are selected for weight as well as content!). Berryman is one of my top 5 personal favourites and the Dream Songs featuring the very fallible Henry are ones I come back to again and again. His Homage to Mistress Bradstreet is extraordinary too. I have a cd of Berryman and Lowell reading their stuff - Berryman is very drunk as he often was but remains very charismatic. Lowell I don't enjoy.

#11 Life has a way of doing that - damned inconsiderate of it!

> 12. Odd -- life has done the exact opposite to me, if not my poetry.

Because of another thread, I have started to re-read some Basho.

A haiku at random...

#298

it is oysters
not dried seaweed one should sell
when one is old

G.

I read at least part of a poem daily -- but only because I subscribe to Writer's Almanac. http://writersalmanac.publicradio.org/

Sometimes I like Keillor's choice, and other times, it leaves me cold. Today's poem, What She Craved by Marge Piercy, was good, but I don't think it will stay with me.

M