Anne McCrady2006

 

1206 East Main Street

 

Henderson, TX 75652

 

888-324-0365

 

annemccrady@InSpiritry.com

 

InSpiritry.com

 

 

 

Poetry: Reading to Write

 

 

 

 

 

        This past week I was speaking to high school students about how to move from simply writing for the pleasure of self-expression to writing material that impacts other people. As always, I included in my suggestions an urging for them to read literature.

 

        “If we want to improve our art,” I told them, “We must study with the masters, even as we explore our own literary voices.”

 

        For those of us who are writing poems to send out into the world, this is especially true. If we want to produce published poetry, we need to know what published poetry looks like!

 

        As poets, our “masters” are the great poets whose collections have stood the test of critics and colleagues, as well as the buying public. Our “lessons” are in the poems we read and re-read as we decipher form and technique and voice. Our “tests” are the envelopes of poems we send to various journals and magazines.

 

        My friend, Bryce Milligan, founder of Wings Press – Texas’ oldest small press, has a no-nonsense approach to this idea. In the submission guidelines on his website, he states:

 

 

 

We do not accept submissions from poets who do not read poetry.

 

 

 

Actually, I would contend that almost no one publishes poets who do not read poetry. To be understood and appreciated, we must speak in the language of our audience, and, as with all languages, we learn by hearing. We must hear poetry to speak it!

 

        It is worth noting that my own daily routine includes thirty minutes of reading poetry before I begin my writing sessions. I need the music of language in my ears to awaken the muse in my heart. I must also say that while literary growth may be reason enough to fill our lives with the voices of fine poets and writers, there are other advantages to be gained from a life of reading poetry…not the least of which is the blessing of great poetry itself!

 

        In an effort to encourage avid poetry writers to become avid poetry readers, I have selected some favorites from my poetry bookshelf to offer as a personal poetry curriculum. For an added bit of fun and as balance for a slightly serious tone so far, I will list the suggested poets as Academy Award recipients in categories which are, at best, creative and, at worst, idiosyncratic. For no particular reason, the list is alphabetical.

 

 

 

Academy Awards for Poetry

 

 

 

American

 

 

 

Julia Alvarez – Best Voice of the Hispanic Immigrant Experience

 

 

 

Maya Angelou – Best Poetry for Bookstore Audiences

 

 

 

Billy Collins – Most Inventive Narratives and Metaphors

 

 

 

Rita Dove – Best Portraits of African American Experience

 

 

 

Nick Flynn – Best Interpretation of Love in a Struggling Family

 

 

 

Carolyn Forshe – Best Poetry as Witness to Inhumanity

 

 

 

Nikki Giovanni – Best Voice of African American Family Experiences

 

 

 

Louise Gluck – Most Intense Rhetorical and Emotional Explorations

 

 

 

Marie Howe – Best Presentation of the Sensuous and the Serene

 

 

 

Langston Hughes – Best Voice of African American Sensibility

 

 

 

Jane Kenyon – Best Poetry as Conversation with a Friend

 

 

 

Yosef Komunyakaa – Best Artistic Use of Personal and Global History

 

 

 

Ted Kooser – Best Metaphors for Midwest Life

 

 

 

Stanley Kunitz – Best Characterization of God’s Consternation

 

 

 

Walt McDonald – Most Unabashed Love for Life

 

 

 

Naomi Nye – Best Poetry in the Name of Personal Peace

 

 

 

Robert Pinsky – Most Academic Approach to Poetry

 

 

 

Sylvia Plath – Best Extended Metaphor of Dying

 

 

 

Shel Silverstein – Best Poetry for Children and Struggling Adults

 

 

 

William Stafford – Lifetime Achievement Award

 

 

 

Gerald Stern – Best Curmudgeonly Philosophy

 

 

 

Robert Penn Warren – Best Articulation of Literary Consciousness

 

 

 

Walt Whitman – Best Voice of the American Spirit

 

 

 

William Carlos Williams – Most Impact with Least Words

 

 

 

 

 

International

 

 

 

Seamus Heaney – Best Voice of Irish Rural Perspective

 

 

 

Madeleine L’Engle – Best Portrait of Resurrection Living

 

 

 

Li Po – Best Natural Images for Meditation and Inebriation

 

 

 

Garcia Lorca – Best Expression of Deep Cultural Song

 

 

 

Nazik al-Mala’ika – Most Courageous Ideas by an Arab Female Poet

 

 

 

Czeslaw Milosz – Best Use of Meditative Lyric for World View

 

 

 

Pablo Neruda – Deepest South American Passion

 

 

 

Rumi – Best Metaphors for Spiritual Devotion

 

 

 

Wislawa Szymborska – Most Elegant Look at Human Fallibility

 

 

 

W. B. Yeats – Best Voice of Poetic Myth and Mysticism

 

 

 

 

 

        So there you have it, my list of recommended poets, but here I must include a disclaimer: this is hardly a comprehensive list. There are so many others. Most importantly, my list leaves out the dozens of classical poets whose work serves as our foundation. On the other hand, I might also have included several wonderful Texas poets whose voices have not found renown but are certainly worth the price of their collections.

 

        In closing, I want to thank all those whose poems have touched my heart and inspired my work. In response to the blessings your words have brought me, I will reiterate my original exhortation to students, poets and to all aspiring writers:

 

 

 

Read. Read. Read. Then Write!