female poets: a place to begin
Yesterday, I shared that I'm thinking about the tables I want to sit at when having conversations about the beautiful questions (as David Whyte calls them), and one part of this is sharing more about poetry here on my blog and reading and sharing more female poets.
So here's a list of just a few to get you exploring. Because poets tend not to have personal websites, I'm linking to Poetry Foundation for you to learn more about these female truth tellers and adventurers and read more of their poems. Please feel free to share other female poets and your favorite poems in the comments. I'd love this post to become a beautiful resource for all of us.
Naomi Shihab Nye: Her poem "Kindness" is one of my favorites. I also love her collection Red Suitcase. What Have You Lost? is often by my bedside; it's a collection of poems by others she gathered on that topic.
Marge Piercy: I remember the first time I read "The Day My Mother Died" and stood rereading it again and again, my mouth agape with that "I'm not the only one" kind of feeling swirling around me. I also love the poem "Colors Passing Through Us." And her collection The Moon Is Always Female must be mentioned in this week's poetry conversation.
Sharon Olds: Her poem "I Go Back to May 1937" was the first poem that caused me to say "Oh shit" out loud (there have been others). I've written about it several times (including here), but I have to mention it today because of the way it tells a story so many of us touch around the edges of but seldom have words for. Her collection "The Father" is about her father's illness and death and her reflections on all of it. It is gritty and masterful. In other collections she writes about the real stuff of motherhood and holds nothing back. Here she is reading "The Clasp." (Wow. Just wow.)
Jane Kenyon: I have Kenyon's Collected Poems. I pick it up, read one maybe two poems, then try to catch my breath and put it down for two to four months, then repeat the process. I could probably devote an entire blog post to explain why, but part of me really wants you to discover her on your own and begin your own conversations with her. A few for you to begin with: "Let Evening Come," "Happiness" (you can hear her read it), and "The Shirt," which might just surprise you and make you laugh out loud.
Diane Ackerman: I'm a big fan of Diane Ackerman's A Natural History of the Senses and have had A Natural History of Love on my shelf for a long time. It's now in the pile of books I'm hoping to read this winter. With these books though, you get more of her naturalist/poet self; they aren't filled with poems. You can dive into her poetry in Origami Bridges. And here's one for you to read right now: "We Are Listening."
Elizabeth Bishop: Her personal story just really captures me. She is now recognized as one of the great American poets, but she wasn't well known while alive. So many of her poems rhyme, which is also intriguing to me. Here's one for you: "Full Moon, Key West."
and of course, Mary Oliver: She's my favorite poet. The one I turn to daily. At retreats, I will often pick up one of her books from the basket of poetry I have beside me and just turn to a poem. It is almost always the one the group needs to hear at that point in the retreat. Magic. Her poems often chronicle the walks she takes each day. And they just tell the real stuff about life...about being a human in this beautiful, heartbreaking world. I'm so grateful for her. I pretty much recommend every collection, but Red Bird is a great one to start with. And here's one of her poems, "Breakage," for you to read aloud again and again.
And then there's Nikki Giovanni and Kathleen Norris and Marianne Moore and Susan Howe...there are so many others. Please do share your own favorites in the comments.
Tomorrow our week of poetry continues, so please do meet me back here.
poetry in poem it out
Reader Comments (11)
I submit NC poets Kathryn Stripling Byer & Terri Kirby Erickson
I LOVE this post! Liz, I write poetry and enjoy reading it and I often feel like an outsider for it. I have looked for poetry group or just a friend who feels about poetry the way I do. I haven't found it & that's probably because I'm in a fairly small town. So thank God for the internet's ability to link kindreds!
I have one more---a new discovery for me. You've written so much about noticing & being present and that reminds me of this poem by Ellen Bass:
Relax
Bad things are going to happen.
Your tomatoes will grow a fungus
and your cat will get run over.
Someone will leave the bag with the ice cream
melting in the car and throw
your blue cashmere sweater in the drier.
Your husband will sleep
with a girl your daughter’s age, her breasts spilling
out of her blouse. Or your wife
will remember she’s a lesbian
and leave you for the woman next door. The other cat–
the one you never really liked–will contract a disease
that requires you to pry open its feverish mouth
every four hours. Your parents will die.
No matter how many vitamins you take,
how much Pilates, you’ll lose your keys,
your hair and your memory. If your daughter
doesn’t plug her heart
into every live socket she passes,
you’ll come home to find your son has emptied
the refrigerator, dragged it to the curb,
and called the used appliance store for a pick up–drug money.
There’s a Buddhist story of a woman chased by a tiger.
When she comes to a cliff, she sees a sturdy vine
and climbs half way down. But there’s also a tiger below.
And two mice–one white, one black–scurry out
and begin to gnaw at the vine. At this point
she notices a wild strawberry growing from a crevice.
She looks up, down, at the mice.
Then she eats the strawberry.
So here’s the view, the breeze, the pulse
in your throat. Your wallet will be stolen, you’ll get fat,
slip on the bathroom tiles of a foreign hotel
and crack your hip. You’ll be lonely.
Oh taste how sweet and tart
the red juice is, how the tiny seeds
crunch between your teeth.
So many to love -
And yes to all things Ellen Bass - The Human Line, Mules of Love and Like a Beggar are all great collections. "Gate C22" is fabulous.
And this - http://www.gratefulness.org/poetry/moment_atwood.htm
And Barbara Crooker and Lynn Ungar and and and...:)
Treat yourself to a visit to Open Books in Wallingford next time you're up that way....it's poetry Mecca.
Sharon Olds is one of my all time favorite poets. So happy to see her on this list of delicious word-whisperers.
I love discovering new poet(ess)s through others. Might I suggest adding Louise Gluck to your list?! I studied her in college and love her collection The Wild Iris. A recent interview in Poets and Writers has me rereading her work and nodding often with a deep sense of understanding and connection:)
Some great poets in your list! I would add Anne Sexton, Anne Waldman, Sylvia Plath, Alice Walker, and Ruth Stone.
Some of my favorites (who haven't already been listed):
Maya Angelou
Gwendolyn Brooks
Lucille Clifton
H.D. (Hilda Doolittle)
Emily Dickinson
Jane Hirshfield
Maxine Kumin
Denise Levertov
Jane Miller
Molly Peacock
Muriel Rukeyser
Maurya Simon
Cecilia Woloch
There are so many more, but these are all poets of deep personal significance to me (literary ancestors and teachers).
(All the above poets are listed on The Poetry Foundation, many of them have personal websites as well. I'll also add another professor of mine, Judy Kronenfeld, who has a website, but is not listed on TPF.)
One of my favorite poems: Her Kind - Anne Sexton
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/171268
I love this post, thank you so much for sharing these. I'm a huge Mary Oliver fan (my favourite poem by her is The Journey, and I also love The Kookaburras) and it can be hard to find new female poets. I look forward to working my way through this list! :)
I don't read nearly enough poetry, and I do love it, so I recently bought a book of New Zealand poems - there's so many talented kiwis I'd never heard of in there and I'm really enjoying opening it up to a random page as I sit with a cup of tea or coffee.
I'm going to really enjoy perusing all your links, and the ones in the comments, and that poem by Ellen Bass that was shared in the comments is exactly what I needed to read right now.
x
I love this post, and there are some new names for me there, excited to explore. Have you read 101 Happy Poems? It's an anthology by Wendy Cope. It has poems by both men and women but I love the way she collects them. And Moya Cannon is a local favourite of mine. Her Hands collection reminds me of Mary Oliver, with an Irish slant.