A Poem I Love
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Lucy Corin: A Poem I Love
Frank O’Hara’s “Morning” I can read, as I just did, stuffing my face with a disgusting greasy croissant, and I am still totally immersed in the world of this poem which resists weeping so desperately the whole thing feels like…
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Ariane Conrad: A Poem I Love
You’d think Stanley Kunitz, near 70 and hobbling through “Touch Me” would have slid off my 19 year old self. But it was the only poem that stuck, from a night of literary luminaries. 15 years later, returning—not the first…
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Margo Rabb: A Poem I Love
It’s rare to find a poem that perfectly captures the anger, absurdity, complexity, and hilarity of grief—something which Sherman Alexie does again and again in his new collection of poems, FACE, which is just out from Hanging Loose Press, and…
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A Poem I Love
As part of National Poetry Month, Rumpus Books asked writers for poems they loved, and places those poems can be found online. Here’s what they said:
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Randall Mann: A Poem I Love
The last poem I loved is John Casteen’s fifteen-line poem “Regret,” from his first collection, Free Union. Here’s the first stanza: This life, it is like conducting the symphony of a warring country; the cellist has been shot through the…
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Sean Singer: A Poem I Love
Melvin Dixon’s “Spring Cleaning” Melvin Dixon died of AIDS in 1992 and is one of our most underrated poets. “Spring Cleaning” alludes to what Ralph Ellison called “the jagged grain,” the texture of experiencing the blues in one’s life. Dixon,…
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Jason Roberts: A Poem I Love
Donald Justice, “Men At Forty” Dear sweet god. This is a poem that renders an entire genre of novels unnecessary. What the hell is it that every meditation-on-middle-age is saying, if not this?
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Joey Nicoletti: A Poem I Love
I am smitten with Milton Kessler’s “Comma of God.” It’s a poem of great texture: a prayer, a chant, an adroit benediction. Perhaps most of all, it’s a testament to a fully lived life; an edifice of gratitude for having…
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Amy Letter: A Poem I Love
The last poem I loved is “Strongly Scented Sonnet” by Rhoda Janzen. It’s vivid and perverse, a bit disgusting, yet the most palpably romantic poem I have ever read. A woman, for her lover, tucks an apple into “the nest…
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Shara Lessley: A Poem I Love
Editors Note: In honor of National Poetry Month, The Rumpus has asked writers to provide us with poems they love, and the reasons why. We’re also including links to these poems in their entirety. We’ll be doing this all month.…