Poet try

Over the past couple of years or so, I'm not sure I've done enough writing to properly call myself a poet. And goodness knows I have never read enough of other people's poetry. This is something I handwringingly halfheartedly keep trying to change. But let's see if I can stick with it this time.

A couple of things have made me resolve to renew my poetry-reading efforts. First of all, last week I read Maggie Nelson's Bluets, which is a sort of cross between a philosophical investigation and a poem. Nelson has published several books. I regretted for years not picking up Shiner from the Strand when I had a chance (one of the poems I'd read in the store stayed with me so much that I eventually ordered the book); a couple years after that I had the rare privilege of helping to design the cover of another of her works. So, Bluets complete, I thought I'd best go back to the other books of Nelson's I have.

My second resolve nudge came from reading Nicholson Baker's The Anthologist. Which is a novel about a semi-washed-up poet attempting to write the introduction to an anthology of verse...but in the course of procrastinating on his introduction, he comes up with a whole book instead. The book combines all types of musings. It's a gentle satire of academia; it has the same stream-of-consciousness quality of, say, some of Tao Lin's books, but does not frustrate me in the way those do; and, most importantly, it's a celebration of poetry (albeit one that made me half tired of the whole business--but that's a story for another time). Baker's narrator is so genuinely enthusiastic about the poets he describes that I became enthusiastic too. In particular he discusses Elizabeth Bishop, whose collected poems I picked up when I was in San Francisco (and somehow magically managed to fit in my overfull bag) and W.S. Merwin, whose latest, The Shadow of Sirius, I just happened to have stored in a cabinet at work.

I read some Merwin interspersed with The Anthologist and I think I will read Bishop's Collected Poems more thoroughly. It shouldn't be impossible to read a handful of poems a day, right? I mean, I manage to read NPR's poems of the day, blearily booting up the morning internet. Reading poetry is hard, if you let it be. I think I tend to get bogged down by the need to understand and parse every. single. nuance. of a poem. But this time I am going to try to go a bit more full steam ahead. I will let you know how it turns out.

Postscript:
Who are some poets you particularly like? Franz Wright and Anne Carson are also very much on my list; I have read and LOVED several works from each.