I began my writing life with poetry, though it was writing fiction that stuck. Always my love of poetry remained, and even now when I read fiction it’s the beauty of the language I look for–the poetry in the prose. 

As much as I love poetry, I lost my way with reading it for a few years. Once I became a novelist, I read fiction almost exclusively. Over time, I found my way back to reading poetry. Now when I read, I have one poetry collection, one novel, and one nonfiction book going at the same time so I can tap into all my interests. Here are some of my poetry recommendations.

Poetry Reading List

Mary Oliver

Reading Oliver for the first time was like meeting a new friend I felt I’d always known. Her focus on nature, the beauty as well as the violent reality, sings home for me. Her verse on the surface seems simple, perhaps even simplistic, but when you dig into her themes of mindfulness and paying attention to the world, you realize her work has profound depth.

If you’re new to Oliver, I suggest starting with Devotions, a Read With Jenna pick that features the best poems from Oliver’s collections. 

Last week I finished reading Upstream, a collection of essays. Oliver begins with how she would skip school to spend her days in nature reading the great American poets and thinkers, and then she talks about some of her biggest influences, including Poe, Whitman, and Wordsworth. Some of these essays I had seen before, but some, especially the literary biographies, were new to me. Her take on Emerson is particularly fine.

E.E. Cummings

When I was a fresh-faced university student studying literature, it was poetry more than prose that blew my mind. I remember reading E.E. Cummings and realizing for the first time that grammar and punctuation rules could be seen as suggestions instead of laws to be obeyed. I learned that you could experiment with language. 

I recently read Cummings’ Selected Poems, edited by Richard S. Kennedy. I recommend this edition since Kennedy shares background information about Cummings in each section of the book. While the information isn’t essential for understanding, it gives Cummings’ verse more depth. For example, I didn’t know that Cummings was influenced by art, particularly Cubism, and was himself an artist. Now I can see the results of those influences in Cummings’ poetry.

Ocean Vuong

If you want poetry from someone with mastery of the English language, read Ocean Vuong. I read Vuong’s novel On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous a few years ago and loved it. His writing is personal, heartfelt, and, yes, gorgeous.

Most recently, I’ve read his collection Time is a Mother and I highly recommend it. Although my life experiences are different from Vuong’s, I still see myself in his verse. That’s what poetry does–it shows us, as Maya Angelou said, that we are more alike than we are different. 

Langston Hughes

I love Hughes’ poetry. I love the jazz and blues rhythms that reverberate from the page. Hughes is another favorite from my university days, and he wrote some of my all-time favorite poems: “I, Too,” “The Negro Speaks of Rivers,” and “Theme For English B.” 

I have Selected Poems of Langston Hughes from Penguin Random House on my self, and it’s the compilation I recommend. 

Joy Harjo

Harjo was named United States Poet Laureate in 2019. A musician and performer as well as a poet, Harjo’s verse captures blues and jazz rhythms, as Langston Hughes did before her, while sharing the brutal honesty about life for Native Americans past and present. I’ve read Harjo’s Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings, which is about resilience in the face of hardship. This collection from Harjo is five stars from me.

Walt Whitman

For me, poetry began with Whitman. When I read “Song of Myself” for the first time when I was at university I knew I had met a kindred spirit. I learned how to put words and then sentences together from Whitman, and I search for that free verse spirit when I’m writing fiction. My sense of the interconnectedness of all things began with Whitman. 

“I celebrate myself, and sing myself,

And what I assume you shall assume,

For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.”

If you’re looking to read Whitman, start with Leaves of Grass which contains “Song of Myself,” his seminal work. Then you can move onto his other works, including his American Civil War poems. 

Emily Dickinson

Dickinson is another kindred spirit I met as a literature student. She lived most of her later life in seclusion, but she lived an in-depth life of the mind where she contemplated life’s most important themes: nature, the self, love, faith, and death. 

I have Hope is the Thing With Feathers: The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson on my shelf. It’s a wonderful edition and I recommend it. 

The Poetry Foundation

If you’d like to read poems by any of the poets above, The Poetry Foundation from Poetry Magazine features poems and biographical information about the poets, along with essays, articles, and podcasts. You can find it online here.

Where To Start Reading Poetry

If you’d like to read poetry but you’re not sure where to begin, you might choose an anthology. I recommend The Best Poems of the English Language by Harold Bloom, which gives a selection of poems beginning with Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales through Hart Crane. From there, you can choose the poems you like best and read more deeply from those poets.  

On Writing Poetry

As I’ve started reading poetry again, I’ve started writing it again too. If you’re looking to write poetry and need some inspiration, I recommend A Poetry Handbook by Mary Oliver and Writing Poetry by Barbara Drake, which I’ve had on my bookshelf since my university days. I checked Amazon, and Drake’s book seems to be out of print, which is a shame, but there are used copies available. My copy has been reread so many times the spine is cracking. It’s worth getting your hands on one if you can. 

Learning More About Poetry

If you want to discover poetry from the inside out, anything by Edward Hirsch will do. Hirsch brings well-known, well-loved poems to life with fresh eyes, and I always learn something when I read his work. I’m currently reading Hirsch’s How To Read a Poem: And Fall in Love With Poetry, and I’m annotating most of the book. 

Poetry Helps You Understand the World

For me, poetry is a profound way to engage with the world. It prompts critical thinking, personal reflection, and emotional engagement with this crazy life I lead. And it allows me to enjoy the beauty of the English language. What more can you ask for?