#52Poetry

@TheAmericanPoet on Twitter started the challenge of reading 52 poetry collections this year. It's Jan. 31 and here's what I read this month:

1. Lighthead by Terrance Hayes
2. To Repel Ghosts by Kevin Young (which at 316 pages should be counted as 3 collections)
3. Brutal Imagination by Cornelius Eady
4. Triumph of Achilles by Louise Glück
5. 10 Mississippi by Steve Healey

plus 2 of my classmates' poetry manuscripts. But I'll just count the officially published stuff.

So there...I got 5 this month.

I started, but did not finish, Through the Stonecutter's Window and One Small Thing.

So did reading effect my writing?

I wrote one poem after Louise Glück.
I wrote one poem in a voice inspired by Terrance Hayes and Steve Healey.
And Kevin Young renewed my faith in using short lines and sparse language.

First up in February...Raptus by Joanna Klink.

Happy reading and writing, everyone!

Getting to know Roethke

Of course I've started with wikipedia, because I want the most accurate and scholarly info. First thing that catches my eye is this:
"an American poet, who published several volumes of poetry characterized by its rhythm and natural imagery."

*gasp*

I want to be an American poet who publishes volumes of poetry characterized by rhythm and imagery! lol So I think I'm headed in the right direction by choosing to look more closely into Roethke's work after being exposed to a few of his pieces in workshop this week.

His bio on PBS.org states that his influences were Blake, Yeats, and Auden so I could look more into those poets as well. My professor had a great family tree analogy about poets and I can see it at work here. Just pick a poet, find their influences, and go from there. Then your own work becomes influenced by their work and you become the newest extension on the family tree.

So now I'm reading his Collected Poems which has the full text of all of his books. UVA has it for free on e-text! Yay!

First impressions: His first book "Open House" has some rhyming, sing-songy, dare I say even emo stuff so far lol. The poems the professor handed out in class were all from his second volume, "Lost Son," and did not rhyme like the few I've read so far.

We'll see where this goes.

Whew...

Okay, so I don't know if it's the double shot of espresso from this morning that has me feeling exhilirated or if it's the fact that I just, seconds ago, finished reading Against Which by Ross Gay. First words that came to mind after reading the first section: masculinity and rage. Masculine rage. I felt like I'd been given an IV of masculine rage after reading the first section. This could also be the espresso lol. But the word rage actually shows up a few times in the poems. These poems were muscles with bulging veins, if I had to lend an image. There was also this awareness of the reader that was nice. Well, it was more like an awareness that someone was listening. Reading these poems felt more like listening, actually listening, to someone who was passionate about what they had to tell me. You know how when someone stands up in front of you and their arms are bent at the elbows, hands curled into fists, and they look like they could drop to their knees at any moment all from the shear exhiliration (it's confirmed, it's the book) of sharing..that's what I felt like I bore witness to while reading this book.

That's just a quick first impression upon first reading. I'll leave it pure like that since my internal editor keeps erasing anything else I have to say about it lol. I'm weary about just leaving it at masculine & rage because there were many more descriptive words to use, tender being the first one that comes to mind. Definitely a shift to internal strength in the later sections. Tender masculine rage. There's no all-inclusive term that I can think of, I just wanted to put those words together lol.

Anyway...I'm either reading Terrance Hayes Hip Logic next or re-reading Lisa Glatt's A Girl Becomes a Comma Like That. I think I'll be posting my thoughts on my reading for awhile. Probably until I leave Idaho in a few months and my life starts happening again lol.