liv ❁'s Reviews > Devotions: The Selected Poems of Mary Oliver

Ariel by Sylvia Plath!

yessssssssss
*deep breath*
Anything Audre Lorde, Lucille Clifton, Jane Hirshfield I think they are good entry points into poetry.
Oooo I think, since you enjoyed Joy Harjo and tend to look for indigenous works that you'd like A History of Kindness by Linda Hogan and Postcolonial Love Poem by Natalie Diaz.
Also
Night Sky with Exit Wounds by Ocean Vuong
The Tradition by Jericho Brown
The Hurting Kind: Poems by Ada Limon (current poet Laureate!)
Dear God. Dear Bones. Dear Yellow. by Noor Hindi (Palestinian-American that talks A LOT about ideas of identity in a country that doesn't acknowledge the existence of your homeland. She gets real fiery too I love her definitely at least read this poem:
poetryfoundation (.) org/poetrymagazine/poems/154658/fuck-your-lecture-on-craft-my-people-are-dying
Alive At The End Of The World by Saeed Jones
okay and anything Louise Gluck. I'll shut up now.

Holly wrote: "Ariel by Sylvia Plath!"

oooh thank you! I didn't even think of Plath!

s.penkevich wrote: "yessssssssss
*deep breath*
Anything Audre Lorde, Lucille Clifton, Jane Hirshfield I think they are good entry points into poetry.
Oooo I think, since you enjoyed Joy Harjo and tend to look for ind..."

Ahhhhh thank you so much this is so helpful!! I have not heard of a lot of these people and somehow completely forgot about Ocean Vuong?? Which is kind of crazy because I was thinking about picking him up quite often for a while. Okay thank you though! I will look into these. And probably grab all of them lol.

Oh also let me tell you what poetry collections I have amassed and not read! Because idk maybe you can let me know about them if you've read them.
- I actually do have The Selected Works of Audre Lorde and was debating between picking that one or Devotions up. Depending when I finish, I might pick that one up next!
- Rilke's Book of Hours: Love Poems to God (which is actually went to the bookstore to grab when I also picked up Joy Harjo) because I love Letters to a Young Poet and am always impressed when I, as an atheist, can feel god through someone else's work. Or at least the strength of the idea.
- The Autobiography of Red which I'm really excited for. That's realistically what I pick up next. I know it's like a novel in verse, but that still counts as poetry, right?
- The Essential Rumi
- and A Season in Hell which I was gifted in college because I took French for like a year and got super into french music for a hot minute so there was a period in my life where that was a whole personality trait (i don't remember any French). That's one I'd be intrigued to revisit because I just read it and absorbed nothing.

liv ❁ wrote: "s.penkevich wrote: "yessssssssss
*deep breath*
Anything Audre Lorde, Lucille Clifton, Jane Hirshfield I think they are good entry points into poetry.
Oooo I think, since you enjoyed Joy Harjo and ..."

Oh good I can be insufferable about poetry recs just a warning haha and have an entire Instagram account dedicated to them.
But yay Definitely start with the first Vuong if you do I found the second a tad disappointing honestly.

Yesssss Autobiography in Red is wild! I love Carson and yea all in verse and super queer. I need to reread that, I have a “review to come” review that is now 5 years old haha

But great selections. I think you’ll enjoy Lorde. Very great intersectional stuff in her essays and I love how her poetry is accessible without sacrificing depth in a way that reminds me of Oliver but also gets into really awesome political and feminist theory. Like, the best poetry to quote for arguing with people haha

That is a great point about Rilke too, huh, yea I never really thought of that. And true, despite being religious I never think of it as religious when I read it if that makes sense? He’s pretty important in an Ali Smith book I’m currently reading so I’ve been dipping into him again but the translation I have is kind of shit.

Oh I finally remembered to order Hala Alam if you are still up for her sometime this summer!

“happy reading” i say, knowing full well a poem about a dog made me sob like a baby and reevaluate my entire life

s.penkevich wrote: "liv ❁ wrote: "s.penkevich wrote: "yessssssssss
*deep breath*
Anything Audre Lorde, Lucille Clifton, Jane Hirshfield I think they are good entry points into poetry.
Oooo I think, since you enjoyed ..."

Hahaha I mean your love of poetry and the fact that I know you have a bunch of great recs is why I am planning on continuing to ask you for recs sooo it will not be insufferable to me.

Oooh okay that's good to hear! I don't know a ton about it, but I'm excited for it. Haha yeah maybe a reread would get the review juices flowing. You're really keeping your fans (me after I read it) waiting.

Yeah, I've been meaning to read her for a while! For some reason I didn't connect that the book I had was like half poems so I had in the more dense nonfiction stack that is... too long to manage based on how slow I read dense nonfiction. She's moving up a ton on the priority list! I do love arguing with people.

Yeah that does make sense with Rilke. Which might be why I like him and can connect to his stuff that talks about god. Idk the only things that really start making me thing about a higher power is nature too and the way he writes specifically about god in nature is just so awed but also like personal? Idk if that makes sense but I really liked it and now I gotta read his actually poetry haha.

Oh yay! and my copy came in today haha!! Yes I'm still very down to read it over the summer! I'm honestly getting my basic poetry vibes outta the way because I'm ready to fully commit to poetry (+ russian lit) summer sooo as soon as June comes around I'm going to start annoying you so we can have a decent amount of poetry overlap. I'm very down to start that one early June/late May instead of real summer as well. I'm also down to wait til real summer.

eva ♡ wrote: "“happy reading” i say, knowing full well a poem about a dog made me sob like a baby"

hahaha yeah I guess emotional reading or something might be a better thing to say?? It's like half and half on vibes. Ooooh which poem?? I have finished the excerpts from Dog Songs and I am guessing its in there.