Wednesday, August 26, 2009

Edward Byrne's Top 100 Books of Poetry

Edward Byrne has posted his top 100 books of 20th century American poetry, in alphabetical order by author, on his excellent blog for the Valparaiso Poetry Review, "One Poet's Notes":


1. A.R. Ammons: Collected Poems 1951-1971 (1971)
2. Rae Armantrout: Veil: New and Selected Poems (2001)
3. John Ashbery: Selected Poems (1985)
4. John Berryman: Collected Poems 1937-1971 (1988)
5. Linda Bierds: Flight: New and Selected Poems (2008)
6. Elizabeth Bishop: The Complete Poems, 1929-1979 (1983)
7. Robert Bly: Selected Poems (1986)
8. Louise Bogan: The Blue Estuaries: Poems 1923-1968 (1968)
9. David Bottoms: Armored Hearts: Selected and New Poems (1995)
10. Gwendolyn Brooks: Selected Poems (1999)
11. Amy Clampett: The Collected Poems (1993)
12. Lucille Clifton: Blessing the Boats: New and Selected Poems, 1988-2000 (2000)
13. Billy Collins: Sailing Alone Around the Room: New and Selected Poems (2001)
14. Hart Crane: The Poems of Hart Crane (1986)
15. Robert Creeley: Selected Poems (1991)
16. E.E. Cummings: Complete Poems: 1913-1962 (1972)
17. J.V. Cunningham: The Poems of J.V. Cunningham (1997)
18. James Dickey: The Whole Motion: Collected Poems, 1945-1992 (1992)
19. Mark Doty: Atlantis (1995)
20. Rita Dove: Selected Poems (1993)
21. Robert Duncan: Selected Poems (1997)
22. Stephen Dunn: New & Selected Poems: 1974-1994 (1994)
23. Richard Eberhart: Collected Poems, 1930-1986 (1988)
24. T.S. Eliot: Complete Poems and Plays (1952)
25. B.H. Fairchild: The Art of the Lathe (1998)
26. Lawrence Ferlinghetti: These Are My Rivers: New and Selected Poems, 1955-1993 (1993)
27. Edward Field: New and Selected Poems from the Book of My Life (1987)
28. Carolyn Forché: The Country Between Us (1981)
29. Robert Frost: Complete Poems of Robert Frost (1968)
30. Alice Fulton: Cascade Experiment: Selected Poems (2005)
31. Allen Ginsberg: Collected Poems: 1947-85 (1995)
32. Louise Glück: The First Four Books of Poems (1995)
33. Jorie Graham: The Dream of the Unified Field: Selected Poems 1974-1994 (1995)
34. Barbara Guest: Selected Poems (1995)
35. R.S. Gwynn: No Word of Farewell: Poems 1970-2000 (2001)
36. H.D. [Hilda Doolittle]: Collected Poems, 1912-1944 (1983)
37. John Haines: The Owl in the Mask of the Dreamer: Collected Poems (1993)
38. Joy Harjo: How We Became Human: New and Selected Poems 1975-2001 (2002)
39. Robert Hass: Field Guide (1973)
40. Robert Hayden: Collected Poems (1985)
41. Anthony Hecht: Collected Earlier Poems (1992)
42. Richard Hugo: Making Certain It Goes On: The Collected Poems of Richard Hugo (1984)
43. Mark Jarman: Unholy Sonnets (2000)
44. Randall Jarrell: Complete Poems (1968)
45. Donald Justice: New and Selected Poems (1995)
46. Weldon Kees: The Collected Poems of Weldon Kees (1975)
47. Galway Kinnell: A New Selected Poems (2000)
48. Carolyn Kizer: Cool, Calm and Collected: Poems 1960-2000 (2001)
49. Etheridge Knight: Born of a Woman: New and Selected Poems (1980)
50. Yusef Komunyakaa: Pleasure Dome: New and Collected Poems (2001)
51. Maxin Kumin: Selected Poems 1960-1990 (1997)
52. Denise Levertov: Selected Poems (2002)
53. Philip Levine: New Selected Poems (1992)
54. Larry Levis: The Selected Levis (2000)
55. Vachel Lindsay: Selected Poems of Vachel Lindsay (1963)
56. Audre Lorde: The Collected Poems of Audre Lorde (1997)
57. Amy Lowell: Complete Poetical Works (1955)
58. Robert Lowell: Collected Poems (2002)
59. Edgar Lee Masters: Spoon River Anthology (1916)
60. Walter McDonald: Blessings the Body Gave (1998)
61. Claude McKay: Selected Poems (1953)
62. James Merrill: Collected Poems (2001)
63. Thomas Merton: The Collected Poems of Thomas Merton (1979)
64. W.S. Merwin: Selected Poems (1988)
65. Edna St. Vincent Millay: The Selected Poetry of Edna St. Vincent Millay (2001)
66. Marianne Moore: The Complete Poems of Marianne Moore (1981)
67. Howard Nemerov: Trying Conclusions: New and Selected Poems, 1961-1991 (1991)
68. Frank O’Hara: The Collected Poems of Frank O’Hara (1995)
69. Sharon Olds: Strike Sparks: Selected Poems (2004)
70. Mary Oliver: New and Selected Poems (1992)
71. Charles Olson: The Collected Poems of Charles Olson (1987)
72. Robert Pinsky: The Figured Wheel: New and Collected Poems 1966-1996 (1996)
73. Sylvia Plath: The Collected Poems (1981)
74. Ezra Pound: The Cantos of Ezra Pound (1996)
75. John Crowe Ransom: Selected Poems (1945)
76. Kenneth Rexroth: The Complete Poems of Kenneth Rexroth (2002)
77. Adrienne Rich: The Fact of a Doorframe: Poems Selected and New, 1950-1984 (1984)
78. Edwin Arlington Robinson: Collected Poems (1937)
79. Theodore Roethke: Collected Poems (1966)
80. Muriel Rukeyser: Collected Poems (1978)
81. Carl Sandburg: Complete Poems (1970)
82. Anne Sexton: Selected Poems of Anne Sexton (1988)
83. Charles Simic: Selected Poems 1963-2003 (2004)
84. Louis Simpson: Collected Poems (1988)
85. Dave Smith: The Wick of Memory: New and Selected Poems, 1970-2000 (2000)
86. W.D. Snodgrass: Selected Poems, 1957-1987 (1987)
87. Gary Snyder: No Nature: New and Selected Poems (1992)
88. William Stafford: The Darkness Around Us Is Deep: Selected Poems of William Stafford (1993)
89. Gertrude Stein: Tender Buttons (1914)
90. Wallace Stevens: Collected Poetry and Prose (1997)
91. Mark Strand: Selected Poems (1990)
92. May Swenson: Nature: Poems Old and New (1994)
93. Allen Tate: Collected Poems, 1919-1976 (1977)
94. Mona Van Duyn: Selected Poems (2002)
95. Robert Penn Warren: The Collected Poems of Robert Penn Warren (1998)
96. Richard Wilbur: Collected Poems 1943-2004 (2004)
97. C.K. Williams: Selected Poems (1994)
98. William Carlos Williams: Collected Poems of William Carlos Williams (1986)
99. Charles Wright: Negative Blue: Selected Later Poems (2000)
100. James Wright: Above the River: The Complete Poems (1992)

Thursday, August 06, 2009

The Bob Dylan - James Dickey - Donald Armstrong Link

What Bob Dylan and James Dickey had in common, it seems, was a fascination with the tragic, mythic death of Donald Armstrong, the reinvented World War II pilot beheaded in the Dickey poem "The Performance":

'James Dickey famously growled in a 1969 symposium about the "debased kind of music Bob Dylan and these people play." If you read the line in context, Dickey was more complaining about the decline of traditional southern country and folk music, an opinion that Dylan would likely have agreed with then and now. But whether James Dickey was a fan of Bob Dylan or not, it's probable that Dylan was a fan of his.'

http://www.dreamtimepodcast.com/2009/08/last-time-i-saw-donald-armstrong-bob.html