(no subject)

[prosodic]

Last night, I was writing in my paper journal. It's the journal I've been keeping throughout my time here in Germany. I want to finish it before we leave (and if I'm consistent about writing in it, I could very well do that).

Anyway, Lance asked me what I was doing, and I told him that I was journaling.

"Oh, you're writing all that stuff that you can't say on Live Journal." (That's not exactly what he said, but it was something along those lines.)

"Not really. And I write EVERYTHING with the knowledge that someone might read it someday. Even my personal paper journal."

Lance: "Wow. That's big headed."

Me: "No. I don't mean it in the sense that I'm going to die as a super famous person and everyone will be interested in publishing my diaries. I mean it in the sense that if I die before you, you very well might read my journals after I'm gone."

Lance: "I would never do that. You're entitled to your privacy. It would be difficult for me to restrain myself, though."

Anyway, he doesn't even read my Live Journal anymore. I doubt he would read my paper journals. And some of the stuff I write is just stupid, angsty crap anyway...I don't think there's anything terribly profound about my thoughts. And I doubt anyone can read it. My handwriting has gotten pretty sloppy over the years, especially when my carpal tunnel flares up. When I first start writing, it's usually pretty legible, but then it gets worse as I keep going.

***

So I've noticed lately that I'm starting to look for poetry again. I used to write a lot of poetry, until I was in a Creative Writing class in college and my poetry instructor told me that my poetry was crap. I stopped writing it mostly, except to come up with the occasional poem in memory of a family member who passed away or something. I was becoming quite known in my family for memorializing people in verse.

I also stopped reading poetry, for the most part. But I've started getting an interest in it again.

Anyone have suggestions for poets I should be reading right now? I have an anthology of 20th century women poets, so I have somewhere to start.

This could mean that I will eventually start dabbling in verse again. I have random lines that could eventually become poems. But nothing else right now.

***

Totally not writing related, but I just had an amazing breakfast. I had some leftover fried apples from the other day, and I warmed those up in the microwave for a minute. I mixed it with vanilla yogurt and granola. It tasted almost like apple crisp a la mode. Yummy yum.

Off to spinning class here shortly.

Comments

ick. typo

[flockofgulls.livejournal.com]

Well, my personal favorites might not be your style but Anne Sexton, Sylvia Plath, e.e. cummings, Neruda, and all the Beat Poets, the transcendentalist poets ... Whitman. Poe. I read all of them consistently. Then there are the lesser known poets but I can never remember their names ... I used to stumble upon them in ambiguous anthologies.

Re: ick. typo

[prosodic.livejournal.com]

I'm open to new poets. I studied mostly the medieval through Victorian stuff (and especially the Romantic poets), so I'm looking for something a bit more contemporary. Robert Frost is about as contemporary as I've gotten.

Although I already worship at Poe's altar, so you don't need to preach to me about him. ;) He was my first big literary love...even before Shakespeare. Probably because I was introduced to him in 6th grade, and it was another 3 years before I started reading Shakespeare.

I have to admit though...not a huge fan of Whitman.

[anmorata.livejournal.com]

Pablo Neruda is my favorite poet as of late. Kenneth Koch follows that pretty closely, as does Sylvia Plath. Anything beyond that is the old Romantic/Victorian men, ie Lord Byron, etc, and I'm sure you're familiar with them. :)

[prosodic.livejournal.com]

I've had every intention of picking up Sylvia Plath. I have some of her poetry in an anthology already. And I am a bit familiar with Neruda's work as well. Guess I've been too stuck in a time warp as far as literature goes. :)

Oh...and I got the comment you left on my now deleted post. Thanks for the vote of confidence. Everything got worked out and the movers are no longer coming on Wednesday.

[tully-monster.livejournal.com]

Good anthology I used to assign my students is Against Forgetting: Twentieth-Century Poetry of Witness (ed. Forche). And the WWI poets--Owen, Graves, Sassoon, Blunden, Rosenberg--I'd assign some of their work and the students would come back next class saying breathlessly, "Wow--I didn't know poetry could be like that!" and I'd hardly have to lift a finger.

I'm also kind of partial to the Irish contemporary poets--Heaney, of course, Derek Mahon, Eavan Boland, Paul Muldoon, and John Montague.

My favorite poet, however is the Anglo-Welsh WWI veteran David Jones (not the Monkee), but he's kind of cryptic and not real accessible.