Poetry Challenge

Poetry Challenge

Here is a challenge based on titles on a card from the Bibliophile note card collection by Jane Mount.

This is a big challenge for me as poetry is not my usual reading genre and not sure how it will go. So there is no end date and I plan to use this post as a checklist as I read each.

~*~

77 Dream Songs
by John Berryman
Poetry, USA | Published: 2001 (first 1964) | Goodreads | read: tba

Annie Allen
by Gwendolyn Brooks
Poetry, African American, USA | Published: 1972 | Goodreads | read: tba

Ariel
by Sylvia Plath
Poetry, Feminism, USA | Published: 2010 (first 1966) | Goodreads | read: 1/26/21

Autobiography of Red
by Anne Carson
Poetry, LGBTQ, Canada | Published: 1999 (first 1998) | Goodreads | read: tba

Baudelaire
by Charles Baudelaire
Poetry, France | Published: 1993 (first 1942) | Goodreads | read: tba

Coal
by Audre Lorde
Poetry, Feminism, LGBTQ, USA | Published: 1996 (first 1976) | Goodreads | read: tba

Collected Poems
by e.e. cummings
Poetry, USA | Published: 2016 (first 1991) | Goodreads | read: tba

Dance Dance Revolution
by Cathy Park Hong
Poetry, Dystopia, Asian | Published: 2007 | Goodreads | read: tba

Dickinson Poems
by Emily Dickinson
Poetry, USA | Published: 1993 (first 1890) | Goodreads | read: tba

Field Work
by Seamus Heaney
Poetry, Ireland | Published: 1981 (first 1979 | Goodreads | read: tba

Howl
by Allen Ginsberg
Poetry, LGBTQ, USA| Published: 2015 (first 1956) | Goodreads | read: tba

Just Give Me A Glass of Water 'Fore I Diiie
by Maya Angelou
Poetry, Feminism, African American | Published: 1977 (first 1971) | Goodreads | read: tba

Leave of Grass
by Walt Whitman
Poetry, | Published: 2007 (1885) | Goodreads | read: tba

Life on Mars
by Tracy K. Smith
Poetry, SciFi, African American| Published: 2011 | Goodreads | read: tba

Lunch Poems
by Frank O'Hara
Poetry, LGBTQ, USA | Published: 2014 (first 1964) | Goodreads | read: tba

Poems New and Collected
by Wislawa Szymborska
Poetry, Poland | Published: 2000 (first 1998) | Goodreads | read: tba

Selected Poems
by Lanston Hughes
Poetry, African American | Published: 1990 (first 1959) | Goodreads | read: tba

The Collected Poems
by Wallace Stevens
Poetry, USA | Published: 2015 (first 1954) | Goodreads | read: tba

The Complete Poems 1927-1979
by Elizabeth Bishop
Poetry, LGBTQ, USA| Published: 1984 (first 1980) | Goodreads | read: tba

The Dream of a Common Language
by Adrienne Ric
Poetry, Feminism, LGBTQ, USA | Published: 2013 (first 1978) | Goodreads | read: tba

The Essential Rumi
by Coleman Barks
Poetry, Spirituality, Philosophy, Islam | Published: 2004 (first 1273) | Goodreads | read: tba

The Poems
by John Keats
Poetry, Romanticism, England | Published: 1994 (first 1817) | Goodreads | read: tba

The Selected Poetry
by Rainer Maria Rilke
edited by Stephen Mitchell
Poetry, German | Published: 1989 (first 1948) | Goodreads | read: tba

The Waste Land and Other Writings
by T.S. Eliot
Poetry, USA | Published: 2002 (first 1922) | Goodreads | read: tba

Thirst
by Mary Oliver
Poetry, Spirituality, Nature, LGBTQ, USA | Published: 2006 | Goodreads | read: tba

W.B. Yeats Poems Collected
by Seamus Heaney
Poetry, Ireland | Published: 2009 (first 1962) | Goodreads | read: tba

When the Sidewalk Ends
by Shel Silverstein
Poetry, Childrens, USA | Published: 2002 (first 1974) | Goodreads | read: tba

Gmorning, Gnight! by Lin-Manuel Miranda

Gmorning, Gnight!:
Little Pep Talks for Me & You
by Lin-Manuel Miranda
illustrated by Jonny Sun

Published: 2018
Publisher: Random House
Genre: Poetry, Humor
Hardback: 224
Rating: 5
Goodreads | Website

First sentence(s):
I wanted to wish you a good morning.

Good morning. Do NOT get stuck in the comments section of life today. Make, do, create the things. Let others tussle it out. Vamos!

Before he inspired the world with Hamilton and was catapulted to international fame, Lin-Manuel Miranda was inspiring his Twitter followers with words of encouragement at the beginning and end of each day. He wrote these original sayings, aphorisms, and poetry for himself as much as for others. But as Miranda's audience grew, these messages took on a life on their own. Now Miranda has gathered the best of his daily greetings into a beautiful collection illustrated by acclaimed artist (and fellow Twitter favorite) Jonny Sun.

Full of comfort and motivation, Gmorning, Gnight! is a touchstone for anyone who needs a quick lift.

PeekAbook:

My two-bits:

Loved starting and ending my day with these dailies - motivating and cheerful.

The Shortest Day by Susan Cooper

The Shortest Day
by Susan Cooper
So the shortest day came, and the year died,

And everywhere down the centuries of the snow-white world

Came people singing, dancing,

To drive the dark away.

They lighted candles in the winter trees;

They hung their homes with evergreen;

They burned beseeching fires all night long

To keep the year alive,

And when the new year’s sunshine blazed awake

They shouted, revelling.

Through all the frosty ages you can hear them

Echoing behind us – Listen!!

All the long echoes sing the same delight,

This shortest day,

As promise wakens in the sleeping land:

They carol, feast, give thanks,

And dearly love their friends,

And hope for peace.

And so do we, here, now,

This year and every year.

Welcome Yule!!

~*~
* image source: yuletide

The Shortest Day
by Susan Cooper
-Children, Poetry | Goodreads

On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong

On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous
by Ocean Vuong

Published: 2019
Publisher: Penguin Press
Genre: Literary, Poetry, LGBTQ, Asian American, Vietnamese, Connecticut
Hardback: 246
Rating: 5
Goodreads
Website

First sentence(s):
Let me begin again.

Zombie sighting:
Mai, who had driven all night from Florida, shuffled through the rooms, cooking food and making tea in a zombie-like daze.
-page 198

On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous is a letter from a son to a mother who cannot read. Written when the speaker, Little Dog, is in his late twenties, the letter unearths a family's history that began before he was born — a history whose epicenter is rooted in Vietnam — and serves as a doorway into parts of his life his mother has never known, all of it leading to an unforgettable revelation. At once a witness to the fraught yet undeniable love between a single mother and her son, it is also a brutally honest exploration of race, class, and masculinity. Asking questions central to our American moment, immersed as we are in addiction, violence, and trauma, but undergirded by compassion and tenderness, On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous is as much about the power of telling one's own story as it is about the obliterating silence of not being heard.

My two-bits:
Gorgeously done in epistolary form with beautiful and moving passages filled with painful memories of the past.

~*~
* part of Books and States challenge (here): Connecticut

April is National Poetry Month

Soft Science
by Franny Choi
-Poetry, LGBTQ | Goodreads
Soft Science explores queer, Asian American femininity. A series of Turing Test-inspired poems grounds its exploration of questions not just of identity, but of consciousness―how to be tender and feeling and still survive a violent world filled with artificial intelligence and automation. We are dropped straight into the tangled intersections of technology, violence, erasure, agency, gender, and loneliness.

~*~
CELEBRATE National Poetry month with poetry by Franny and her latest release above.

~*~
Choi Jeong Min
by Franny Choi

For my parents, Choi Inyeong & Nam Songeun


in the first grade i asked my mother permission
to go by frances at school. at seven years old,

i already knew the exhaustion of hearing my name
butchered by hammerhead tongues. already knew

to let my salty gook name drag behind me
in the sand, safely out of sight. in fourth grade

i wanted to be a writer & worried
about how to escape my surname — choi

is nothing if not korean, if not garlic breath,
if not seaweed & sesame & food stamps

during the lean years — could i go by f.j.c.? could i be
paper thin & raceless? dust jacket & coffee stain,

boneless rumor smoldering behind the curtain
& speaking through an ink-stained puppet?

my father ran through all his possible rechristenings — 
ian, isaac, ivan — and we laughed at each one,

knowing his accent would always give him away.
you can hear the pride in my mother’s voice

when she answers the phone this is grace, & it is
some kind of strange grace she’s spun herself,

some lightning made of chain mail. grace is not
her pseudonym, though everyone in my family is a poet.

these are the shields for the names we speak in the dark
to remember our darkness. savage death rites

we still practice in the new world. myths we whisper
to each other to keep warm. my korean name

is the star my mother cooks into the jjigae
to follow home when i am lost, which is always

in this gray country, this violent foster home
whose streets are paved with shame, this factory yard

riddled with bullies ready to steal your skin
& sell it back to your mother for profit,

land where they stuff our throats with soil
& accuse us of gluttony when we learn to swallow it.

i confess. i am greedy. i think i deserve to be seen
for what i am: a boundless, burning wick.

a minor chord. i confess: if someone has looked
at my crooked spine and called it elmwood,

i’ve accepted. if someone has loved me more
for my gook name, for my saint name,

for my good vocabulary & bad joints,
i’ve welcomed them into this house.

i’ve cooked them each a meal with a star singing
at the bottom of the bowl, a secret ingredient

to follow home when we are lost:
sunflower oil, blood sausage, a name

given by your dead grandfather who eventually
forgot everything he’d touched. i promise:

i’ll never stop stealing back what’s mine.
i promise: i won’t forget again.

~*~
* This poem previously appeared on the Asian American Writers’ Workshop website.

* Source: Poetry, February 2016 (here)

The Princess Saves Herself in this One by Amanda Lovelace

The Princess Saves Herself in this One
by Amanda Lovelace

Find out more about this book and author:
Amazon
Goodreads
Website
Facebook
Instagram
Tumblr | Twitter

Published: 2016
Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing
Genre: Poetry, Feminism
Paperback: 156
Rating: 5

"ah, life— the thing that happens to us while we’re off somewhere else blowing on dandelions & wishing ourselves into the pages of our favorite fairy tales." a poetry collection divided into four different parts: the princess, the damsel, the queen, & you. the princess, the damsel, & the queen piece together the life of the author in three stages, while you serves as a note to the reader & all of humankind. explores life & all of its love, loss, grief, healing, empowerment, & inspirations.

My two-bits:

I liked the play on fairy tale themes and feminism mashups.

Also, amusing thoughts and commentary.

Note to Self by Connor Franta

Note to Self
by Connor Franta

Find out more about this book and author:
Amazon | Goodreads
Website | Facebook
Instagram
Tumblr
Twitter
YouTube

Just released: April 18, 2017
Publisher: Atria/Keywords Press
Genre: Biography, Poetry, Photos
Hardback pages: 320
Rating: 5

First sentence(s):
I'm a private person, ironically. "Ironic" because I'm in the business of public disclose, and I'm part of a generation that shares everything.

In his New York Times bestselling memoir, A Work in Progress, Connor Franta shared his journey from small-town Midwestern boy to full-fledged Internet sensation. Exploring his past with humor and astounding insight, Connor reminded his fans of why they first fell in love with him on YouTube—and revealed to newcomers how he relates to his millions of dedicated followers.

Now, two years later, Connor is ready to bring to light a side of himself he’s rarely shown on or off camera. In this diary-like look at his life since A Work in Progress, Connor talks about his battles with clinical depression, social anxiety, self-love, and acceptance; his desire to maintain an authentic self in a world that values shares and likes over true connections; his struggles with love and loss; and his renewed efforts to be in the moment—with others and himself.

Told through short essays, letters to his past and future selves, poetry, and original photography, Note to Self is a raw, in-the-moment look at the fascinating interior life of a young creator turning inward in order to move forward.

PeekAbook:



My two-bits:

I got this copy at an author meet/greet photo shoot session held at Book Passage, Ferry Building, San Francisco last month (previously mentioned here).

I found this to be a book gem with modern day reflections in essay and poetry forms and personal photos that make this reading a special experience.

A Thousand Mornings by Mary Oliver

A Thousand Mornings
by Mary Oliver

Find out more about this book and author:
Amazon
Goodreads
Website
Facebook

Published: 2012
Publisher: Penguin Books
Genre: Poetry, Nature
Paperback: 96 pages
Rating: 5

In A Thousand Mornings, Mary Oliver returns to the imagery that has come to define her life’s work, transporting us to the marshland and coastline of her beloved home, Provincetown, Massachusetts. Whether studying the leaves of a tree or mourning her treasured dog Percy, Oliver is open to the teachings contained in the smallest of moments and explores with startling clarity, humor, and kindness the mysteries of our daily experience.


My two-bits:

So beautiful!

Seeing the beauty in these nature themed poems was immediate.

Love Letters to the World by Meia Geddes

Love Letters to the World
by Meia Geddes

Find out more about this book and author:
Amazon
Goodreads
BookExcerpt
Website
Instagram
Twitter

Published: 2016
Publisher: Poetose Press
Genre: Poetry
ebook
Rating: 4

First sentence(s):
My dear world, There is something sunny and blue about you.

A series of 120 lyrical missives addressing the world as body, concept, stranger. This is a quiet celebration and exploration of life, love, language, and one's place in the world.

My two-bits:

This is a collection of lovely letters that speaks from the heart to the world. Inner reflections are shared that bring about an awareness on each topic presented.

~*~
* review copy courtesy of author

Excerpt: Love Letters to the World by Meia Geddes

Love Letters to the World
by Meia Geddes
-Poetry
Amazon | Goodreads
Love Letters to the World addresses the world as body, concept, stranger.
It is a quiet celebration and exploration of life, love, language, and one's place in the world.

Excerpt:

My dear world,

I wonder if you would agree with me that slip is a very good word. Slip is currently my favorite word, though I have never had a favorite word before. Maybe slip is my new favorite word because all the lovely intangibles can slip into your life without your noticing until the slip of your being realizes it is so. Maybe it is because I have a need to slip my life into you in ways unknown, maybe because you, world, are a slip of a word. Maybe because it relates to the way one wants to live, leaving an imprint but no more, maybe because I like the way bodies can slip into one another, maybe because a slip as a garment is ever contradictory, a container yet not. A slippage, what has not come to pass or what has passed, a bit of nothingness or a bit of everything if one considers all a slip of paper might hold. The word slip contains and offers itself. Maybe one should aspire to be a slip, to slip.

With love,
M

~*~
* excerpt courtesy of author

#30 Collantes Street by Lisa Suguitan Melnick

#30 Collante Street
A Divinely Driven Journey to the Philippines
by Lisa Suguitan Melnick

Find out more about this book and author:
Carayan Press
Goodreads
Website
Blog

Published: 2015
Publisher: Carayan Press
Genre: Poetry, Short Stories, Philippines
Paperback: 95 pages
Rating: 5

Simple, eloquent vignettes in #30 Collantes Street lend fresh eyes to the splendor of Philippine nature and rhythmic pace of the life to first-time visitors and maybe even more so to Filipinas/os born and raised in the Philippines. Then, there’s that last sweltering day on the beasty Manila streets, where the author discovers what she truly is made of.


My two-bits:

Having visited the Philippines twice in my life as a child, familiar scenes and imagery touched me while reading this.

Some funny and amusing moments captured while traveling.

Loved the references to delicious favorite food treats.

~*~
* review copy courtesy of M.G. whom I met at this year's BEA :-)

A Loaded Gun by Jerome Charyn (with giveaway)

A Loaded Gun
by Jerome Charyn

Find out more about this book and author:
Amazon
BN
iTunes
Bellevue Press
Goodreads
BookExcerpt
Website
Facebook
Twitter @emilysecretlife

Just released: March 15, 2016
Publisher: Bellevue Press
Genre: Literary Criticism, Poetry
Paperback: 256 pages
Rating: 4

First sentence(s):
When Julie Harris Died at eighty-seven of congestive heart failure on August 24, 2013, she was remembered most of all as an "unprepossessing anti-diva," who had a waiflike, invisible presence outside the roles she played, according to her obituary in The New York Times. Through she would inhabit Mary Lincoln, Joan of Arc, and Sally Bowles on Broadway, she continued to haunt the nation as "shy Miss Emily" for almost forty years.

We think we know Emily Dickinson: the Belle of Amherst, virginal, reclusive, and possibly mad. But in A Loaded Gun, Jerome Charyn introduces us to a different Emily Dickinson: the fierce, brilliant, and sexually charged poet who wrote:

My Life had stood—a Loaded Gun—
…
Though I than He— may longer live
He longer must—than I—
For I have but the power to kill,
Without—the power to die—

Through interviews with contemporary scholars, close readings of Dickinson’s correspondence and handwritten manuscripts, and a suggestive, newly discovered photograph that is purported to show Dickinson with her lover, Charyn’s literary sleuthing reveals the great poet in ways that have only been hinted at previously: as a woman who was deeply philosophical, intensely engaged with the world, attracted to members of both sexes, and able to write poetry that disturbs and delights us today.

My two-bits:

With excerpts from Emily Dickinson's letters, poetry and other critiques about Emily this book continues to describe and discover the essence of Emily. Daguerreotype images of her are also critiqued and analyzed to puzzle her out.

Despite her reclusive ways, restricted environment and relationships, Emily created a tremendous amount of poetry. The attempt to uncover the mystery of how such a person could burst forth with that body of work was fascinating to learn about in this book.

In the end, I found Emily to be like one of our modern day hoarders. She gathered words on scraps of papers and left them behind for us to ponder over. With her mad poetry skills, she then crafted those words to capture her inner self and moments in her life which again leaves us in a cloud of mystery.

About the author:

Jerome Charyn was born and raised on the mean streets of the Bronx. He graduated cum laude from Columbia College. He has taught at Princeton, Columbia, Stanford, Rice, was Distinguished Visiting Professor at the City University of New York and is currently Distinguished Professor Emeritus at the American University of Paris. Charyn is a Guggenheim Fellow and has twice won fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts. His stories and articles have appeared in The Atlantic, Paris Review, Esquire, American Scholar, New York Review of Books, New York Times, Ellery Queen and many other publications. Charyn's most recent books are The Secret Life of Emily Dickinson, I Am Abraham and Bitter Bronx: Thirteen Stories. His latest book is A Loaded Gun: Emily Dickinson for the 21st Century.

PeekAbook:



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WIN a $25 Amazon gift card or PayPal cash

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~*~
* review copy courtesy of book tour sponsored by Tribute Books

April is National Poetry Month

April is National Poetry Month
Poetry is one of those genres that I often neglect. I love that there is a month long event to remind me to explore and learn from this genre that can be quite moving and beautiful.

Things I plan to do:

RECEIVE a poem a day via email from (here). FYI: audio version are available for some of the poems

WRITE a poem.

behold
a sight at the site

ahead look forward
see the sea

the waves undulate
with life movement within

blues and greens
with wonders yet unseen

jump in eyes closed
jump in eyes open
jump in

-vvb, 2016
~*~
* image source: poetry header

Ghosting by Edith Pattou (with giveaway)

~*~

Ghosting
by Edith Pattou

Visit Edith:
Amazon
Website
Facebook
Goodreads
Twitter @epattou

Just released: August 19, 2014
Publisher: Skyscape
Genre: Poetry, YA
Hardback: 392 pages
Rating: 5

On a hot summer night in a midwestern town, a high school teenage prank goes horrifically awry. Alcohol, guns, and a dare. Within minutes, as events collide, innocents becomes victims—with tragic outcomes altering lives forever, a grisly and unfortunate scenario all too familiar from current real-life headlines. But victims can also become survivors, and as we come to know each character through his/her own distinctive voice and their interactions with one another, we see how, despite pain and guilt, they can reach out to one another, find a new equilibrium, and survive.

Told through multiple points of view in naturalistic free verse and stream of consciousness, this is an unforgettable, haunting tale.

My two-bits:

Being written as poetry (not the rhyming kind), this reading experience had a staccato rhythm that worked really well. Certain word groupings were effective in creating a fast or slow pace.

I loved how each chapter/character had their own style of writing and visual presentation which made them distinct. The personalities and essence of each character shone through despite minimal words and descriptions.

About the author:

Edith Pattou has found acclaim as a writer in middle-grade fantasy with such award-winning books as East, which received starred reviews in Booklist and School Library Journal; was selected as a Top Ten Book for YA, an American Library Association Notable Book, a School Library Journal Top Ten YA Book, one of the 100 Best of the Best YA Books for the 21st Century by the Young Adult Library Services Association; and was nominated for numerous state awards. It’s a nominee for NPR’s all-time Best YA Novels list.

--~ Book Giveaway ~--
signup to win this book
~*~
* added to my Poetry challenge

* review copy courtesy of Fall Reading Challenge 2014. @booksparks #FRC2014

April is National Poetry Month

2014 National Poetry Month:
Reach for the Horizon Blog Tour
hosted by Savvy Verse & Wit and Rhapsody in Books
check out the event schedule and details here
Poetry is something I have always wanted to include more of in my reading in order to better appreciate it. So, I decided to seriously take a stab at it this month and will continue to read 10 poetry books by the end of the year (self-challenge).

I have not taken any classes on how to analyze or critique poetry. I find most pieces abstract, vague and emotional-based. So, I decided to comment rather than review on the following books read with a Loved, Liked, OK, DNC (did not connect).

Feel free to let me know in comments if you are participating in National Poetry Month or if you have any poetry reading recommendations.

~*~

Delivered
by Sarah Gambito
Amazon | Goodreads | Website
Rating: 4
Electric new verse from the winner of the 2005 Global Filipino Literary Award for Poetry.

Both surrealistic and urgently on-point, these boisterous poems comprise an identity crisis in the age of New Media. Sarah Gambito writes with verve on the complicated collision of ethnicity, sex, immigration, and nationality, her playfulness and pop-culture savvy offering cover for her surprise attacks of direct, even confrontational engagement: "Am I frightening you?" she asks. "I'm frightening you. // Good and good and good and good."

Fancy Beasts
by Alex Lemon
Amazon | Goodreads | Website
Rating: 4.5
In Fancy Beasts, the author of Hallelujah Blackout and Mosquito takes on California, the 2008 election, plastic surgery, Larry Craig, wildfires, Wal-Mart, and rampant commercialism — in short, the modern American media culture, which provides obscene foil for his personal legacies of violence and violation.

This pivotal book captures the turning point in a life of abuse, in which the recovering victim/perpetrator puzzles through the paradigm of son-to-husband-to-father. Frenetic, hilarious, and fearless, these poems are a workout — vigorous and raw. Yet they are also composed and controlled, pared down and sculpted, with a disarming narrative simplicity and directness. Even when dealing with toxic content, the point of view is always genuine and trustworthy. This stunning achievement marks Alex Lemon’s best work yet.

Ghosting
by Edith Pattou
Rating: my review
Have a love for drama and poetry? Then this course is a must for you! Throughout this class you will learn about a group of teenagers’ perspectives on an end-of-the-summer prank gone wrong, written in verse. Alcohol, guns and a dare— within minutes, events collide and a group of teenager’s lives are altered forever.

Stag's Leap: Poems
by Sharon Olds
2013 Pulitzer Prize winner
Amazon | Goodreads
Rating: pend
Stag’s Leap is stunningly poignant sequence of poems that tells the story of a divorce, embracing strands of love, sex, sorrow, memory, and new freedom.

In this wise and intimate telling—which carries us through the seasons when her marriage was ending—Sharon Olds opens her heart to the reader, sharing the feeling of invisibility that comes when we are no longer standing in love’s sight; the surprising physical bond that still exists between a couple during parting; the loss of everything from her husband’s smile to the set of his hip. Olds is naked before us, curious and brave and even generous toward the man who was her mate for thirty years and who now loves another woman. As she writes in the remarkable “Stag’s Leap,” “When anyone escapes, my heart / leaps up. Even when it’s I who am escaped from, / I am half on the side of the leaver.” Olds’s propulsive poetic line and the magic of her imagery are as lively as ever, and there is a new range to the music—sometimes headlong, sometimes contemplative and deep. Her unsparing approach to both pain and love makes this one of the finest, most powerful books of poetry Olds has yet given us.

The Trouble with Poetry: And Other Poems
by Billy Collins
Amazon | Goodreads
Rating: pend
Playfulness, spare elegance, and wit epitomize the poetry of Billy Collins. With his distinct voice and accessible language, America’s two-term Poet Laureate has opened the door to poetry for countless people for whom it might otherwise remain closed.

Like the present book’s title, Collins’s poems are filled with mischief, humor, and irony, “Poetry speaks to all people, it is said, but here I would like to address / only those in my own time zone”–but also with quiet observation, intense wonder, and a reverence for the everyday: “The birds are in their trees, / the toast is in the toaster, / and the poets are at their windows. / They are at their windows in every section of the tangerine of earth–the Chinese poets looking up at the moon, / the American poets gazing out / at the pink and blue ribbons of sunrise.”

Through simple language, Collins shows that good poetry doesn’t have to be obscure or incomprehensible, qualities that are perhaps the real trouble with most “serious” poetry: “By now, it should go without saying / that what the oven is to the baker / and the berry-stained blouse to the drycleaner / so the window is to the poet.”

In this dazzling new collection, his first in three years, Collins explores boyhood, jazz, love, the passage of time, and, of course, writing–themes familiar to Collins’s fans but made new here. Gorgeous, funny, and deeply empathetic, Billy Collins’s poetry is a window through which we see our lives as if for the first time.

HEAR a reading of Trouble With Poetry below.

fyi: Diesel bookstore is celebrating National Poetry Month by posting youtube poetry readings each day. See the complete list of the readings here.