Here are 20 or so — mostly modern — poetry books that inspired me throughout the earlier years.

Collected, Robert Hayden
Various Walt Whitman
Shakespeare’s sonnets (had to memorize many for theatre class)
e.e. cummings (only poet taught in high school, so he had to be an influence even if it’s a bit cliche to say so)
Li Young Lee, The Rose
Collected or Selected, Langston Hughes
Collected, Elizabeth Bishop
Collected, Frank O’Hara
Lunch Poems, Frank O’Hara (I read these during my lunch hour at my first out-of-college job.)
Song, Brigit Kelly
Meadowlands, Louise Gluck
Field Guide, Robert Hass
The Great Fires, Jack Gilbert
Collected, Sterling Brown
20 Love Poems, Pablo Neruda
Ariel, Sylvia Plath
Collected, Emily Dickinson
Supernatural Love, Gjertrud Schnackenburg
Collected or Selected, Caesar Vallejo
Various Anthony Hecht

David (see above) wrote on his blog that the meme below was making the rounds in the San Francisco blogosphere. I decided to import (and revise, of course!) it over here in the poetry blogosphere. Come on bloggers. I invite Mary Biddinger, Charles Jensen, Kelli Agodon, and Eduardo Corral to play. I’d invite more, but I’m tired of pasting in all the links. =-)

If you decide to fill it out and post it on your blog, please post the link in the comments.

Age when I decided I wanted to be a writer: 8
Age when I wrote my first short story: 19
Age when I first got my hands on a good word processor: 22
Age when I first submitted a short story to a magazine: Never
Rejections prior to first short story sale: Never made a short story sale.
Age when I sold my first short story: See above.
Approximate number of short stories sold: Approximately zero.
Age when I first sold a poem: 23? 24?
Poems sold: I have no clue how many poems. (I think a novelist wrote this meme.)
Year I first published a book: 2009
Books published or delivered and in the pipeline: 2
Number of titles in print: 0. Soon to be one.
Age now: What poet wants to share their age?

1. I hosted a radio show called “8 Pairs of Don Alphonso’s Tweezers.”
2. With PositiveForce, I used to organize rock concerts to raise money for causes such as victims of the El Salvadoran bank collapse and domestic violence centers.
3. In one of my early jobs, I answered phones at a sign language interpreting agency. I had to learn ASL and then run down hallways to fingerspell the names of people calling for the deaf people.
4. One of my goals is to walk the Appalachian trail.
5. I was Casca in Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar in 6th grade, and Act 3 scene 1 was my favorite, because I actually got to do something.
6. I’ve seen a tornado from one block away.
7. As a child, I’d read The Washington Star, The Washington Post, U.S. News and World Report, Time and Newsweek and watched Louis Rukeyser with my dad.

BONUS ONE: I used to live in Iowa where I drove 15 miles to do laundry — one time having to stop in the road to allow a flock of pheasants to cross — and 50 miles for Chinese food or even something as exotic as Taco Bell.

Bernie wrote a sentence, which surprised me. When I first saw the title of her blog post, I figured the rules included using a list. I prefer to write a list, so here goes:

1. red
2. compassion
3. curious
4. Chinese maple tree
5. notebook
6. mantra
7. pencil

These are the 6-word memoir rules:

1. Write your own six word memoir
2. Post it on your blog and include a visual illustration if you’d like
3. Link to the person that tagged you in your post
4. Tag five more blogs with links
5. And don’t forget to leave a comment on the tagged blogs with an invitation to play!

By the way, you would not have to do #5 if you used WordPress. I can see who has linked to
my blog from my dashboard when I open up WordPress. =)

I’ll tag Jeanine Hall Gailey and Allen Taylor to start.

Bernadette Geyer took me up on it early. Allen Taylor jumped in on the action. Jim Murdoch wrote his list — you can read his latest blog entry or read his list here on this blog.

“Here are five poetry collections you may not have read but certainly must. (Note: The collections, for whatever reason, should be a bit off the beaten path. And need not have caused the earth to open and swallow you whole.)”

This is my second choice out of the five.

Supernatural Love by Gjertrud Schnackenberg

Here are the first several stanzas of the title poem:

Supernatural Love

My sewing meedle close enough that I
Can watch my father through the needle’s eye,
As through a lens ground for a butterfly…

If you really want to have smoke come out of your ears, listen to I, I Who Have Nothing as sung by Shirley Bassey in the original tragic-sounding Italian arrangement. Unfortunately, embedding of the video is not allowed so you have to follow the link to YouTube.

I’d never heard of Shirley Bassey before, but now I’ll just have to go get a bunch of her albums.

I am tagging Sandra, C. Dale, Collin, Mary Biddinger Eduardo C. Corral, and Jeannine with this meme.

“Here are five poetry collections you may not have read but certainly must. (Note: The collections, for whatever reason, should be a bit off the beaten path. And need not have caused the earth to open and swallow you whole.)”

The first book is Burnt Island by D. Nurkse.

From the book description at Amazon:

Arranged in three “suites” of lucid, often heart-wrenching verse, the book begins with a city under siege, in a group of poems that becomes a subtle homage to New York after 9/11–a metaphorical “burnt island,” where diggers doze on their shovels, citizens contribute bottles of water, M&M’s, and casseroles to recovery efforts, and survivors, mesmerized by the photos of the missing, compare them “scar by scar with the faces of the living.”

More book suggestions coming soon.

****

I’d been thinking (wishing?) that I’d be told I could move up to level 2 in pilates. Guess what? I was told today! I was in a level 1-2 class until now and will continue with that while starting a level 2.

“I must be right. Never an aspirin. Never injured a day in my life. The whole country, the whole world, should be doing my exercises.
They’d be happier.” – Joseph Pilates, in 1965, age 86

***

I’m going to LA and San Diego in June-July. I am thrilled. Anyone want to share must-see locations? In LA, I’ll be in Pasadena.

***

Today I am grateful for recent good news, for what bees we have, for the warm weather, for the smell of cut grass, for M, for the fertilizer my neighbor gave me, and for my fun day job.

Okay.

Finally, I am getting to the meme that Sandra sent my way.

The first poem I remember reading was…a poem by Christina Rossetti. I have no recollection of which one, but it appeared in a small poetry book I bought at the elementary school book fair.

I was forced to memorize numerous poems in school and…I never had to memorize poems although I played Casca (Speak, hands for me!) in a production of Julius Caesar (6th grade). I memorized the Friends, Romans, Countrymen speech even though it wasn’t my part. I also memorized Jabberwocky in high school for a theatre class.

I read poetry because…This is like asking why I speak English. Reading poetry is such a part of my life that it’s transparent to me. Having to write this response is a shock to my system.

A poem I’m likely to think about when asked about a favorite poem…Schnackenberg’s “Supernatural Love” is a modern favorite. My mind turns into a complete blank when I’m asked a question like this.

I write poetry, but…people around me hardly read it, so I’ve started buying them poetry books as presents.

I find poetry…published in 32 Poems, both Best New Poets anthologies, and the recent Gulf Coast exciting.

The last time I heard poetry…Morri Creech at Chapter’s bookstore, because William Logan gave him a nod.

I think poetry is like…la madrugada.