Day 19 of National Poetry Month

Thank you for joining us for NATIONAL POETRY MONTH and the 32 POEMS CELEBRATION of this month with recommendations for poetry books that will knock the socks (or tights or pantyhose) right off your feet!

Today Bernadette Geyer brings her suggestions to the 32 Poems blog.

Burning the Empty Nests, by Gregory Orr – Orr’s poems are linguistically playful and emotionally razor-shap. I find myself returning frequently to the final section, “The Adventures of the Stone.”

What Matters Most is How Well You Walk Through the Fire, by Charles Bukowski – Shows that Bukowski is not just a poet of whiskey and expletives. His emotional range is phenomenal.

Sounds, Feelings, Thoughts: Seventy Poems, by Wislawa Szymborska – I will always return to this collection for Szymborska’s poetic gaze, and for the brutally frightening power of the poem “Discovery.”

Selected Poems, by Mark Strand – Strand exhibits a wonderful depth of emotion without losing his inherent sense of the wry and surreal.

True Stories: Poems, by Margaret Atwood – Atwood’s voice is intimate and compelling in these poems which read sometimes as confessions, sometimes as myth.

BIO: Bernadette Geyer is the author of the chapbook What Remains and recipient of a Strauss Fellowship from the Arts Council of Fairfax County. Her poems have appeared in Oxford American, 32 Poems, The Los Angeles Review, Verse Daily, and elsewhere. Read her poetry book reviews.