There is nothing like the feeling evoked by an impactful work of poetry.
A good poem can hit you like a punch to the gut or an illuminating bolt of lightning. In a few stanzas or even just a few lines, great poets stir emotion and reveal truths that can sometimes carve themselves into our minds and souls.
While many would say poetry is best enjoyed read aloud, there are plenty of published collections to enjoy when a reading is not so easily found. For this National Poetry Month, we gathered some of your favorite poets and their collections to recommend.
Brianna Booker, Monroe County poet laureate
Book: "Depression and Other Magic Tricks"
Poet: Sabrina Benaim
This month, I want you to read "Depression and Other Magic Tricks" by Sabrina Benaim, from Button Poetry.
In the collection, there is a prose poem called "The Loneliest Sweet Potato" that I use in a prose poem workshop, and I can promise you that the rest of the collection is just as genius. If you'd like to listen to Sabrina read that piece live, you can do so on the Button Poetry YouTube page.
Eat your vegetables and read your poems. Happy National Poetry Month!
Roger DuPuis, WVIA News deputy editor and reporter
Book: "John Betjeman: Poems"
Poet: John Betjeman
My favorite poet is anything but a household word here in the United States.
Sir John Betjeman — oft mispronounced, as one might imagine — was an Englishman who lived his entire life in the 20th century, serving as the United Kingdom's poet laureate from 1972 until his death in 1984.
Betjeman was no Shakespeare, but I doubt he would have wanted to be.
He had a passion for the everyday aspects of British life, especially its vanishing Victorian architecture and its railways, which in Betjeman's later life were in the process of switching from steam to diesel and electric power. He is remembered for saving London's historic St. Pancras Station from demolition in the 1960s.
Betjeman's work is at times whimsical and nostalgic, but he also took sharp jabs at the encroachment of modern life and architecture, as well as the bourgeois snobbery in British society — and, in his deeper moods, the meaning of life, death and religion.
If I have a favorite passage, it is the final stanza of his "Distant View of a Provincial Town," in which Betjeman reflects on his youth and how everything — trains, churches, life itself — has changed over the decades.
The old Great Western Railway shakes
The old Great Western Railway spins—
The old Great Western Railway makes
Me very sorry for my sins.
Calista Uher, founder of Armchair Poetry
Book: "Devotions: The Selected Poems of Mary Oliver"
Poet: Mary Oliver
I'm recommending Mary Oliver's collection of poetry, "Devotions." She has a subtle but powerful voice that really highlights the human spirit in a very unique way.
It's a good intro into poetry for those who aren't into reading Shakespeare and sonnets and meter, but even for those who are, it's still a super-gorgeous body of work.
Carlton Farnbaugh, director of the Monroe County Poet Laureate Program
Book: "Built By Storms"
Poet: Miriam Kramer
In this collection, Miriam does anything but shy away from hard topics while still maintaining a sense of independent whimsy that stays just breezy enough to navigate the narratives of someone life has straight up knocked around.
With beautiful stanzas and even a few list poems, like "AN INCOMPLETE LIST OF THINGS I WISH I KNEW GROWING UP IN THE 90S" and "HOW TO BUILD THE GIRL WHO STAYS ALIVE"— trust that if I'm recommending list poems, you know it's solid work.
With references to AOL instant messenger, an entire piece that's a conversation with Google and an overall master-class in living right at the edge of resilience, Miriam's work will help you realize that being a millennial in the modern world is, somehow, both an individual experience as well as a universal one. You get knocked down, you get back up and Miriam knows that as well, if not better than anyone.
Sarah Scinto, WVIA Morning Edition host and reporter
Book: “The Essential Emily Dickinson”
Poet: Emily Dickinson
I’ve loved poetry since fourth grade, when I had a teacher who challenged us to find a poet we loved and try writing poetry of our own.
Growing up in New England, I latched onto Robert Frost then. But Emily Dickinson is the first female poet I remember reading. To this day, I have my treasured Borders Bookstore edition of her collected works on my shelf.
Dickinson is one of America’s most celebrated poets, and even for a beginner, it’s easy to see why. “Hope is the thing with feathers,” and “Because I could not stop for death,” two of her most famous works, had me immediately spellbound when I first encountered them.
Dickinson herself was largely unknown and unpublished during her lifetime. I’ve always thought that makes it even more wondrous that her words, once they were finally published, could echo and inspire centuries later.
That’s all for this edition of Bookmarks! Join us again on May 2. May is Mental Health Awareness Month, so I’ll be looking for your favorite books dealing with mental health topics.
