April 14, 2008...2:36 pm

More poetry

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Over the weekend, I assigned Tennyson and Eavan Boland.

Today, though, I am assigning one of my all time favorites, Yusef Komunyakaa.

His voice is unique and perfect, just like the man. I love the way that he captures place in his words. The poem, I think it is called Salt, about the son of a servant and the rich woman’s daughter playing together is gorgeous and haunting.

The first of his books that I read was Talking Dirty to the Gods. It is a wonderful collection. Each poem has the same form; each poem looks at a single subject in a neatly twisted and slanted way. I adore Lust and also the poem about Maggots from this collection. You should really get it.

3 Comments

  • Yusef Komunyakaa is someone else I’d never read before. I’m enjoying him, but I’m even more pleased you introduced me to Eavan Boland.

    Yay, poetry!

  • I had to read a book about poetry, I believe it was called object lessons, and it was by Eavan Boland and Mark Strand, when I was in college.

    I love her irish women folk voice.

  • yes!!! i am familiar with mark strand, and ran across mentions of that book today.

    i just really really enjoyed her poems. (and i thought she was a dude - as you probably noticed yesterday when i said i couldn’t find “him” in my book - i had no clue… )

    but yeah, anyway, poetry = good.

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