Joseph Brodsky

Charles Bukowski

C.P. Cavafy

Gregory Corso

Lawrence Ferlinghetti

Gerard Manley Hopkins

Czeslaw Milosz

Ovid

Charles Baudelaire

Baudelaire was the single most influential poet for me, from my late teens into my late thirties. So influential that I wrote about him in both my college senior honors paper and my Masters' thesis. When I worked on Wall Street, I kept his poems in a top drawer of my desk and would read it during breaks to keep sane. I still reread him several times a year. Perhaps I recognized a sexually kindred soul; or perhaps I was simply mesmerized by his imaginative genius. He remains one of the most daring, dramatic, mystical, and yet cynical poets of all times. "Fleurs du Mal" is the absolute must-read work, though I also highly recommend his prose poems.

Joseph Brodsky

Joseph is dear to me because I had the opportunity to study with him some years ago in New York, before he won the Nobel Prize in literature and became officially recognized as a literary god. He was simply the most brilliant person I've ever met. One of my most prized possessions is a copy of "A Part of Speech" which he flamboyantly signed for me. His essays are spectacular as well. Your mind will reel to realize that English was his (late) second language. He is truly an artisan of language. I have some anecdotes here.

Charles Bukowski

Bukowski wrote so many books and pamphlets, it's hard to know where to begin. I've chosen just a few of my favorite titles here. Bukowski is, to my mind, the first true American Street Poet. Or call him a down and out drunk version of Henry Miller. His plain, cynical, direct and unsparing style is for rugged souls and seems to offend more academic ones. Bukowski was seldom taken seriously by academics, and formalists largely hold him in contempt. But I say he's the closest we've come to Whitman in our times.

Arguably Bukowski's best novel
- Ham on Rye

C.P. Cavafy

As Baudelaire was to my early years, Cavafy has been to my adulthood. It was Joseph Brodsky who first introduced me to Cavafy, back in 1985, and I've been a bona fide Cavafy addict ever since. Indeed, the poetry zine on this site (Thermopylae) is named after one of his poems. My favorite edition of his work is the Keeley/Sherrard translation linked below, though I hear that the new book ("Before Time Could Change Them") is a superb addition to Cavafy-philes' bookshelves.

- Before Time Could Change Them
- C.P. Cavafy, ed. Keeley/Sherrard

Gregory Corso

One of the first books of poetry I bought when I was 13 or 14 was was "The Happy Birthday of Death," by this somewhat lesser- known of the Beat Poets. His poem "Marriage" remains one of the funniest American poems of this century. ("Should I get married? Should I be good? Astound the girl next door, With my velvet suit and Faustus hood?") Strangely enough, I had a few encounters with Corso over the years. The first, and oddest, was when I went to a reading he gave at an uptown bar when I was about 17. He--at the time a babbling drunk--tried to convince me to climb to the roof of the building and fuck him all night. What an introduction to real- life poets! A year after that, I was attending a reading by Allen Ginsberg and his dad, Louis, at the 92nd Street Y when Corso suddenly rose up in the audience and began denouncing them. "You're dead poets!" he shouted, "Your writing is dead!" The audience grew ashen as Corso raged on. He was so furious, he rushed the stage where security people tackled him. Ginsberg begged them to stop and the curtain was hastily drawn on that debacle. I guess most people thought he was a lunatic, and I guess he is, but he was right: Allen's reading was totally uninspired, and Louis was not great to begin with.

Around 1983, I bumped into Corso one last time. It was on the corner of 6th Avenue and 8th Street in NYC, where I was walking along with my then-boyfriend. I came up to Corso and introduced myself and, naturally, he had not a clue who I was. But he looked me over, then looked at my boyfriend and said: "You two shouldn't be together. She's got such a wild look in her eyes! And you look so straight! It'll never work, man. She's too wild for you."

And whaddya know...he was right about that, too. That's why I love Gregory Corso. He gets to the truth of things.

T.S. Eliot

Eliot was, to me, the American version of Baudelaire, for more than a few reasons. In my masters' thesis (mentioned above), I pondered how Eliot brought into English a poetic device that worked brilliantly in Baudelaire. But my passion for Eliot has faded with time. Maybe he just never got wild enough for me. Or maybe he's just a tad too self-consciously constructive and referential for my tastes. Still, in my opinion, he was the best poet of his generation, and someone who deserves his share of eternity.

Lawrence Ferlinghetti

Although I haven't read him in a while, "A Coney Island of the Mind" had a profound influence on me as a young girl. I bought the book around the time I bought Corso's, and felt a connection to the work that I'd never experienced with the poems that school- teachers forced down my throat. So profound that I carried Ferlinghetti around in my handbag for a whole year. For those who don't know, Ferlinghetti owns and still operates the fabulous City Lights Bookstore in San Francisco.

Allen Ginsberg

In the early 1990s, SPIN magazine hired me to Interview Allen Ginsberg. By the time the piece was finished, my editor and his staff had been fired. SPIN paid me a kill fee, and the piece never appeared. But some years later, I offered it to ELF magazine and they asked me to see if I could talk Ginsberg into another short interview, just to update it. I called and Allen agreed. As it turned out, very sadly, it was one of the last interviews he gave: he died a few months after we spoke.

I prefer not to remember Allen as he was during that last conversation. He had grown so weak, so exhausted, so irritible. I will remember him instead as he was during that first interview: the kindest, most gracious, most politically passionate, and most candid man I've ever met. Off the record, he talked to me about his commitment to speaking the truth, no matter what the personal cost. His words had a profound and lasting effect on me. If I could demonstrate half the personal courage he had, I'd feel my life had been worth living. So, while I can't say I am the biggest fan of the poetry (with two exceptions: "Howl" and "Kaddish"), I am definitely one of the biggest fans of the poet. God bless you, Allen.

- Allen Ginsberg Photographs Collected Poems 1947-1980

Gerard Manley Hopkins

This poet of uncommon depth and awesome creativity has been one of my literary heroes since college. No one has ever shown the kind of linguistic pyrotechnics that seemed to flow easily from Hopkins' turbulent pen. Even when you don't quite understand what he means, you understand in your heart exactly what he means. Hopkins isn't as fashionable as a lot of other poets, partly because of his difficult language. But for sheer artistry and depth of emotion, Hopkins has remained a strong literary inspiration to me.

- Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins

Czeslaw Milosz

Another tremendously prolific poet, Milosz is also one of the most consistently excellent writers. It's impossible to find a "bad" book of his essays or poems, and there are so many good ones, it's pointless to recommend them all. Instead, I'm recommending one rather unique text by him. I made this book the center of a poetry workshop I once taught at Hofstra, giving students assignments that paralleled the book's antic structure: part poetry collection, part diary, part literary journal with quotes and excerpts from other writers who fascinate Milosz, including Whitman and D.H. Lawrence.

Although I never had the chance to study under Milosz, I did have the honor of meeting him a few times and showing him my own work. He was absolutely wonderful to me, unbelievably generous about my poetry. When he signed my copy of "Unattainable Earth" I promptly ran out and bought another so that first edition would remain exactly as it was--underlinings and all--the day he autographed it.

- Unattainable Earth

Pablo Neruda

In graduate school, a man I was dating gave me a copy of "Captain's Verses," a side-by-side bilingual translation of poetry by the brilliant Chilean poet and political activist, Pablo Neruda. It was one of the nicest presents I've ever gotten.

A fervent supporter of socialist politician, Allende, Neruda was murdered when the rightist political forces took over. Years later, in the late 80s,, I attended a reading by Octavio Paz and Joseph Brodsky at the CUNY Graduate Center. Paz took it upon himself to criticize and speak contemptuously of Neruda. Funny how people who can find ways to defend T.S. Eliot's fascist political leanings and anti-semitism will never give a Commie a break. I was never so disgusted in my life. Let me tell you who the better poet is. Oh, wait, I'll bet you've already guessed.

Neruda isn't for everone. Some may find his writing too simple, too romantic. That's exactly why I love it: he is genuinely romantic, and genuinely a man of the people. The Captain's Verses will take you away from this world to one where people celebrate the ordinary beauty of life. You go, Pablo.

- 100 Love Sonnets/Cien Sonetos De Amor (Texas Pan American Series);
- Captain's Verses

Ovid

Of all the classical poets, Ovid is my favorite. (Sorry, Catullus.) Since first reading him in college, I've returned to the two slim volumes listed below time and again. Because of his plain speech and timeless themes, the Amores and other erotic writings still feel fresh and lively. His interpretations of Greek myths are equally captivating. I consider these two volumes absolute must-reads for all poets and serious poetry readers.

- Ovid's Erotic Works
- Ovid's Metamorphoses

William Shakespeare

For years, I was a hardcore sonnet slut: I couldn't get enough of Shakespeare's sonnets (which is a shame, since there aren't all that many). I've known other poets who've been similarly obsessed by these maddeningly brilliant, flawless gems. (Of special interest to kinky readers are his infamous "slave sonnets"--think Shakespeare knew something we all know?) So no list of my influences could fail to include this breathtaking book. I think that inside every writer is the wish to one day write something as perfect as a Shakespearean sonnet. At least I'd like to think so. It's a beautiful ambition.

- Shakespeare's Sonnets

Walt Whitman

I love Whitman for reasons that are hard to explain. His work isn't polished. His language isn't always terribly musical. He is so much a man of his (Civil War-era) age that unless you know something about 19th century America, some of his poems won't make a lick of sense. Yet I don't think you can call yourself a poet if you haven't read him thoroughly. "Leaves of Grass," his unique volume of poetry, overflows with one truly amazing poem after another. How many 19th century American poets wrote unashamedly about bisexuality? Who else but Whitman could write elegies and odes that are at once deeply sentimental yet never cloying or pretentious? I also love his diaries of the Civil War years, when he helped nurse soldiers. Reading Whitman is like walking on solid ground after a long and shaky flight: it makes you feel good to be alive.

- Complete Poetry and Selected Prose.