List of 10 Influential Poetry Books

I can list ten books that influenced me as a writer more easily than I can list my top ten films. I intend to go more into how each book influenced me later (which I've done in part elsewhere, e.g. in interviews). So here goes (not in order):

1. Howl by Allen Ginsberg

2. Anthology of Concrete Poetry edited by Emmett Williams

3. Text-Sound Texts edited by Richard Kostelanetz

4. Tjanting by Ron Silliman

5. The Crystal Text by Clark Coolidge

6. Words by Robert Creeley

7. Things Stirring Together or Far Away by Larry Eigner

8. My Life by Lyn Hejinian

9. A Season in Hell by Arthur Rimbaud (Louise Varese translation)

10. 45 Mercy Street by Anne Sexton (first full-length book of poetry I read, right before I found Howl -- The main book store in Manitowoc, Wisconsin had but four books of poetry in 1975: Howl, 45 Mercy Street, The Collected Shorter Poems of W. H. Auden, and What Thou Lovest Well Remains American by Richard Hugo. Those were the first four books of poetry I owned.)

That was actually a lot harder than I thought it would be. I went with ten books that came immediately to mind. Many, many titles left out. I also realized a number of journals influenced me, e.g. Karl Kempton's Kaldron, This, Hills, O.ARS, Poetics Journal, Tom Beckett's The Difficulties, especially the Silliman, Bromige, and Bernstein issues, and though he's not a book (yet) or a journal, mIEKAL aND opened my eyes wider than anything else I encountered before I was 20.

For this kind of list, I tag Mark Young, Eileen Tabios, Tom Beckett, Richard Lopez, and Geof Huth.

Comments

[mIEKAL aND]

I don't even remember there being a bookstore in Wisconsin Rapids where I grew up. Maybe Laurie remembers better but I'm inclined to think there wasn't.

[Ron Silliman]

Well, this is completely humbling. Thank you! Ron