The Book Thread Book • Page 101

Been thinking recently that I ought to explore poetry, so yesterday I picked up Milk and Honey by Rupi Kaur after a goodreads recommendation. Only had a flick through but it looks like I'm gonna enjoy it.

Any poetry fans out there who can point me to some other books/writers worth checking out?

 

I wish I would be into poetry. I read and analyzed plenty of it in school but it never really clicked for me.

Though I read a haiku last week that blew my mind.

 

I’ll always be a Wordsworth stan. Same with William Carlos Williams. And Tennyson.

 

I’m not into poetry that much but I read Milk and Honey last year in one sitting and it absolutely floored me. Incredible.

 

Dream of a Common Language by Adrienne Rich is probably my favorite poetry collection. It’s just spectacular.

 

Electric Arches by Eve Ewing and A Fortune for Your Disaster by Hanif Abdurraqib are the recent ones I've read and loved

 

anything by Billy Collins

 

One of my 2020 goals is to read a book a month and as tired and cliche as that may be, I really want to follow through so I'm just poking around in here a little bit. I got absolutely bogged down a little less than halfway through The Sound and the Fury last year and it kinda killed my desire to keep reading that or anything else. I picked up King's new one and I'm hoping it kickstarts me moving forward.

 

Which new one, the Institute? I loved it!

 

Been meaning to check out Hanif for the longest time.

 

Yeah! I'm about halfway through.

 

I love reading poetry! Hard to discern a favorite though. These are all very different vibes but...

I second the Adrienne Rich and Wordsworth recs! Mary Oliver is a new fave of mine. I also enjoy John Ashbery, Sylvia Plath, Joanne Kyger, Ocean Vuong, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, and Walt Whitman.

 

Thanks!

 

ah I love The Sound and the Fury

 

I hope to return to it and finish at some point, but man I was having a tough time wanting to continue.

 

I get that, I got through it because we read it in a class and I had to, I bet it would have taken me a whole lot longer if not for that. Absalom, Absalom! took me a long time when I read it on my own but I was still really glad i finished it

 

@estebanwaseaten is The Sound and The Fury your first time reading modernist lit-fiction? (joyce, conrad, lispector, woolf, faulkner, kafka, garcia-marquez, etc...)

I've admittedly never read Faulkner. I had massive trouble finishing Woolf's The Waves a few summers ago, but I'm so happy to have done it. I want to return to it someday. Recently read two Lispector novels which were both incredible (and strange). Joyce's Portrait might be my favorite book of all time, despite the fact it's also a tough read. I find that era/genre to be the most challenging but rewarding.

 

Just went through a Blake Crouch audiobook marathon with Dark Matter and Recursion. Highly highly recommend for those into speculative sci-fi. Truly mind-fuck type stories that have great central characters that are easy to have empathy for as they go through some intense, life altering situations.

 

It took me like five tries to get through Portrait but I finally did it a couple years ago and I'm glad. turns out reading Dubliners first helped massively (and "The Dead" is one of my favorite stories). I really want to do Ulysses one day.

Lispector is one of my all time faves!!!

 

I think in a classroom setting with discussion and analysis would definitely help. It's how i encountered and read through Moby Dick and while it was challenging, I loved it.

 

I've read Kafka and I've read some Faulkner shorts as well as As I Lay Dying. I want to read Joyce and Conrad and Woolf although I'm not familiar with the others I don't think.

 

Yeah frankly depending on the age etc. of the book it can definitely help having a teacher there the explain to you what the hell is actually going on. I always enjoyed that.

 

Especially with The Sound and the Fury which has all of these plot lines and perspectives and subtle but essential language shifts, it's gotta be so hard to get through without a resource that has been through it already.

 

Not that you're asking, but if you decide to tackle Ulysses I recommend the Oxford World Classic edition. It's the best one IMO, just super helpful.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0199535671/?tag=absolutepunk-20

 

started reading The Ninth House yesterday. Its like The Magicians, and almost Harry Potter for adults as an absolute basic comparison. I'm enjoying it, but its just popcorn airport stuff I think. Still an easy book to kick start my reading habits which have fallen off dramatically in the past few years now I no longer commute on public transport to work