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poets?

Hi i was wondering if anyone could reccomend any poet for me to read - if i like them i was hoping to include them in my personal statment. i enjoyed Keats for my a -level . someone recommended phillip larkin but i didnt find his poetry to my taste. any help here would be greatly appreciated
thanks

Reply 1

Neutral_Tones

Aww dammit I was going to answer this thread by saying "Keats." I like Keats :smile:

Well if you liked him for A level, try some more Romantic poetry - Shelley, Byron etc. Hardy's good too, although he can be rather depressing! Hope you enjoy it! :smile:

Reply 2

empfrench

Paul Muldoon, Seamus Heaney and Michael Longley for modern Irish poets; Louis MacNeice, WB Yeats; Auden, Spender, Ted Hughes. Highly recomended.

(I couldn't resist mentioning that I was introduced to Mr. Muldoon by Mr. Longley on Friday night. Excellent fellows the pair of them.)

Also: Derek Mahon.

Reply 3

Tyler Durden

17

cheerios

Hi i was wondering if anyone could reccomend any poet for me to read - if i like them i was hoping to include them in my personal statment. i enjoyed Keats for my a -level . someone recommended phillip larkin but i didnt find his poetry to my taste. any help here would be greatly appreciated
thanks

Larkin is the antithesis of Keats essentially, so I can't say I am overly surprised that you didn't see eye to eye with him!

The best thing to do is probably to buy an anthology (such as the Norton) and literally open it up at random pages and read...

Reply 4

the_alba

12

Why do people need to be told what to read? Can't you go to a library and sample some things for yourself? Everyone has different tastes, so whatever people suggest on here may not be to your liking. After all, it's YOUR statement Your personal statement.

Reply 5

richardseapower

If you like Keats, not only will exploring other Romantics (Byron, Shelley, JOHN CLARE - same publisher! - Blake) probably be to your taste, it will look good on your statement if you can show you have investigated one period specifically and made links between them - as far as I can tell, it's exactly what unis like people to do.

Reply 6

cheerios

OP

'Why do people need to be told what to read? Can't you go to a library and sample some things for yourself? Everyone has different tastes, so whatever people suggest on here may not be to your liking. After all, it's YOUR statement Your personal statement.'
Point taken but you have assumed quite alot in that post. I have indeed been to the library a number of times as i have been thinking about my statement for some time. I have read a couple of things which i didnt like and the library is quite far from me so i thought id ask for some advice before i went back. i am in no way asking people to tell me what to read , simply asking for some advice considering my interests.

Reply 7

richardseapower

Have you tried looking up the recent TS Eliot Prize shortlist? It'd give you a good snapshot of what the poetry scene is like at the moment, and contains some really good accessible writers, like Paul Farley and Robin Robertson (those being the only ones I read full books by..)

Reply 8

Tyler Durden

17

Ok, more specifically I would try to get a range of poetry. Read works from all sorts of different periods.

Seriously - invest in this. You will need it for university. It is chronological too which is nice.

Reply 9

the_alba

12

cheerios

'Why do people need to be told what to read? Can't you go to a library and sample some things for yourself? Everyone has different tastes, so whatever people suggest on here may not be to your liking. After all, it's YOUR statement Your personal statement.'
Point taken but you have assumed quite alot in that post. I have indeed been to the library a number of times as i have been thinking about my statement for some time. I have read a couple of things which i didnt like and the library is quite far from me so i thought id ask for some advice before i went back. i am in no way asking people to tell me what to read , simply asking for some advice considering my interests.

Fair enough. I'd definitely recommend John Clare, a Keatsian Romantic poet, and for something more contemporary (though rather challenging), Geoffrey Hill.

Reply 10

epitome

11

Ian Patterson?
Seamus Heaney?
W. H. Auden?
Emily Dickinson?

Those are amongst the poets who have made me sit up and go "oooh".
Also the older ones Milton, Shakespeare, John Donne, George Herbert and the like. :smile:

Reply 11

tigrrmilk

11

If you want something recent then Sean O'Brien's new book, The Drowned Book, is pretty amazing. Good range of styles in there, and it's quite topical, being largely about flooding :wink:

.

I also can't really promote Michael Donaghy enough - he published four collections, but I'd recommend getting hold of Dances Learned Last Night (which is his first two in a single volume) - I've seen him described as a 'formalist', he's often very witty but he can also be heartbreaking and really unsettling.

Reply 12

rottcodd

3

cheerios

someone recommended phillip larkin but i didnt find his poetry to my taste.
thanks

Thank God someone else doesn't like Larkin :biggrin:

Reply 13

cheerios

OP

thanks everyone for your advice so far. am looking at most of them at the moment :smile:

Reply 14

mnem89

I would agree with everyone but would add Sylvia Plath. It's true that you may not like it, but it is certainly interesting and different. It's better though if you have some sort of criticism because some are difficult to understand without explanation. Good luck!

Reply 15

Reverie.

14

Neutral_Tones

Aww dammit I was going to answer this thread by saying "Keats." I like Keats :smile:

Ditto on both counts. :p:

Reply 16

silence

16

anthology. over the days and weeks that you spend flicking through it, you'll read some fantastically **** stuff. you should also come across some brilliant gems of verse.

it's important (and only fair) that you cover a spectrum rather than jumping into whatever people suggest.

what sort of poetry are you looking for?

something humorous? something morbid? something with a cunning rhythm and metre? something which plays with and challenges form? something amorous? something unusual?...

Reply 17

caustic87

3

It's all about Swinburne - if you like melodramtic stuff about pleasure and pain, love and death etc etc. If you don't, maybe he's not for you.

It's a bit of a Eng Lit cliche, I suppose but there's always the Keats/Wilfred Owen connection to explore.

Reply 18

Angelil

19

I second the Michael Longley recommendation.

If you want a few more obscure contemporary poets, try Jackie Juno and Karel Logist (both of whom have their own websites which are good starting points...all of their books and whathaveyou are listed there).

edit: Have just realised Karel Logist's website is in French, which is a bit of a bummer if you don't speak it. Still, if you do, he's a good one :smile:

Reply 19

Kater Murr

20

Along the line of the Romantics but better than Keats in my opinion, is Willy Blake, John Clare, PB Shelley and Byron for when you're feeling romantic :wink:

Oh - and check out DH Lawrence's poetry too. Just do it, as Mr. Nike would say.

poets?

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