Much to my surprise, Dead Poets Society is taking a turn from the normal format. When I first started this blog, I was pretty strict about the two basic rules: the blog will feature poets, and these poets will be ones who are dead. However, this week I was inspired by my roommate. When I was struggling to think of what to write this week, she showed me a couple of books of poetry she has. The problem is that authors of these books are still living today, making them ineligible for the blog. Despite this, I enjoyed the poems so much that I decided to shake things up this week and do something different. This post will feature poets who are alive and still writing today. This week, the Dead Poets Society turns into the Living Poets Society.
The first poet I’d like to discuss is American writer Kim Addonizio. Throughout her life, she has written many collections of poetry as well as prose. She has received multiple awards for her writing and finds that “Writing is an ongoing fascination and challenge, as well as being the only form of spirituality [she] can consistently practice.” Today, at the age of 61, she teaches the MFA program at Goddard College.
My senior year of high school, we actually read a poem by Addonizio in my English class, and I really enjoyed it. The poem, titled “Eating Together,” depicts the speaker eating a meal with a friend who is struggling with cancer. I found that the poem is very lyrical in nature, and the language flows well, which are two things I really like about it. Here is the poem in its entirety:
“I know my friend is going,
though she still sits there
across from me in the restaurant,
and leans over the table to dip
her bread in the oil on my plate; I know
how thick her hair used to be,
and what it takes for her to discard
her man’s cap partway through our meal,
to look straight at the young waiter
and smile when he asks
how we are liking it. She eats
as though starving—chicken, dolmata,
the buttery flakes of filo—
and what’s killing her
eats, too. I watch her lift
a glistening black olive and peel
the meat from the pit, watch
her fine long fingers, and her face,
puffy from medication. She lowers
her eyes to the food, pretending
not to know what I know. She’s going.
And we go on eating.”
The second poet I want to highlight is Billy Collins, another American poet (all of these poets featured today ended up being American, sorry. Perhaps another post I will explore more diverse perspectives!) Collins is a pretty accomplished poet and even served as U.S. Poet Laureate from 2001 to 2003. My roommate owns his collection Aimless Love and after reading it for a little bit, I fell in love. His style is very simplistic, yet beautiful at the same time. Here are a few lines from his poem “Carry” that I adore:
“I want to carry you
and for you to carry me
the way voices are said to carry over water.”
Finally, I wanted to take a look at a more unconventional poet whose style of poetry clearly defines the difference between modern life and the past. Tyler Knott Gregson is an American writer and professional photographer who first rose to prominence on various social media sites. He publishes his poems on social media sites such as Twitter, Tumblr, and Instagram—this is how he gained most of his fame. By taking advantage of the technology today, poets like Gregson can accrue popularity.
My roommate’s collection of his, Chasers of the Light, is very visually appealing. It features very short poems written in a conversational style. Each poem is laid out in a unique way on the page and written in a “typewriter” font. I definitely appreciate his attempts at using poetry in a more visual way, although I also found his style to be too corny for me. I think he relies a bit too much on clichés, and I dislike the formatting of some poems, as it almost seems like he just puts line breaks in random spots. Here is a poem from his collection that I found to be kind of cute:
“Find my hand
in the darkness
and if we
cannot find
the light,
we
will always
make our
own”
Although there are many more amazing poets still living today that I didn’t have time to cover this week, I’m afraid that’s all I have time for. That being said, I really enjoyed looking at some more modern poetry. I think that Living Poets Society could become a more regular occurrence on this blog. Next week, I’ll be back to looking at our favorite poets of the past, as per usual. Happy reading!