Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Favorite poets

Here is a list of some of my favorite poets.

1. Anna Akhmatova
2. Rainer Maria Rilke
3. e.e. cummings
4. William Shakespeare (more in the plays than the poems)

These are really my big 4, but here are a few more poets I might also put on my short list:

5. Gertrude Stein
6. Ted Hughes
7. Stéphane Mallarmé
8. Dylan Thomas

I guess you get the idea. Most of the poetry that attracts me is rich in imagery and sensitive to the sounds of the words and the cadence of the phrases. The exact meaning or storyline often escapes me as I tend to get overly focused on the sensory aspects of the pictoral and aural elements of the lines, and how they change through time as the poem progresses. Being a musician, time, rhythm, and sound are naturally always on my mind.

You might want to check out my description of a new lecture-demonstration I have created, called "The Music of Poetry."

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