Just because I want to kick start this blog off and get some content out there, and even though I’ve got some topics in mind I want to write about, my time is quite limited these days, so this post will actually be stolen from an Amazon.com list I put together earlier this year. I introduce the list with these words:
“Of course I realize that ‘Confessional’ poetry didn’t just start circa 1970. I recognize the importance of Robert Lowell, Plath, Sexton, etc. That said, I think a great number of the ‘accepted’ mainstream poets considered to be confessional poets today are basically crap, so I’ve compiled MY list of what I believe to be the best, newer, confessional poetry books, written by some of the best poets out there. Enjoy!”
As a poet and writer who is both a confessional writer and lover of confessional poetry and writing, I’m biased and I admit it. Still, I’m going to list MY top 20. I would love comments from anyone out there who encounters this post. Disagree, discuss, add to the list — whatever you want. Oh, and I think I’ll add my descriptive commentary on each of these books after the list, in order of the list (if that makes any sense). Cheers!
- Play the Piano Drunk Like a Percussion Instrument until the Fingers Begin to Bleed a Bit by Charles Bukowski
- Love is a Dog From Hell by Charles Bukowski
- Factory (Pocket Poets Series) by Antler
- The Southeast Asian Book of the Dead by Bill Shields
- Firebird Poems by Gerald Locklin
- Stand Up Friend With Me by Edward Field
- What Is This Thing Called Love: Poems by Kim Addonizio
- Scream When You Burn: A Pound of Sacred Flesh from the Lap of Coffee Culture by Rob Cohen
- Stand Up Poetry: An Expanded Anthology by Charles Harper Webb
- The Doctor Poems by Lyn Lifshin
- Counting Myself Lucky: Selected Poems 1963-1992 by Edward Field
- Mad Dog, Black Lady by Wanda Coleman
- The Flash of Lightning Behind the Mountain: New Poems by Charles Bukowski
- Lifetaker by Bill Shields
- North Beach Revisited by A. D. Winans
- Deep Red by Donna Hilbert
- Goodstone by Fred Voss
- MAKING LOVE TO ROGET’S WIFE by Ronald Koertge
- In Danger (The California Poetry Series) (California Poetry Series, V. 2) by Suzanne Lummis
- Alchemy of Opposites: Poems by Clifton Snider
My commententary:
- The first Bukowski I ever read, decades ago, and I still remember to this day how it just blew my mind. I have all of his books, but this poetry book remains my favorite.
- Aside from my admittedly biased Buk fav — Play the Piano Drunk… — I’ve long felt this book was one of his strongest books of poems.
- One of the most important poetry books in American history. That’s not merely my opinion. Allen Ginsberg, Gary Snyder & many other big names heaped massive amounts of praise on this book, and with good reason.
- While Shields remains controversial re his bio/reputation, his books — particularly this one — just hit you in the gut, over and over, until you feel like you’ve gotten the hell beat out of you, yet strangely you want more. Massively intense!
- Locklin’s best, IMO. Great book!
- Geez, this is a serious classic. What can you say, really? This book, from early in the 1960s, went on to impact countless numbers of poets and aspiring poets ever since.
- She’s the superstar, and this book shows why.
- One of the very best contemporary anthologies I’ve EVER read, focusing, yes, on the L.A. coffeehouse confessional crowd, but packed with incredible stuff (including Bukowski, I believe — oh yeah, and me too — am I biased?). Get this!
- Similar to Scream When You Burn, but a bit more mainstream, IMO.
- My favorite Lifshin book, out of all of her millions of books. She IS the most heavily published author in the history of the world, right?
- A wonderful, wonderful collection.
- Coleman presents a worldview that is slightly different than that of some of the other confessionals. Find her classic Black Sparrow books. Well worth the investment.
- My favorite posthumous Bukowski book. Good stuff.
- Another Shields poetic beating, brutal and rough, but you emerge (if you still have your sanity) simply amazed at this poet’s talent.
- Winans — major underground influence on the scene.
- I like Donna, always have. Good person, good writer. I don’t know if this book would make everyone else’s list for this topic, but I feel it’s worthy of inclusion.
- The under appreciated Voss is like the poor man’s Antler, yet I don’t mean that in a critical way. This book is good.
- Koertge. Shoot, any of his books will do!
- This is one of my two favorite books by Lummis.
- I’m not certain I would always categorize Clifton as a “confessional” poet, per se, but I do feel like this books lends itself toward that feel, and is worthy of making the list.
Well, thank you for letting me “cheat” with some stuff I’d actually already done. I hope this list will find some new readers here and perhaps will encourage someone to read a poet previously unknown to them.
Finally, off topic, I just found this out this afternoon while nosing around Amazon, and I did go ahead and add it to my post from yesterday, but I’m just so stunned at seeing this (for so many different reasons) that I want to mention it again. As of this afternoon, Amazon.com is showing that a new copy of my 2004 book, Cells, is available for purchase through a reseller for $164.13!!! Craziness! Who the heck would pay that for my book??? I remember thinking it was crazy when a used copy of another one of mine, Artifacts, was for sale at one of these online bookstores for $137 earlier this year. Seriously? I’m not Bukowski or Ginsberg people!
Here’s a thing that honestly irritates me though. It’s not like I made a ton of cash off the royalties of these or any of my poetry books. Truly. So, since I’ve seen a number of my old books for sale online over the past few years for over $100 at a time, there must be some demand somewhere for Holstad poetry collections, right? Yet, because these are sold used, or in this case of Cells today, new via a reseller, I’m not getting a penny from any of this! Yeah, that kind of irritates me. When my books were on sale new for $7 or $12 or $21.95 or whatever, I was damn lucky to get my standard 8% of the gross, which didn’t amount to much. Now that some of my old books are selling for hundreds of dollars, apparently, yeah, I wouldn’t mind getting a cut of that — they’re MY damn books and my words and my poems and my experiences and someone somewhere is making a sweet profit in selling these for those silly amounts. You know? Just my main thought on that topic….