Pen Paper & Poems

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poetry recs

okay so i’m finally doing this because i have put it off for too long now and it’s literally been weighing on my conscience. i’m modeling it after emma’s rec list, which is amazing, and you should definitely check out. also like i know the line between established and online poets can be kind of blurred but i’m gonna do my best. alright here we go.

ESTABLISHED POETS

richard siken: little beast, scheherazade, snow and dirty rain, litany in which certain things are crossed out, war of the foxes, landscape with a blur of conquerors, seaside improvisation, the language of the birds, saying your names

margaret atwood: helen of troy does counter dancing, quattrocento, the saints, they are hostile nations, the poet has come back

pablo neruda: sonnet xvii, sonnet xvi, the queen, ode to a cluster of violets, september 8th

jeanann verlee: finally i allow him the pen, polyamory, with knives, lessons on loving a prophet

jeannine hall gailey: the little mermaid has no regrets, she justifies running away, introduction to the body in fairy tales, the secret life of the forest, when the princess becomes the prophet, okay, ophelia

sylvia plath: lady lazarus, three women, the jailer, fever 103°, electra on azalea path

mary oliver: a settlement, wild geese, in blackwater woods

INTERNET POETS

azra.t (5000letters): take me to church, howl, prideful of lions, whale song, these wrists, these eyes, these praying hands, no grave can hold my body down

caitlyn siehl (alonesomes): a list of facts dressed up as a poem, start here, spectacular bodies, four in the morning, haunting, a prayer

ashe vernon (latenightcornerstone): backwash, profane, anatomy of a relapse, i didn’t speak at the funeral

madeleine christie (vespairs): letters to an insomniac, pandora absolved, the man of twists and turns, to be/not to be, the nature of living, girl/gone

a. davida jane (wefragilehumans): salt, non est, halfway into the lake, arbores, apollo 11, the house of pindar, a study in restoration

darshana suresh (afterthelonely): oblivion, overcrowded thoughts & overwhelming time, the love story, growth

emma bosacki (agooduniverse/daedalians): lunar observation, when my mother tells me that my grandmother finally knows, creature map, the times where i want to touch you but do not touch you, easy terror or love that sounds the same, schism, split, a hillside, a schoolyard at dusk, eurydice speech

clementine von radics (clementinevonradics): kim kardashian redux, for teenage girls with wild ambition and trembling hearts, all that’s left to tell

POEMS

bob hicok, other lives and dimensions and finally a love poem

danez smith, tonight in oakland

catie rosemurgy, peach

kirsten uhde, for her

michael ondaatje, the cinnamon peeler

blythe baird, theories about the universe

yasmin belkhyr, fishtails by the sycamore tree

frank o’hara, mediations in an emergency

ocean vuong, torso of air

warsan shire, and were you being good to yourself?

marty mcconnell, zoo

t.s. eliot, the love song of j. alfred prufrock 

suji kwock kim, monologue for an onion

jorge luis borges, two labyrinths

ilse bendorf, catch a body

shinji moon, i love you

kristina haynes, i don’t know how to make a poem out of this

[psych-facts]

Eventually soulmates meet, for they have the same hiding place.

— Robert Brault (via psych-facts)

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[afadthatlastsforever]

I’m now fairly certain that the tiny crack in your voice right after you say Goodbye roughly translates to Stay in some hidden language of the heart.

Beau Taplin  // T r a n s l a t i o n 

[violentwavesofemotion-deactivat]

She showed up, tragic and beautiful, with a kind of necessity for which I was grateful to her. She was wearing her dark red dress, and a very pretty black hat with a net, which gave her a fateful look — the look of a woman still young but already marked by life.

Simone de Beauvoir, from Letters To Sartre

[bostonpoetryslam]

We repeat a process of hoping our bodies to the future though for now mine eats cucumbers in bed. I had a dream about a crystal blue pool. I felt stupid when I saw the ocean.

Wendy Xu, “The News,” via the Poetry Foundation (via bostonpoetryslam)

[5000letters]

sext: every body before yours has been practice. ghosts of the wrongness of someone else’s hands. you are the map of every place my skin wants to visit. my thighs, your palms. my mouth, your fingers. yes, i’ll gasp it against your tongue, yes, i’m yours, i always have been.

[violentwavesofemotion-deactivat]

I’m not evil. I know myself. I was weak. I lacked the courage to tell you the truth. And I was in love with you – that’s my only excuse.

Les Dames Du Bois De Boulogne (1945) dir. by Robert Bresson

[anamorphosis-and-isolate]

She was like a landscape you see from the train, and you want to stop just there.

Graham Greene, The Living Room (via anamorphosis-and-isolate)

[provst-deactivated20190401]

Man is sometimes extraordinarily, passionately, in love with suffering.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Notes from Underground (via fleurstains)

[clementinevonradics]

I hated him most for not having the courage to ruin us grandly. To break all the dishes and burn down the house. Instead he sunk quiet into the arms of a beautiful, weak little bird. Denied me my spilled blood, my great war, everything except his confession.

One Last Poem For The Man Who Cheated, Clementine von Radics (via clementinevonradics)

[blindthoughts]

I hope one day somebody loves you so much that they see violets in the bags under your eyes, sunsets in the downward arch of your lips that they recognize you as something green, something fresh and still growing even if sometimes you are growing sideways that they do not waste their time trying to fix you.

“So Much”, Trista Mateer (via blindthoughts)

[phyerfly]

i felt like i connected a lot to the stickers at the greenhouse today

[lora-mathis]

Go ahead. Touch me. See how I bite.

to the man in the grocery store licking his lips, Lora Mathis

[5000letters]

you’re standing there with your head on my shoulders and it sounds like you’re crying but you’re just happy we’re existing together and i want to tell you that i will always love you bravely but you’re not listening because you know, you always have

[violentwavesofemotion-deactivat]

And I drink sherry and wine by myself because I like it and I get the sensuous feeling of indulgence I do when I eat salted nuts or cheese: luxury, bliss, erotic-tinged. I suppose if I gave myself the chance I could be an alcoholic.

Sylvia Plath, from a journal entry

[tinyghosthands]

36 MORE Life Changing Poems Everyone Should Read

I told my friend Anne Marie that I could come up with a list of 36 poems everyone should read to rival Buzzfeed’s list, which was great, but I felt was missing a few important names. 36 names to be exact. Here are 36 heart-polishing poems. 36 atmosphere-shattering poems. 36 poems I love by 36 poets I love. This list is not exhaustive, & by no means should these poems be the only one read of each poet.  Enjoy! HAPPY POETRY MONTH Y'ALL 1. Jeremy Radin, “Moon Wasps”

2. Sara Woods, “City Girl”

3. Heather Christle, “Pursuits”

4. Anis Mojgani, “When We Were Geese”

5. Annelyse Gelman, “Heart”

6. Sierra DeMulder, “The Genius Goes to Church”

7. Karen Finneyfrock, “The Owl Cycle”

8. Aracelis Girmay, “Elegy”

9. Danez Smith, “sideshow”

10. Lesley Yalen, “The Problem of People”

11. Jamaal May, “There Are Birds Here”

12. Cassandra de Alba, “The Bears”

13. John Mortara, “Every Night I Call the Cops On Myself”

14. Franny Choi, “Bird Watching”

15. Saeed Jones, “Thallium”

16. Rachel McKibbens, “A Child Without Arms Running Through a Field”

17. Angel Nafis, “Angel’s Heart Clowns the Ocean”

18. Brennan Bestwick, “Surname Nasa”

19. Tracy K. Smith, “Don’t You Wonder, Sometimes?”

20. Rob Sturma, “Christopher Robin’s Breakup Note”

21. Nikki Finney, “Cattails”

22. Caroline Crew, “The Weather Radio”

23. Kevin Young, “from Book of Hours”

24. Rebecca Lindenberg, “Litany”

25. Shanny Jean Maney, “I Love Science”

26. Farrah Field, “Consciousness Enlarges in an Untoward Present”

27. Airea D. Matthews, “Hero(i)in”

28. Fatima Asghar, “He Huffed and He Puffed”

29. Megan Falley, “new york craigslist>personals>missed connections”

30. Kelly Schirmann, “not asia, exactly.”

31. Emily Kendal Frey, “My Definition of Rape”

32. Carrie Lorig, “Scatterstate”

33. Mathias Svalina, “The Future”

34. Richard Siken, “Saying Your Names”

35. Zachary Schomburg, “The One About the Robbers”

36. Ocean Vuong, “Revelation”