The Road Somewhat Less Traveled

Sam’s tag: Name 5 poetry collections someone may not have read "but certainly must." They should be “off the beaten track,” but needn’t have caused the earth to open and swallow you whole. I had trouble reconciling must read with need not have caused the earth to open. I thought some poets in translation might suit, like Vasko Popa and Novica Tadic, but – can you believe it – when I checked the Amazon sales ratings, they were way ahead of American great Kenneth Patchen, whose wonderful Collected Poems is only the 595,768th best seller! I was beside myself with information!

I decided the books had to have a lower rank than Patchen but not be so obscure that you can’t get a book anymore (like Ingeborg Bachman, in English anyway). I include Amazon rankings just to prove how great I am at using statistics as a crutch.

1. Living in Paradise – Pier Giorgio di Cicco (Sales rank #1,998,074): The head is a paltry matter; feed it a little, it goes / on singing just the same. / Much too much is made of it; / it goggles over a bit of/fresh wind, is perfectly astonished

2. Study for the World’s Body – David St. John (#1,217,673): The orphans of the heart must turn to thee / Byron said of Rome, though he could have meant / The way they turned to you, as easily.

3. Candy Necklace – Cal Bedient (#1,594,095): Desire, say what you want. Your oranges go soft in the bowl. / Your laughter? The squashing sound of tomatoes bursting and spitting out seeds. / Death sits up on your counter, holding a sock by its tail and displaying his beautiful white foot.

4. Selected Poems – Medbh McGuckian (#701,869): They set the whins on fire along the road. / I wonder what controls it, can the wind hold / that snake of orange motion to the hills, / away from the houses?.

5. Voice Over – Elaine Equi (#789,234): Some days I wake up so sad, / ”morbid” you would say, / and not at all grateful for the little things/heaped up in the windows / of antique stores