[New-Poetry] A poet's ideal library

[Anny Ballardini]

correction: The Magic Mountain (I even looked it up before sending the mail but did not correct...
  From: Anny Ballardini 
  Sent: Saturday, November 11, 2006 8:06 PM


  Thomas Mann, The enchanted Mountain / later: Buddenbrooks
  Robert Musil: The man without qualities 
  Gargantua and Pantagruel by Francois Rabelais
  Thomas Hardy: Tess of the D'Urbervilles
  Gabriel Garcia Marquez: One hundred years of solitude
  Salman Rushdie: Midnight's Children
  Collected by Friedrich Nietzsche
  Michel de Montaigne 
  Malcolm Lowry: Under the Volcano; Dark as the Grave Wherein My Friend is Laid
  Somerset Maugham: Of Human Bondage; Collected Short Stories
  Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa: The Leopard

  all good books that I enjoyed.

    From: TheOldMole 
    Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] A poet's ideal library


    I suppose "reading for writing," which is, at its best, totally idiosynratic, falls under "Misc. Texts."

      From: JforJames at aol.com 
      Sent: Friday, November 10, 2006 3:41 PM


      The Complete Perfectionist by Juan Ramon Jiménez (translated and edited by Christopher Maurer)

      --
      People are probably tiring of this thread, but I've been thinking more and more
      about the subject (as I'm trying to build this list, which I'll share when 
      completed...idiosyncratically selected as it may be). 

      The above books is not really essential reading. It falls into that category of the
      little, exquisite book full of interesting insights, assertions, fragments, paragraphs
      about poetry, being a poet and a artist in the world.

      So then let me list the categories of the books in a 'poet's ideal library'.
      I want to veer away from 'ownership'... because to own a lot of books
      is an investment in both money and space (which costs money) and 
      may not be within the means of some poets or against certain poet's 
      way of being in the world. And there are, for now, still libraries and 
      inter-library loan and such, so books can be gotten hold of and can be
      read without being owned.

      I. General Reference: 
          1) Dictionaries (English, Foreign, Dead Languages), 
          2) Encyclopedia, Overviews, Guidebooks, Glossaries to Particular Subjects
      likely to be useful in making poems: History, English Grammar/Linguistics, 
      Philosophy, History, The Bible, Famous Quotations, Art, etc.

      II. Reference Texts Specific to Poetry:
          1) Handbook of Literary Terms
          2) Guide to Poetry Forms & Meters
          3) Rhyming Dictionary (useful even to free verse poets)
          4) Poetry Reference Guide/Encyclopedia: Short entries on terms,
          concepts, movements, and key poets.

      III. Books Related Poetry Praxis:
          1) Practical handbooks that help poet's understand the mechanics
              of writing poems; focus method and technique.
          2) Poets explaining the process of constructing their own poems,
              choices made in process of making the poem.
          3) Manuscript Analysis, great poems review in stage of draft or famous
              manupulated to make a point about the construction.

      IV. Critical Writings (generally written by academic scholars & critics)
          1) Scholarly critical treatments of particular poets/periods/movements
          2) Theory/Poetics

      V. Poetry & Art-Related Essays (Generally written by poets & artists)
      1) Essays related to writing in general
      2) Specific essays dealing with a topic/theme in poetry and poetry writing
      3) Essays that address being an artist, the imagination, creativity, etc.

      VI. Poet & Artist Interviews

      VII. Poet & Artist Letters and Journals

      VIII. Poet & Artist Biographies (& Autobiographies)

      IX. Quote Books/Commonplace Books

      X. Misc. Texts: These being books that have somehow informed one’s poetry in an important way. Examples might be: Stanislavki’s On Acting, Book of the Japanese Tea Ceremony, Fydor Dostoevsky’s The Idiot, Wittgenstein’s Tractatus, etc.; being influential to a particular poet and therefore idiosyncratically chosen. 


       

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