One of the books that was most influential for me, and one that I think no poet should miss out on, is Elegy by Larry Levis. I read this book during graduate school, while I was particularly interested in elegy, and this collection, with its long spilling lines and its wide-array of topics, is inspiring in it’s re-figuring of modern elegy. This stunningly beautiful collection – actually Levis’s last – showcases the matured talent of an absolutely original American elegist. He is a poet’s poet. He also has amazing titles in this collection, as he moves through a series of elegies dedicated to varying topics, such as: “Elegy with the Sprawl of Wave Inside It.” The risk in this book is in stark juxtaposition to Levis’s ongoing contemplation of failure and loss, and these qualities and concerns are lyrically woven together to both illuminate and enact the essence, power, and difficulty of making true poetry.
Right now (well actually it’s been quite a while) I am obsessed with Franz Wright. His book The Beforelife, a portrait of an addict in recovery (to really simplify it), is honest and vulnerable, and marvelously crafted, not to mention darkly humorous. This book had a profound influence on my work in graduate school. So, I ran out to buy his latest book, The Wheeling Motel, in hardcover a few weeks ago. Franz is such a unique poet. His bravery and unabashed use of his own struggles to ponder the most complex human questions is written with a lacerating simplicity that is gripping and gut-punching, and at times funny. Wright is one of those poets who strive to touch other humans and speak from a place seemingly devoid of language. In his poem “Day One,” written in the form of a teacher’s address to his class, he says “but the hell with that.//We should really examine/your life, the one you bought, and what happened when you got home/and attempted to assemble it:// that disfiguring explosion, no one witnessed…and by whose unimaginable light you seek/to write the name of beauty.” I would argue one of the largest forces in his body of work, as well as his latest book, is nicely summarized by this poem. I am always inspired and influenced by not only his themes, but also the way in which he owns them in every sense.
Alexis Sullivan will read at the Bushwick Reading Series on October 10th.
The Bushwick Reading Series 