A Few Poetry Recommendations

There are a few interesing things being done with poetry. James Merrill’s The Changing Light at Sandover is incredible. Start with the first part, the Book of Ephraim. Merrill claimed that the poems were dictated by spirits he contacted through a Ouija board. Craig Raines elegy on the death of his lover is another book-length poem well worth a read. Unfortunately, it has the same title as Proust (A la recherche…) and so is hard to find unless you mention Craig. Going back a bit, there’s Nathaniel Tarn. Ted Berrigan’s Tambourine Life. After the 1960’s poetry was sidelined, but it’s always been there.