Poetry Readers Challenge discussion

This was an interesting book. Even if I didn't like a poem, I usually liked what the poet was trying to do with the poem. Some of his poems were in the voice of The Oregon Trail (written in 1875) and or based on the Monk Hsuan tseng's trip in The Journey to the West (written in the 16th century).

My favorites in the book are the ones that are written in the poet's voice himself. They are imaginative, and beautiful. He has a lot of recurring characters or subjects in the book, which I always enjoy. Peacocks and birds appear very often in poems. Ronald Regan is also in several poems. The subjects for the poems are wide, he writes from the perspective of a dung pile, and another about Robinson Crusoe.

His titles vary, but about half of them are non-descript one or two word titles, the rest are more complex. He has many types of line and stanza breaks, and the lengths of his poems are vastly different.

My favorites from this book (it looks like none of the poems in the book were published in magazines before the book was published):

When Ronald Regan was a Boy
Blue and Note from the Plagiarist
Eagle Grief Stream the Horse of the Will is Held and Reined
The Bird

What a variety of POVs and subjects. Nothing can take the place of imagination - you can be the best craftsperson, it doesn't matter.
I see this was a Yale Series winner - I've never heard of the poet. I'm going to see if I can google up some poems by him.
thanks

A poem from this collection, "Death and a Fig," is reprinted in this (negative) review: http://www.bookslut.com/poetry/2005_0...