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"a skylark sings --marking time through the songthe cry of a pheasant"--Japanese poet Basho, 1689Poetry has inspired humanity for thousands of years. It was the dream of one generation passed to the next in verse. Today, poetry finds itself less popular in a world intent on expressing pragmatism in the most pragmatic ways possible -- TV and Radio newscasts, endless commentators and critics, talk show hosts and C-SPAN politicians. The poet's wisdom is now replaced by endless offerings of conventional wisdom. While thousands of poets still walk the earth, their art is read by few and heard by fewer. Poetry has been the catalyst of ideas throughout human history -- it was poets, not politicians who roused societies to change. Poets are the dreamers of society -- their vocation is to dream, not to legislate (Vaclav Havel of the Czeck Republic is the exception that makes the rule).
Every culture has its beloved poets. The English have Byron, the Irish, Yeats. The Japanese take refuge in the Haiku of Basho, while Americans look to the celebratory verse of Walt Whitman. The French take great pride in Proust and the Italians claim the immortal lines of Dante. The Greeks stake claim to a long tradition of poetry starting with the epic poems of Homer and Virgil. It is hard to imagine a culture without some tradition of oral verse. Following is a list of American poets and their works. Read them aloud and hear the sounds of their words. If the meaning does not penetrate, read them again. If there is a resonance, read them a third time. Nothing stirs the soul quite like poetry. Keep it alive in the next millennium. Find these poets and their works at www.amazon.com: Robinson Jeffers -- The Collected Poetry: 1928-1938 Wallace Stevens -- The Palm at the End of the Mind Edna St. Vincent Millay -- Collected Poems May Sarton -- Collected Poems, 1930-1973 Gregory Corso -- Long Live Man Seamus Heaney -- North Thomas Kinsella -- Peppercanister Poems: 1972-1978 Anne Sexton -- Complete Poems, 1981
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