Favorite types of poetry and why!!

My favorite poets are Edna St. Vincent Millay (Renascence - my all time, favorite poem ever), Emily Dickson, and Maya Angelou. I love their use of language, I love the invention of words and the power of observing tender and hard truths. I am still trying to figure it all out. What makes an Emily Dickinson poem, a St. Vincent Millay or Angelou poem? I love the way the work of these poets reads but they have distinct voices. I really need to take a class or something.

I'm a horrible reader of poetry and if I'm being honest I don't have a particular favourite kind of poetry, but, I do enjoy a poem that can tell a story or utilizes creative ways of expressing a particular element. I find most of the poetry I read to be stuff that friends have written and me highlighting what I liked best out of it. I'm slowly starting to appreciate micropoetry whereas if you had asked me a year ago I would have called it crap poetry. There's a redeeming quality to expressing an object, moment, or emotion in only a few lines. Usually when someone asks me what poets I like I say Billy Collins, Edgar Allan Poe, or Robert Frost. However, I occasionally get a poem I've never heard of before thrown my way and take the risk. I'm sort of a procrastinator when it comes to these sorts of things, and my tastes are rather eclectic at best.

I like to read anytype of poetry but because I'm quite lazy I like the poetry easy to understand. Bukowski has to be one of my favourires there. I also admire poetry that is stripped to its raw elements, poems that are frugal with their words. Maybe it's because I love the simple clean structure of Haïku. I like the ability to capture a moment, to try to record it, like a photo made of words. I'm always interested in experimental poetry too, as long as it's not too pretentious.

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I was just introduce to the blog and Ocean Vuong for the first time! His poetry is really fresh to me and so vulnerable

I love free verse poetry that doesn’t follow set structures. I like to see language used in surprising ways…word combinations that turn my understanding of language on its head. Poetry with strong imagery and lots of energy.

I like when the poet’s voice is conversational and vulnerable. When it’s so honest you almost feel like you shouldn’t be allowed to read it. Taylor Mali once said something like “poetry is the art of celebrating all the ways you fall short of being the person you want to be” And I agree with that.

Brilliant responses, everyone. And Sophie really does capture those 'ethereal/sensual ✨vibes✨ ' in her own poetry, too! Check it out if you haven't already :) Gosh, talking about poetry and what inspires you all so much makes me happy <3 (I've been in such a giddy mood today which is odd because last night was pretty sh*t for me, lol. I guess these are the magical healing powers of the Cove?).

Like Adam, I have also drawn a lot of inspiration from the Romantics. I think there is an abundance of poetic technique, metaphors and symbolism from that era that can't match any other. William Blake is my favourite traditional Romantic and poet of all time because of his use of recurring motifs, images and symbols throughout all his poems and collections. He's also quite the philosopher and theorist, which just adds more depth, perspective and meaning to his poetry. I discuss this in the link Adam provided above also.

I also really adore academic poetry that can be dissected and over-analysed, hence why I love Blake and Shakespeare so much; there is so much to uncover, interpret and understand within a limited amount of text. Other than the Romantics, I also really love Xiaolu Guo's contemporary poetry because she does it so well. Though she's a well-known novelist, I'm surprised she's actually not more famous for her poetry! And of course, Shakespeare and his sonnets. Like many poets, my love for traditional poetry stemmed from my love of Shakespeare. Not poetry exactly (but it can be), here are some great quotes from my fav Shakespearean play, Richard III:

http://www.shakespeare-online.com/quotes/richardiiiquotes.html

I really love this. Personally, I'm drawn to poetry about mental health struggles and about family (which are my main topics).

Curiously, I find that I enjoy poetry more if it's written by a woman. I think because I'm a woman, I relate more and I've been meaning to start a thread about this. Are other people drawn more to poetry of a specific gender?

I really love poetry that has drawn inspiration from the Romantics. We did a thread about which era of poets would we love to see brought back and Romanticism came out on top. You can find that thread here: https://www.thepoetrycove.com/forum/poetry-discussion/history-repeats-itself/p-1/dl-6215515a61413e002c150fb0?searchTerm=romanti Also I moved this thread to Poetry Discussion rather than General :)

My favorite type of poetry is anything that has to do with love/relationships, particularly if it feels like it's telling a story and really makes you feel the emotions behind it. I feel like there is a very particular quality I look for in a poem that is really hard to explain, but sort of like melancholy but at the same time ethereal/sensual ✨vibes✨ lol. I also really like when the poem has contradictory elements, like a poem about an abusive relationship written as a love poem or a love poem written as if it's describing something bad.

I'm curious to see how you'd answer this question and what the name of the collection you picked up was :)