My favorite poets are probably Sappho, Horace, Andrew Marvell, and Langston Hughes, although poetry is so hit-or-miss that even here I love relatively few poems by each writer. My favorite living poets are Timothy Steele and John Enright, although I like of lot of poetry by my buddy Moira Russell, too. And of course I've been known to write some poems myself.
Here are some of my favorite books of poetry:
Badger Clark, Sun and Saddle Leather -- A fine collection of Western poetry. For more information, visit the Badger Clark Memorial Society.
John Enright, Starbound and Other Poems -- I still stand by my original opinion: "John Enright's poetry -- playful, passionate, and poignant by turns -- expresses important thoughts with craft and panache. Highly recommended." John's book is available direct from Axton Publishing only. For a short time only, a sample of John Enright's work is still available at the Monadnock Review's poetry section.
Robert Frost, Collected Poems -- Frost is often overlooked, but he bestrides 20th century American poetry like a colossus. Maybe the critics ignore him because he recognized that "the aim was song".
Horace, Odes and Epodes -- Horace was the finest of the Roman poets. Check out my translations of some of his odes. Carpe diem!
A.E. Housman, Collected Poems -- Housman's poetry is sometimes bleak, but his mastery of English rhyme and rhythm is unsurpassed.
Langston Hughes, Collected Poems -- The collected work of an American master (see especially the incredible "Freedom's Plow"). Or for starters, you might want to try his Selected Poems.
Victor Hugo, The Distance, The Shadows -- A fine translation of selected Hugo poems by Harry Guest; it is out of print but worth searching for. Try isbn.nu or The Advanced Book Exchange.
Andrew Marvell, Complete Poems -- Marvell is probably best known today for "To His Coy Mistress", "The Garden", and "On a Drop of Dew", but many of his poems are equally rewarding.
Theodore Roethke -- Collected Poems
Timothy Steele, Sapphics and Uncertainties: Poems 1970–1986 -- The collected early poems of one of the best living poets.
And here is a partial list of some of my favorite poems:
W.H. Auden -- Stop all the clocks...Jacob Bronowski -- The Abacus and the Rose (in his book Science and Human Values)
Catullus -- Carmina V, VII, VIII, XI, XLVI, LI, LXXII, LXXIII, LXXV, LXXVII, LXXXV, LXXXVII, CI, CVII, CIX
Badger Clark -- The Westerner, The Plainsman
Emily Dickinson -- I like a lot of Dickinson -- for details, see my journal entry for 2001-04-15
Ralph Waldo Emerson -- Monadnoc, Monadnock from Afar, Concord Hymn
John Enright -- Proposal, Romance, Phaethon Explains, To The Statue of Liberty, Engagement Ring, Wedding Ceremony, Rain, Chicago, Out In The West, Recantation, For a Daughter Threatened By Illness, December 24 1993, Prayer To Wisdom, Best Effort, Again and Again (see also the many poems of John's I have been honored to publish in the Monadnock Review)
Robert Frost -- The Aim Was Song, Devotion, The Investment, Pertinax, What Fifty Said, Wind and Window Flower, Bond and Free, The Road Not Taken, Into My Own, Flower-Gathering, Rose Pegonias
William Ernest Henley -- In Memoriam R.T. Hamilton Bruce
Horace -- Odes 1.9, I.11, I.13, I.23, I.26, I.28, I.31, II.3, II.10, II.11, II.13, II.14, III.1, III.10, III.13, III.29, III.30, IV.2, IV.3, IV.7, IV.11
A.E. Housman -- A Shropshire Lad II, XIII, XXXI, XL, XLI, XLII, LI, LVII, LXII; Last Poems XII ("The laws of God..."); Additional Poems XXII ("R.L.S": "Home is the sailor, home from sea...")
Langston Hughes -- see my journal entry on Hughes
Victor Hugo -- Since I have placed my lip..., Whoever you may be..., The Huntsman of the Night, Unity, On our hills of the past..., June Nights, Dawn is igniting..., One Evening When I Was Looking at the Sky (see The Distance, The Shadows, a translation of selected Hugo poems by Harry Guest, Anvil Press Poetry, 1981)
X.J. Kennedy -- The Whales Off Wales
Rudyard Kipling -- If, Mandalay, Gunga Din
Andrew Marvell -- To His Coy Mistress, On a Drop of Dew, Music's Empire, The Garden, Young Love, A Dialogue between the Soul and Body, The Definition of Love
Rachel Astarte Piccione -- Weight (I have a lot of admiration for intelligible poetry that is more spontaneous and free-flowing than the formalist stuff I write, and Rachel's poem is a good example)
Theodore Roethke -- Reply to Censure, The Auction, I Knew a Woman, For An Amorous Lady, Night Journey
Robert Service -- Pantheist
Timothy Steele -- Mockingbird, An Aubade, Sapphics Against Anger, The Wartburg 1521-1522, Chanson Philosophique (in Sapphics Against Anger, Random House, 1986)
Robert Louis Stevenson -- Epitaph
Dylan Thomas -- Youth Calls to Age, Being But Men
Walt Whitman -- I read the complete poems of Whitman in the year 2000 and quite enjoyed a lot of his poems, though in most cases I think I liked them more for their thoughts than for their craft. For some of my thoughts on Whitman, check out the following entries in my journal: 2001-06-11, 2001-06-14, 2001-06-15.