100 favorite Poets from the Past 100 Years

[Will Dockery]

Here's 51 of my 100 favorite poets of the last 100 years, from my current,
September, column in Playgrounds Magazine (part one):

http://www.playgroundsmag.com

To The Magic Store by Will Dockery

*** Junk Fest Season is with us! ***


JunkFest,Held in the pasture behind Gina's Junk Thrift & Antique
Store -Bands (Will Dockery's Shadowville All-Stars, Sean Rox, Bibb City
Ramblers, Jimmy Hall & many more), BBQ, Craft Vendors & Vintage Resale.
Directions: I-185 North - Exit Buena Vista Rd.-turn Right- go 2.5 miles
I-185 South -Exit Buena Vista rd.-turn Left-go 2.5 miles
6020 Buena Vista Road.
Columbus Ga.,31907



*** Columbus Georgia performance poet on national television ***


Congratulations to local poet Chiara Richardson, a Columbus native and 1999
Shaw High School graduate, deliver one of those messages when she appears
this
fall on an episode of "Verses and Flow" on TV One. Richardson is among the
24 poets selected for the show's fourth season. "Verses and Flow" is a
30-minute variety show, not a contest. Richardson's episode was filmed in
front of a live audience at Siren Studios on Sunset
Boulevard in Hollywood. She said she will be in one of this season's eight
episodes, starting this fall, according to the Ledger-Enquirer.


And poetry being in the air, many poets I know have been making their 10, 50
or 100 favorite poets of the last 100 years... and here's part one of mine,
covering about 50 so far.


1.) E.E. Cummings
2.) Robert Frost
3.) Dylan Thomas
4.) T.S. Eliot
5.) Ezra Pound
6.) Jim Morrison
7.) Patti Smith
8.) Allen Ginsberg
9.) Jack Kerouac
10.) John Berryman

Well, that's ten, in no real order, love all those poets. Seems I can go
possibly to 20 without a big wait:

11.) Frank O'Hara
12.) Gregory Corso
13.) Pablo Neruda
14.) Charles Bukowski
15.) Lawrence Ferlinghetti
16.) Rod McKuen
17.) Carl Sandberg
18.) Anne Waldman
19.) Bob Dylan
20.) Anne Sexton
21.) Leonard Cohen
22.) Sylvia Plath
23.) Carson McCullers
24.) William B. Yeats
25.) Edna St. Vincent Millay (newest poet on the list to me!)
26.) Rudyard Kipling
27.) Robert W. Service
28.) Leroi Jones aka Amiri Baraka
29.) Dale Houstman
30.) Phil Ochs
31.) Tom Snelling
32.) Stuart Leichter
33.) Seaborn Jones
34.) Gary Snyder
35.) Richard Brautigan
36.) Ken Nordine
37.) Shel Silverstein
38.) Dennis M. Hammes
39.) Ayn Rand
40.) Delmore Schwartz
41.) Lou Reed
42.) Robert Creeley
43.) Charles Olson
44.) Diane diPrima
45.) Robinson Jeffers
46.) Langston Hughes
47.) James Whitcomb Riley
48.) Robert Bly
49.) William Carlos Williams
50.) James Dickey
51.) Pete Matthiessen

Okay, that's getting about it for right off the top shelf poets. There's
probably a dozen more at least I'm not remembering right off hand, locals
and Usenet writers would fill 20-30 spots easy, and they do count. And
here's one of my poems, although I don't make my own list for the obvious
reasons... heh...


Beltane Cruelties

So if it is not for me to speak to her Iconic Wayward Muse who smiles by
Alabama campfire South of town by a number of miles.
Shaken by her ragged beauty painted up with long time no see. She sings rock
and roll now out of sight fresh rolled in deep country.
She's in love now he wishes her the best and him besides no reason for
forgiveness no reason to cry.
So he can smoke another cigar Stuffed with something green and fine Riding
the white elephant shotgun Catching darkness, memory weavers.
Rock and Roll heaven welcomed the new members One said stop the bomb one
cuts across shortly while the other touches herself quietly.
Let them say more in the creation of art although bottom line's purpose is
to sell. The ornament rings like a chime and the little child smiles.
At the country fair and with his fair cold judgement A truly vicious Mister
Freeze taking what has become his by trickery
Derailed the couplement what happened next couldn't be compared to the sun
and moon or even the earth and sea's rich greens.
Julie came prepared with a loaded pistol and all things rare she needed it
Like a Lady in the movie she reminds me of she doesn't blow on some other
guy's dice.
Mulberry has cottonmouth troubles Rock and roll heaven's air of mundane good
cheer is broken at last in this huge arrival to the halls.
Oh let me take your hand again true in love though in lame duck doldrums
truly write you a rock poem valentine. And then you might believe me, my
love is as clear as Lucky's tenor.
As any motherless child, or any Major dude though not so bright as either
might claim Gold candles in the ranchero window fixed for the Lady, the
founder now departed to a level in heaven's air.

-Will Dockery


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