First, thanks for all the recommendations. I went to the glorious library today (ahhhhhh, how I missed the library when I lived in France) and checked out two modern anthologies. I am loving the language already. I wonder if I was supposed to be a poet. But then I read some of these poets and laugh to myself. I’m no wizard with language.

Here is your list of recommendations (in no particular order)

• Garrison Keillor’s collections, Good Poems and Good Poems for Hard Times
• ‘Poetry for the Earth’ (ISBN: 0449905993 / Cost: around 10 dollars).
• Mary Oliver’s Dream Work
• Poet List: Pablo Neruda, ee cummings, Miller Williams, Richard Wilbur, Rita Dove, William Carlos Williams, Shel Silverstein, Shakespeare
• Denise Levertov, “The Stream and the Sapphire.
• Billy Collins, “Picnic Lightning,” “Victoria’s Secret”
• Wordsworth anthology
• George Herbert (I’d recommend an entire book of his stuff), John Milton, Girard Manley Hopkins

Then I found this amazing quote from Dostoevsky. What do you think of it?

“Above all, do not lie to yourself. A man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to a certain point where he does not discern any truth either in himself or anywhere around him, and thus falls into disrespect towards himself and others.”