Please contribute your list of the top five – ten poets to read while stoned (or drunk, or…?).
Here’s some to start things off:
Rich Owens
Jeremy Prynne — News of Warring Clans
Hart Crane — The Bridge
Robert Creeley — For Love
Michael “Systems”
Anything by Clark Coolidge
Brautigan “when you’re really really baked”
Brenda Hillman — Loose Sugar
Hadbawnik
Robert Duncan — Circulations of the Song
Kerouac — Mexico City Blues
Blake — Marriage of Heaven and Hell
Spicer — The Holy Grail / Heads of the Town
derrick c. brown – IF LOVIN’ YOU IS WRONG THEN I DON’T WANT TO BE WRONG
charles bukowski – THE LAST NIGHT OF THE EARTH POEMS
pablo neruda – TWENTY LOVE POEMS
wislawa zymborska – VIEW WITH A GRAIN OF SAND
malka heifetz tussman – WITH TEETH IN THE EARTH
CORRECTION: szymborska
oh crap, another entry:
derrick c. brown’s I’M EASIER SAID THAN DONE, whose author inscribed in his scribble-scratch, i quote, “Ellen + Stacy – I hope these poems find you drunk as hell, or full of hell.”
thanks for the suggestion, stacy… have to check those out when i’m baked.
i thought of at least one more — how could i forget joanne kyger? and that reminds me: phillip whalen.
DAVID:
what a splendid evening last night — the food (Kara’s already taken down the leftovers), the booze &, most importantly, the conversation!
Whalen may have been stone when he first wrote the bulk of his corpus, but i need to be sober to read thru the work. since the possibility of constructing _any_ meaning in Prynne is so slim, this for me makes him the _ideal_ candidate for hazy reading given more to sound & rhythm than meaning.
& the darger entry — thanks for drawing our attention to him. Kara & i devoted an hour or so to looking into & talking abt him today — inspired by yr post.
hugs … rich …
Berryman’s Dream Poems aint bad either, and of course Breton, Some Niedecker too, actually. Yes, great night, great unfolding. See you guys soon . . . . .
rich and mike–
yes, had a great time too… a pleasure to have y’all and your families over, only sorry kara couldn’t stick around longer.
you should definitely check out the documentary in the realms of the unreal for more on darger.
also, i thought of one more, though it’s not exactly poetry. as a friend in san francisco used to say, “don’t bogart that borges.”
Andre Breton
Robert Desnos
David Gascoyne
The surrealists really get the creative part of my brain stirring when I have partaken:)
thanks sarah — great to hear from you!