details
Lorna Crozier
canadian, nothing more then i like her writing.
Magaret Atwood
why would someone so rich and famous off her novels, continue to work so long and so hard on a dead or dying form, her second last book was a series of lectures about poetics.
Margaret Avison
she is in her early 90s and is still writing, same as stanley kunitz.
Tom Paulin
said some unfortunate things about palestine, was dropped from a harvard lecture tour, giant controversy, reinstated.
hugley influential as a poet in his native britian, actually listened to.
Lucille Clifton
just one of my favourites, chosen for the plainess and clarity of her langague, someone i wish everyone would read, and someone everyone can read.
Sharon Olds
deeply moving, a personal favourite.
Anne Carson
published in newspapers in canada with some frquency, sells realtivley well for having book length medations of the meaning of truth, hard hard reading.
Tom Pickard
mostly for writing this:
writing poems
(keeping rabbits)
each day
the shite to be cleared
fresh straw to be laid.
Charles Bukowski
just another la drunk
Semas Heany
the old ireland, of peat moss and smoke, is dying out, and in his own country he is viewed as a qauint old uncle.
Wanda Coleman
vicious debates over her review of maya angelou spilled over into most of the weeklys and some of the dailies including the vv and the nyt.
Michael Odjante
see atwood.
Linton Kwesi Johnson
jamacian performance, reads to audiences of thousands, like pickard uses the patois of home
Derek Walcott
nobel prize (look at how many poets win the damn thing)
Amiri Baraka
caused no end of trouble for nj with his poem about 9/11

i think what i tried to do with this list is indicate that people still fight over poetry, that poetry is read in everyday places.