One-night reads: Recommendations 3

 Today’s list is on poetry.

• Walt Whitman, Song of Myself

• Norman MacCaig, Collected Poems. Just spend an evening dipping into it. Do not miss “Praise of a Collie.”

• William Stafford, The Way It Is. This collection is, with MacCaig’s, priceless. Don’t miss “A Ritual to Read to Each Other” and “The Little Ways That Encourage Good Fortune.”

• Christian Wiman, The Long Home, an astonishing long poem about Texas.

• Alice Oswald, Dart, an astonishing long poem about the river in England.

• Toi Derricotte, Tender, a long poem, or a series of interlinked shorter poems, about slavery and its awful aftermath.

• Archilochus, a good selection of his poems is in 7 Greeks, translations by Guy Davenport.

• Derek Walcott, “The Schooner Flight,” an epic voyage in a small format, easily read in an hour or two.

• Stephen Dunn, Different Hours. “The Last Hours” is one of the best poems I know about following the still small voice that says, in a respectable work place, “get out of here.”