As poets, we need to read each other.  We need to buy each other’s books (preferably from independent bookstores!), or, at the very least, borrow them from our friends or from the library – and we need to read, reread, read aloud to friends, read aloud to ourselves, make photocopies to post on our walls, and reread some more.  Here is a very short list of contemporary American poets -- some very famous, others relatively unknown (but each with at least one published book) – whose work has been meaningful to me.  I’ve left many, many poets I love off this list, and (due to time) have provided only brief, shamefully simplistic annotations which in no way do justice to the poets’ work – but, I offer it to you as a start.  If there’s anyone on this list whose work you don’t know, go look for it! If there’s anyone NOT on this list, whose work you think I should know, email me about it – or better yet, email me some of their poems...

Kim Addonizio
Powerful, gritty urban poet with a very strong backbone of craft. Sex and alcohol are frequent themes. 

Jan Beatty
Her second book, “Boneshaker,” really will shake your bones. Gritty, powerful, musical, unflinching, tender. Lots of violence and sex; more redemption here than in her first book.

Dan Bellm
Discursive, idea-rich poetry in a contemporary gay male voice. “One Hand On The Wheel” contains some incredible sestinas about father-son relationships.

Jacqueline Berger
Quirky, distinctive voice which juxtaposes startling streams of ideas, images and real feeling.

Wendell Berry
Although Berry is better-known as an essayist, his poems have a conscience, thoughtfulness and care which is very appealing to me. Writes beautifully about the challenges of long term love; also about farm life.

Michael Blumenthal
“Against Romance” contains some of the most moving, honest, wry, non-self-pitying poems I’ve read about the end(s) of relationship(s).

Raymond Carver
Although Carver is better-known as a fiction writer, I find many of his poems (which are often strongly narrative) to be memorable and compelling, with a wry, self-aware, self-indicting speaker.

Thomas Centolella
Writes rich, dense, discursive, somewhat narrative, often celebratory poems about city life and desire.

Sandra Cisneros
Bold, sassy, beautiful poetry in a Latina voice.

Mark Doty
Deeply intelligent and philosophical, beautifully composed yet passionate; writes about AIDS and being a (gay) man in America, as well as many other topics.

Stephen Dunn
Spare, strong, emotionally unflinching; often writes about being a man and father. Also wry and humorous.

Kenny Fries
Spare, lyrical poems, many of which come out of the experience of being both disabled and gay.

Tess Gallagher
Unique, mysterious style and use of language; powerfyl and affecting.

Linda Gregg
Dense, mysterious, compelling.

Connie Hales
Incredibly exacting voice which slowly, quietly builds in power. A largely narrative poet of memory with an unflinching eye.

Joy Harjo
Non-linear, non-narrative, full of passion and images and conviction.

Bob Hass
Dense, highly intelligent poems which read almost like essays in poem form, often philosophical, increasingly (with his more recent books) emotional and revealing as well.

Jane Hirshfield
Intensely restrained, beautiful, mysterious, spiritual, often very small poems -- both about nature, and the nature of the heart.  Strongly influenced by Buddhist thought and practice.

Tony Hoagland
Full of wry honesty and startling insight about being a (straight) man in America today... also full of great metaphors and images, frequently humorous, hard-hitting.

Linda Hogan
Poems have a pure, clear, bell-like quality to them, often mystical, rather spare.

Galway Kinnell
Poems of vast scope, music and tenderness. At his best, one of America’s best contemporary poets.

Dorianne Laux
Strong, largely narrative poems of womens’ experience – sex, abuse.  A poet in Sharon Olds’ lineage.

Denise Levertov
Large, embracing lyrical poems of conscience, and of the moment.

Jan Heller Levi
Quirky, strong, compelling personal voice; excellen, very contemporary-feeling  use of rhyme in some poems.

Julia B. Levine
Reverent, radiant poems by a practicing psychotherapist who works with abused children. Writes of motherhood, nature, her own difficult childhood.  Great use of language.

Philip Levine
The American poet of work, and of the working class.  Strong, largely narrative poems with a broad, encompassing heart.

Larry Levis
Poems that soar and dive.  Many long sequences filled with a rich mixture of surreal images and gritty Central Valley agricultural reality.

Alison Luterman
Her book, “The Largest Possible Life,” offers a slice of just that.  Large, exuberant, heartful poems filled with love, sex, kids, struggle, joy, and the pure truth at the core.

Jane Mead
Strong, authoritative, disturbing voice; writes a lot about addiction,  trying to make peace with self/life.

W.S. Merwin
A vast body of work.  Quirky, wide ranging, with some poems of vast scope, authority, conscience and beauty.

Sharon Olds
Often thought of as the queen of “confessional” poetry; strong, passionate, full of images and metaphors; frequent topics include her abusive childhood, sex, and her children.

Mary Oliver
No one can do a nature poem like she can!  Gorgeous, radiant and reverent

Adrienne Rich
Important voice in contemporary poetry. Incredible intelligence; far-reaching poems of conscience and passion.

PattiAnn Rogers
Dense, musical, ecstatic; full of information and detail about the natural world.

Lucinda Roy
Afro-Caribban poet. Superb use of sound.

Tim Seibles
Strong, lively, funny, moving, embracing poems -- sometimes sexy, sometimes political too - -with an  African American perspective.

Reginald Shepherd
Image-rich, sensuous blend of narrative and non-narrative elements; African American gay male voice.

Gary Soto
Distinctive voice; well-constructed, often humorous narrative poems about childhood in Fresno, CA.

Susan Stewart
Stunning, image-rich, lyrical and mysterious.

Sheryl St. Germain
Sings the songs of New Orleans – and elsewhere – in a richly passionate poetic voice.

Richard Tayson
If Sharon Olds were a gay man, she might write something like Tayson (who actually studied with Olds).

Chase Twichell
Writes a great deal about nature; spare, less radiant/ecstatic than Oliver or Rogers, but full of beautifully-asked, haunting questions.

Belle Waring
Exciting, jazzy, brilliantly unique use of language -- very strong metaphors -- passionate poems about the city, hospitals and health (she is a nurse).

Bruce Weigl
Spare, strong, tender, beautifully authoritative  poetry about an abusive childhood, the Vietnam war, and other topics.

CK Williams
A master of short “story poems” depicting people and scenes he’s observed in devastating, moving and insightful detail.  Emotionally exact and exacting.