What is Reddit's opinion of The Vintage Book of Contemporary American Poetry?

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Here is a method I’ve been trying to develop that allows someone to self-start in poetry. I’ll assume because you’re writing in English that introducing you to English poetry is a good place to start. If you’re particularly interested in poetry from other cultures, the method will work but the specific recommended reading will differ.

1. ⁠Grab these two books. The first is an anthology of modern poems, and the second is an anthology which spans all major poetic movements. You don’t have to read it back to front; you can basically read in any order you want, even just flipping to a random page and reading whatever you land on: ⁠1. ⁠The Vintage Book of Contemporary American Poetry ⁠2. ⁠The Oxford Book of English Verse
2. ⁠Create a Google Doc. If you find a poem you like, add the author and poem to the list.
3. ⁠Once you have a list of a few authors you like, read a few more poems by that author. A good place to start is by searching Google for “[author name] poems” and looking at the image results. Often times these are the poet’s most famous poems, and their most famous poems are often times their best. If you find another poem by them that you like, add it to the Google doc.
4. ⁠If you find you like a few poems by a particular author, do two things: ⁠1. ⁠Read the short version of the authors bio, like on the Poetry Foundation website or Wikipedia. ⁠2. ⁠Try searching for “poets like [author name].” Repeat steps 2 and 3 for those poets.
5. ⁠Once you’ve been doing this for a while (maybe you have 4 - 5 authors and 10 - 15 poems), start thinking about whether a pattern is emerging in what kind of poems and poets you like. Write down a list of characteristics. Some questions to ask yourself are: ⁠1. ⁠Did all of these poets live during a similar time? ⁠2. ⁠What are the poems about? Nature? Love? Philosophy? The beauty of everyday life? Politics? Is it not obvious what it’s about, but the images are beautiful? ⁠3. ⁠Do the poems follow a particular pattern, or is the pattern obvious? For instance, do they rhyme? Do they have repetitive sounds? Does it feel like they have consistent rhythm?
6. ⁠Using that list, go to the Poetry Foundation website and see if they have a collection of poems that has that characteristic. I don’t recommend using Google for the step, because if you search for something like “poems about love“ you’re going to get a whole bunch of garbage.
7. ⁠At this stage you may be ready to begin buying more books if you want. Usually folks will buy a collection of poems from a poet they particularly like, or an anthology on a particular topic or including authors from a particular time period. If you find you have a general interest in contemporary poetry, you can also consider subscribing to poetry journals.

An alternative method is to start with step 6 if you already know what you like to read about outside of poetry. You mention you read lots of non-fiction - if it’s history, you can find poets who lived during the time you like to read about, or poems about the events of that time. If you like hiking, you may be interested in poems about nature, or poets most inspired by the natural world. You can find poems about similar themes to the novels you read. Are you particularly passionate about a place, like your home state, or a city you’ve traveled to? You can search for poets from there, or poems about that place. I find Poetry Foundation recommends more accessible poems in their topical lists, so you likely will avoid the esoteric.

That’s it! I hope this gives you a rough blueprint for how to navigate the medium. We need a lot more poetry readers in the world!

Well, there's a few that are annuals... Best American Poetry, Pushcart Prize Anthology, Best of the Net, and Best New Poets all publish new editions focused on the previous year (Pushcart and BotN are multiple genres, not just poetry). BAP is often focused on established poets, but each year is a different editor so they vary greatly. I'm partial to Best of the Net and Best New Poets, BotN is only for pieces published online, and they include a ton of honorable mentions that you can look up and read, and BNP is only for poets that don't have a book out yet. The BNP 2021 edition may be the best yet, though, I'm mostly saying that because I have a piece in there hehe.

Beyond that, there are a few good ones that span back a few decades, but are still 'contemporary', I really like and enjoy <em>The Vintage Book of Contemporary American Poetry</em>, and Charles Harper Webb's anthology <em>Stand Up Poetry Expanded Anthology</em>. Neither are suuuuper recent, but they're mostly at least from the latter half of the 20th century.

I also posted &quot;Poems to Quarantine With&quot; last May on my blog which focuses on pieces published in 2019 and 2020. Since then some of the links changed i recently noticed and I have to update them this weekend, but the broken links can just be searched on Google using the poem title and journal.

For more recent than the last ten years the year-end anthologies are a good place to start, and look at the journals that publish your favorite pieces from there.

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You’ve hit on the two Achilles’ heels of poetry. First, poetry itself self is the triple IPA of the literature world. One of its features is its complexity and new ones, so a reader who isn’t prepared and interested that reading a poem takes a different kind of work than reading a novel or a biography may be, as he put it, “turned off all together.” Second, I don’t think there is a great resource for people who are wanting to get into poetry to self-direct discovery, and I think that’s a big reason why it’s such a niche interest these days. Unlike beer, where you could drink the same beer over and over again and get about the same enjoyment out of it every time, you’ll likely only read a poem a handful of times before you want to read a different poem. So even if you find one poem you like, it’s very difficult to find the next poem you like without some sort of guide, usually a person who reads poetry themselves.

So here is a method I’ve been trying to develop that allows someone to self-start in poetry. I’ll assume because you’re writing in English that introducing you to English poetry is a good place to start. If you’re particularly interested in poetry from other cultures, the method Will work but the specific recommended reading will differ. 1. Grab these two books. The first is an anthology of modern poems, and the second is an anthology which spans all major poetic movements. You don’t have to read it back to front; you can basically read in any order you want, even just flipping to a random page and reading whatever you land on: 1. The Vintage Book of American Contemporary Poetry 2. The Oxford Book of English Verse 2. Create a Google Doc. If you find a poem you like, add the author and poem to the list. 3. Once you have a list of a few authors you like, read a few more poems by that author. A good place to start is by searching Google for “[author name] poems” and looking at the image results. Often times these are the poet’s most famous poems, and their most famous poems are often times their best. If you find another poem by them that you like, add it to the Google doc. 4. If you find you really like the poems of a particular author, do two things: 1. Read the short version of the authors bio, like on the Poetry Foundation website or Wikipedia. 2. Try searching for “poets like [author name].” Repeat step 3 for those poets. 5. Once you’ve been doing this for a while, start thinking about whether a pattern is emerging but what kind of poems and poets you like. Some questions to ask yourself are: 1. Did all of these poets live during a similar time? 2. What are the poems about? Nature? Love? Philosophy? The beauty of everyday life? Politics? Is it not obvious what it’s about, but the images are beautiful? 3. To the poems follow a particular pattern, or is the pattern obvious? For instance, do they rhyme? Do they have repetitive sounds? Does it feel like they have consistent rhythm? Write down a list of characteristics of poets and poems that you like. 6. Using that list, go to the Poetry Foundation website and see if they have a collection of poems that has that characteristic. I don’t recommend using Google for the step, because if you search for something like “poems about love“ you’re going to get a whole bunch of garbage. 7. At the stage you may be ready to begin buying more books if you want. Usually folks will buy a collection of poems from a poet they particularly like, or an anthology on a particular topic or including authors from a particular political movement.

That’s it! I hope this gives you a rough blueprint for how to navigate the medium. We need a lot more poetry readers in the world!