Response to a Very Well Read New Acquaintance about Poets and Poetry

Yes, I’ve read Charles Bukowsky. He wrote poems like his face looked.

Of the poems I’ve read:

I appreciate his revealing dignity,
light, sadness, injustice, sorrow, poignancy
in the putridness of urban darkness
and human depravity.

I lean toward the upper Midwest poets celebrated by Ted Kooser and
I really like most of the poets featured on The Writer’s Almanac
until it was cancelled. I’m still upset about that. A curse on Keillor.

Oh, and I know Billy Collins is considered by many a light weight
in spite of being US Poet Laureate, but I really like his verse —
the humor, irony, etc. in everyday experiences.

Collins once wrote that

when he started out
he thought he had to be
dense, deep, cryptic, impenetrable,
humorless and discovered that —
that just wasn’t his cup of poetry.

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