On My Wishlist: Essential Pleasures


This month is National Poetry Month, so I am going to try and choose collections of poetry and/or novels written in verse during the month of April. This week, I chose to profile a collection of poems that I really want.It's called Essential Pleasures: A New Anthology of Poems to Read Aloud and it's edited by Robert Pinsky.

I love to read poems, but not all are great to read aloud. In fact, some are powerful in a visual sense and not in an aural sense. Also, I have undertaken a huge task this year: To find a poem that's related to whatever book I'm teaching every Friday. To me, this sounded easy at first, but quickly became challenging. It has forced me to look at the books I teach in new ways and to seek out a huge amount of poetry and poets. I have learned more about poetry this year than in college and my first six years of teaching combined!

But, I need more poems, specifically those that are great when read aloud. As the title this text promises great read-aloud poems, I should be able to find a number of gems inside this collection!