Throughout the month I will be recommending poetry collections available via Hoopla and/or Overdrive. In the meantime, a few related items of note:

This snippet from the poem “Pain Can Warn Us Of Danger,” from the 2011 collection by G.C. Waldrep and John Gallaher, Your Father On the Train of Ghosts, is eerily relevant still:

From Poets.org, “How to Read a Poem” by Edward Hirsch –

Most readers make three false assumptions when addressing an unfamiliar poem. The first is assuming that they should understand what they encounter on the first reading, and if they don’t, that something is wrong with them or with the poem. The second is assuming that the poem is a kind of code, that each detail corresponds to one, and only one, thing, and unless they can crack this code, they’ve missed the point. The third is assuming that the poem can mean anything readers want it to mean.

Here’s Cillian Murphy (Peaky Blinders, The Delinquent Season, Free Fire) reading Ted Hughes’ “Lovesong” (Jonathan Bates’ biography of Hughes, The Unauthorised Life, is available as an ebook and audiobook on Hoopla) –

And here’s Ben Whishaw reading Poe’s “Annabel Lee” –

On Kanopy you’ll find relevant documentaries and other poetry related videos available to stream, including this one featuring Billy Collins –

From the Library of Congress, Drafts of Langston Hughes’s poem “Ballad of Booker T.” –

Because the Library holds several dated drafts of the “Ballad of Booker T.,” as well as the signed, finished version, researchers can learn how Hughes crafted his words so that the rhythm and the rhyme were syncopated, smooth, and flowing.

For more poetry (recommendations and reviews) on Read This, click here.