Not since I gave my wife the perfect poetry collection.
I bought my wife a book of cat poems called, well, Cat Poems. She loves cats more than poetry, but I thought I could trick her into reading some. The book was published in 2018 by New Directions and contains poems by Denise Levertov (“The cat on my bosom / sleeping and purring / — fur petaled chrysanthemum / squirrel-killer”), Kafka, Baudelaire, Neruda, Emily Dickinson, Stevie Smith (“I have a cat: I call him Pumpkin, / a great fat furry purry lumpkin”), and many other writers from around the world.
My wife doesn’t care about this. Each night, she grabs the book, reads a poem (without me asking), and assesses whether it’s “eh” or “cute.”
I happily read poetry to her whenever she’ll allow, but she didn’t read it aloud herself until she received that collection featuring her favorite animal. Now, she regularly engages in this unique aspect of the poetry experience: Reciting it out loud.
I’m certain poetry is the only form of literature read aloud at home for pleasure, even — or especially — when you’re alone. Some readers memorize entire poems so they can recite them again and again; others commit them to memory so that the poems become part of them.
Whenever my wife hops into bed to read me a cat poem, I’m happy to hear an excellent verse read by my favorite voice. And here are some of my own favorites to read aloud:
“Tiara” by Mark Doty. Doty is known for his ornate description and intimacy. In “Tiara,” about the death of a friend, the lush description doesn’t greet you until the end, and you’re moved — moved into another realm.
“Orpheus. Eurydice. Hermes.” by Rainer Maria Rilke (from The Essential Rilke, translated by Galway Kinnell and Hannah Liebmann). Of my recommended poems, this is the only one not written in the first person. (I favor first-person poems when reading aloud.) You may know the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, but have you experienced Rilke’s version? He creates a world that is otherworldly; it’s hell itself. He also enters into the dormant mind and body of Eurydice. He creates inner and outer worlds. Reading this poem, you may ask, “How did he do that?”
“Aside” by R.S. Thomas. This is like a poem you read in high school for the first time, a puzzle that you didn’t understand. (I think this is the teacher’s fault, but that’s another essay.) On the first reading, it doesn’t make sense. On the second or third, though, it begins to envelop you. I memorized “Aside” and have recited it a hundred times. It’s an inspirational poem with musical wisdom.
“Asphodel, that Greenery Flower” by William Carlos Williams. W.H. Auden called this “one of the most beautiful love poems in the language.” Williams was near the end when he wrote this long work to his wife, whom he’d known nearly his entire life.
“Burial” by Ross Gay. Full of praise and grief, nearly the whole poem makes you want to sing. I haven’t experienced anything else like it. I’ve read it to family and friends, whether they wanted to hear it or not. I swear that Gay somehow had a smile on his face when writing “Burial,” even if he smiled through tears.
[Editor’s note: Kyle Erickson guest wrote this month’s “Nerd Volta” at the invitation of columnist Steven Leyva.]
Kyle Erickson lives in New York City. His poems have been published in Aromatica Poetica, exhibited at Galleri 21 in Malmö, Sweden, and translated into Spanish for the Mexican literary journal Círculo de Poesía.
