<p>Mary Oliver is really great for more modern, nature-y stuff. Some of her work is incredible.</p>
<p>haha yeah i didn't get it when i read it. i was 9 but what i loved about it, and still do is the expression. the words resonate even in a 9 year old. i thought The Hollow Men, although good, was somewhat less powerful, for me at least. i guess a love poem is simply a preference.</p>
<p>as for it being esoteric, elliot is one of the most pretentious writters ever, so it comes with the territory. whateves.</p>
<p>I like William Carlos Williams too, and also Allen Ginsberg...
Robinson Jeffers is pretty good.
I also like W.B. Yeats and Dylan Thomas...W.H. Auden...tons of others.</p>
<p>Sylvia Plath, Emily Dickinson, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Shakespeare's sonnets... </p>
<p>I took a women's poetry class :)</p>
<p>T.S. Eliot's "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock"
just did a huge research paper on this for my poetry class!!</p>
<p>"Alfred Prufrock" is awesome. I'd also recommend William Carlos Williams, William Wordsworth, and John Updike.</p>
<p>Neruda was also entertaining, especially "An Ode to My Socks"-- glorifying everyday objects... made me happy reading his poetry.... I will say though, definitely not as deep as Prufrock or Frost (Birches) etc. unless you relate it to much more than the actual poem implies...</p>
<p>But if you're not willing to dig beneath the surface, then what's the point? If you want an easy poem, then I would almost recommend a harder one b/c there's so much more analysis available on the web to help you if you get stuck. For an easy poem, well, there's not too much to analyze.</p>
<p>Billy Collins is amazing!</p>
<p>I definitely recommend going to a reading of his. I laughed so hard, I started crying.</p>
<p>neruda makes me so happy. his language is incredibly beautiful.
i adore walt whitman, ginsberg (check out 'a supermarket in california'), and frank o'hara (i second emmmily: 'steps' is great). and i'm not sure where you might find it-- but slam poetry is pretty incredible, and worth reading/listening to.</p>
<p>I second "A Supermarket in California" - LOVE it.</p>
<p>FlowMentalz
from Def Poetry Jam
"I am Drama"</p>
<p>Langston Hughes = one of all-time fav/classic</p>
<p>Emily Dickenson, Sylvia Plath, Elizabeth Bishop, Anne Sexton, e.e. cummings, Ezra Pound... to name a few.</p>
<p>Read something by Walt Whitman :)</p>
<p>Robert Frost-His poem Design is very deep and After Apple picking is not bad
Maya Angelou- poet laurete Still I rise= great poem
I sing too America by Langston Hughes and Dream Deferred
Whitman was alright
Spoken word artist-Black Ice</p>
<p>Tupac-rose that grew from concrete and In Event of My Demise</p>