My Anthology of Magnificence

Robert Pinsky in his book Singing School says that there is no substitute for study, not dabbling nor doing short courses.  He suggests that:

If you want to learn singing, you must study—not just peruse or experience or dabble in or enjoy or take a course in, but study—monumental examples of magnificent singing: study not just a pretty good poem in a recent magazine, or something that seems cool or seems to be in fashion, or that you have been taught in school, but examples that you feel are magnificent. “Magni-ficent”: the Latin roots of the word mean “making great".

Rather than prescribing a list of poems/poets/genres, Pinsky places you, the neophyte poet, in the decision making chair, encouraging you to seek out poems that you think are magnificent, to study and read them closely, create an anthology of personal magnificence and significance.

This page will house my online Anthology of Magnificence, for both myself and my readers benefit and ease of use:

1. Mandy Coe's, When We Found Flowers Could Speak
2. Helen Mort's, Fox Miles. (link will take you to her poetry archive page)
3. Seamus Heaney's Digging.
4. Thom Gunn's The Hug.
5. Anthony Lawrence's Three Men.
6. Philip Hodgins', Shooting the Dogs
7. Norman MacCaig's Ineducable me
8. Liz Berry's When I Was A Boy
9. Felicity Plunkett's, Lost Sea Voices
10. Kenneth Slessor's Crow Country
11. Sian Hughes' The Sacking Offence
12. Caroline Bird's A Love Song
13. Sean O'Brien's Sunday in a Station of the Metro
14. Clive James' Japanese Maple
15. Gillian Clarke's Family House
16. Maria Takolander's Hotel Room
17. Eileen Chnong's Ritual
18. Beth Spencer's Leaving this House
19. Sarah Day Hierophant
20. JV Cunningham Perfect Imperfection
21. Ouyang Yu New Accents
22. Robert Frost Acquainted with the Night
23. John Burnside Insomnia in Southern Illinois
24. Robert Gray, A Northern Town
25. Paula Meehan, Single Room with a Bath, Edinburgh
26. Glyn Maxwell, Old Smile at the Roast
27. Kay Ryan, A Certain Kind of Eden
28. Carol Ann Duffy, Anne Hathaway
29. Chase Twichell, To the Reader: If You Asked Me
30. Geoff Page, Smalltown Memorials
31. Paul Muldoon Why Brownlee Left
32. Howard Nemerov, The Consent , 
33. Rosemarie Waldrop Like Holderlin 
34.  Michael Lista The Scarborough Grace 
35. Katrina Roberts Guns
36. Katrina Roberts, Blue
37. Katrina Roberts Estuary 
38. Jane Hirshfield. To Judgement: An Assay
39. Alison Whittaker   Scrag Lit
40. Lorraine Mariner Factory
41. Alex Skovron, Cyril and the Snails
42. Robert Adamson Sugarloaf Bay, Middle Harbour 
43. Esther Morgan, This Morning
44. LK Holt's Playhouse
45. Sarah Howe's Night in Arizona
46. Kate Clanchy's  Miscarriage, Midwinter
47. Billy Collins'  Another Reason Why I Don’t Keep a Gun in the House
48. Dennis Greene's Wheat Field
49. Jane Clarke's Every Life
50. Jane Clarke's The Suck
51. Fiona Wright's Almost Aubade, Melbourne
52. Richard Hugo's Mill at Romesdal
53. Richard Hugo's In Stafford Country
54. William E Stafford The Farm on the Great Plain
55. Richard Hugo's Back of Gino's Place
56. John Brehm's, When My Car Broke Down. 
57. Kathyrn Hummel's Last Drinks Adelaide II
58. David Brook's, Broad Bean Meditation.
59. Les Murray's Broad Bean Sermon
60. Brian Johnstone's, Tobacco Road
61. Claire Askew's, Spitfires
62. Lisa Brockwell's Blackout
63. Stuart Barnes', Ebon cans
64. JV Birch's, Leaving
65. PS Cottier's, The unpleasant poet elf
66. Rin Ishigaki's Moving On
67. Naomi Shihab Nye's, The Books We Haven't Touched in Years
68. Kim Moore's Picnic at Stickle Pike.
69. Billy Marshall Stoneking's, One Last Poem.