“real” poets

I went out today and bought a stack of “collected works” of poets like Langston Hughes and Nikki Giovanni to start prepping for the poetry I’ll teach this year. I like the idea of being able to dig deep into a poet’s work, and going beyond the poems that are most anthologized (though I will still probably teach “Theme for English B” because I love it). My good old Norton Anthologies will come into the classroom too, but it’s nice to have alternatives.

One of the collected works I picked up today was W.H. Auden, whose work is pretty unfamiliar to me because I’m an Americanist but is on the suggested list for my eleventh graders. The older gentleman behind the cash register went through my Rita Dove and Walt Whitman without comment, but stopped when he got to Auden and said, “Now there’s a real poet!” It struck me as funny, because Auden’s most recent popular streak came after one of his poems was featured in Four Weddings and a Funeral– wonder what my poetry friend thought of that?