Living Masters of the Poetic Tradition

These are the three poets alive today who have had the greatest impact on me. PLUS: A note about my upcoming reading this Sunday

If you were to stop a random person walking down the street and ask them to name a famous living poet, you probably won’t get much of an answer.

They could probably tell you the names of several dead ones though, maybe because they were forced to read them in school. Shakespeare, Whitman, Dickinson, and Frost. The really hip types might name Sylvia Plath or Jack Kerouac. You may even get a Mary Oliver or Seamus Heaney tossed in there. However, ask them to name the current Poet Laureate of the United States, and they probably couldn’t tell you.¹

If you can name a living poet, you are in the minority, yet we are living in an age where more new poetry is being produced. Social media has given rise to the age of the Instapoets, like Rupi Kaur, Lang Leav and Tyler Knott Gregson. A number of literary journals like 32 Poems, Literary Matters and New Verse Review have foregone print media entirely, thus reducing overhead costs by publishing their work solely in digital form.² Substack has been a thriving ecosystem for poetry sharing and community. Distribution is easier than ever.

I originally meant for this post to be a place for me to give you some audio and video from the three living poets who have had the most influence on me, not just as a poet but as a person. However, I think over the next few weeks it is about time for me to tell you how I went from despising poetry well into my 30s to becoming a poet myself in my late 40s. What better time for me to write about this poetic journey than on the cusp of April, also known as National Poetry Month?

For now, let me just give you some of my favorite links about my favorite poets…

Who are your favorite poets of all time?

Those from the past and those alive today…

A. E. Stallings

A.E. (Alicia) Stallings is a poet, essayist and translator. She grew up in Georgia, but she has lived in Greece with her husband and children for many years. She studied classics at the University of Georgia and Oxford University. In 2023 she became the Oxford Professor of Poetry.

My journey to A.E. Stallings is an interesting one because I discovered her at a time when I was faking an interest in poetry to make friends with people. It’s sad but true. I am, how shall we say, socially awkward, and I went through years of my life not knowing how to make friends. When I found a nice mom who loved poetry I started taking notes on the poets she’d mention, and I read them so I could have conversations with her. After reading Like (2018) by Stallings, I was finally, genuinely hooked. It was lyrical, emotional, and musical, but it also spoke to my concerns as a mother, my irritations as a wife, and my love of mythology. Alicia Stallings had my number.

I highly recommend that you listen to or watch the lectures of A.E. Stallings, Oxford Poetry Laureate. Her talks are wonderful explorations of poetic themes and craft. They are masterclasses. (Unfortunately they are not on YouTube; you can only watch them through Apple Podcasts.)

As part of her duties as Oxford Professor of Poetry, Alicia makes herself available to answer student questions:

I must add that

Matthew Buckley Smith

has a great poetry show called Sleerickets. A lot of the shows are free, but there is a bonus show (often part 2 of the free show) called

SLEERICKETS Secret Show

. In December Matthew has an interesting conversation with her:

And here are some of Alicia’s latest books:

• Frieze Frame: How Poets, Painters, and their Friends Framed the Debate Around Elgin and the Marbles of the Parthenon (2025)

• This Afterlife: Selected Poems (2022)

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Dana Gioia

Dana Gioia is a poet, essayist, and translator, and he is a former poet laureate of California (2015-2018) and former chairperson of the National Endowment for the Arts (2003 to 2008). He received a B.A. and M.B.A. from Stanford and an M.A. from Harvard in Comparative Literature. For fifteen years he worked as a businessman before quitting to become a full-time writer. He has been a generous mentor and friend to many people I know.

The first time I met

Dana Gioia

was in Dallas at the Catholic Imagination Conference. After a concert of his poetry set to Helen Sung’s jazz music I got the nerve (assisted by two old fashioned cocktails) to go up to him and tell him that he and A.E. Stallings were two of my favorite living poets. He then smiled and pulled out his phone and showed me a picture of him, Alicia and her husband in Greece from the previous week when Dana was invited to accept a poetry award.

I just about died.

And then I completely lost my ability to speak which was terribly embarrassing. But anyway. Enough about my social awkwardness.

If you are in any way interested in poetry, Dana’s YouTube channel is an excellent resource. There are so many videos for those who are new to poetry or have wanted to understand it more. He does an incredible job at providing the layman with accessible explications of verse.

And here is a conversation that he had with David Perell, who has his own helpful YouTube Channel, How I Write. This is a thorough and thoughtful interview and a great one for those interested in knowing what it takes to be a great writer.

And finally, Dana has done many interviews over the years, but this is one of my favorites:

Here are some of Dana’s latest books:

• Weep, Shudder, Die: On Opera and Poetry (2024) non-fiction

• Poetry as Enchantment (2024) essays

• Meet Me at the Lighthouse: Poems (2023) new poetry

• Christianity and Poetry (2023) monograph

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Rhina Espaillat

I didn’t tell Dana who my third favorite poet is, but it is none other than the great Dominican-American poet, Rhina Espaillat. She is one of best Spanish-English translators alive today. She was also my instructor at Frost Farm a couple of years ago where she taught a workshop on Rhyme and Meter. This was right before I entered my MFA program at the University of St. Thomas in Houston, when I was still wrestling mightily with iambs. She is one of the wittiest, smartest, and most endearing people I have met, and she is only 93-years-old!

She has since become a wonderful friend and introduced me to some great poets, like Al Basile who recently did this two-part interview of Rhina and fellow Powow River poet, Alfred Nichol.

And here is Part 2…

And here is a reading that Rhina did a while back with

Timothy Green

over at Rattle:

Some of Rhina’s latest books:

• The Liquid Pour in which my Heart has Run: Poems by Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz (2023) translation

• The Spring that Feeds the Torrent: Poems by St. John of the Cross (2023) translation

• And After All: Poems (2020)

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Now for something completely different…

Some of you may have heard that I am doing a reading this Sunday, March 16 at 7pm Eastern time for the Thomist Readers Series organized by my friend Christopher Honey. I have never done a solo reading of my work before, and I am somewhat apprehensive. In pulling together everything, I have discovered that I write in many different forms, so I think there will be something for everyone. I also realized that so much of my poetry has been inspired by my friends’ work. I have some short ekphrastic poems I wrote after seeing photos on

Jeffrey Streeter

’s Substack or

Melanie Bettinelli

’s Facebook page. One poem was inspired by a parody suggestion by

Sean Johnson

, host of

The Daily Poem Podcast

.

The reading will be hosted on Teams and will be strictly limited to one hour so do not worry about this going on too long. The reading itself will be shorter since I will be leaving plenty of time for fellowship at the end.

For my paid subscribers, this may give you an idea of what you have been supporting since all the money that I receive from this Substack goes right into my MFA tuition.

And a call for poetry from Beyond the Bookshelf

Thank you so much for reading. I appreciate your support and readership more thank you can imagine.

1. Ada Limón became the twenty-fourth Poet Laureate of the United States in July of 2022.

2. For more online journals, check out this site: https://www.everywritersresource.com/best-online-literary-magazines/

And many of you know that I am a contributing editor to New Verse Review so I may be a little biased toward journals that publish formalist verse.