An Invitation to Poetry

Favorite Poem Project official Website

When poet Robert Pinsky was named the 39th U.S. Poet Laureate in 1997 he began the massive Favorite Poem Project which provided the material for these three books, the first being America's Favorite Poems. The third, An Invitation to Poetry, is my current read.

The project was basically travelling across the country collecting common people's favorite poems, which were read and recorded into a massive archive at the Library of Congress. There is also a set of video documentaries. Each book presents a collection of poems from all types of poetry, each with a short introduction by the person who named the poem as their favorite. So, for instance, there will be a paragraph at the top of the page where someone describes how they loved this poem in college and still have it memorized, how it reminds them of their father, for instance. That introduction is then attributed with their name, age, job, and city/state they live in. Then below that you will find the poem.


An Invitation to Poetry includes a DVD on which a selection of people introduce, then read their favorite poems in person. It's wonderful, and brings the poetry, the spirit of this project, and the spirit of our country, alive. I highly recommend this as the first of these three books to get. The book's table of contents helpfully cross-references with the DVD track listing.

In honor of Poetry Month this April (which is now), run out and get this book, and pop in the DVD. Give yourself 20 minutes at least to do this. If you would like to, play the introduction on the DVD, and listen to Robert Pinsky talk about the origins of the project, it's significance, and to his own favorite poem. (He's a great poet, and I recommend his books sometime, too.) If you don't have the time, go directly to the first selection, an excerpt from the Walt Whitman poem Song of Myself. (It has to be an excerpt, the poem is 20 pages long!) Choose this and listen to a guy in Massachusetts talk about why he likes the poem, and the work that he does as a construction worker laying gas pipes. Then listen and watch him read his favorite stanzas of Song of Myself right there on his tractor. It may occur to you that this is an ordinary guy you might see working along the road or pass by anonymously in the grocery store any day. Watch him emerge from anonymity to significance as his strong Boston accent bends Whitman's early 19th century words and his white teeth flash in an occasional smile.

Every day in April I plan to "watch" another poem. There should be just enough.

I just love the concept of this project, and wish I had participated too. I can relate to the enthusiasm the people feel for their favorite poems. When I try to narrow down to one favorite poem, I find it very hard. Maybe 6 poems, that I could do. I really do feel like the Favorite Poem Project acheived it's aims of celebrating and promoting poems in America, in that it showed poetry really is already enjoyed all across the country in diverse walks of life. It's a pleasure to read the reasons people list for why they like one poem or another, and some of my favorite poems are already included. It's like sharing, in a community, in what is normally a secluded and private activity, the reading of poetry. I think that's why this book is so exciting; it breaks out of the social constraints placed around poetry. Like the way people won't share how much they earn, or never ruminate with friends on the truly difficult aspects of parenting. People just don't talk about poetry much, you have to go out of your way to get to a poetry reading on Tuesday night in a coffee shop downtown somewhere, to do that. So this book gives me a piece of that community.