During National Poetry Month (April), we’re sharing lists of favorite poetry books. Each list is by a different poet who volunteered to share their favorites with you on the 32 Poems blog. Our hope is that 1) this effort will promote the writers whose work is shared here and 2) that you will learn about the poet who wrote the list.

This list is by Eric Weinstein (his bio is below).

1. Tulips & Chimneys, E.E. Cummings. Few poets have mastered the love poem the way Cummings has, and I never tire of re-reading his collections. One Times One and 95 Poems are also great.

2. My Vocabulary Did This To Me, Jack Spicer. We’re all radios. Period.

3. White Buildings, Hart Crane. Not as famous or ambitious as The Bridge, but I find the poems in this collection complex in a more subtle way. They’re also a great counterpoint to Eliot’s work, specifically “The Waste Land,” which takes such a dim view of Western civilization.

4. Elegy on Toy Piano, Dean Young. I’m not aware of any other contemporary poet who blends tragedy and humor the way Young does. His poems are fantastic little juxtaposition devices that never get old.

5. Trilogy, H.D. Comprising The Walls Do Not Fall, Tribute to the Angels, and The Flowering of the Rod These poems are some of the best to come out of American Modernism. A must-read.

BIO: Eric Weinstein is the author of a collection, Vivisection, which won the 2010 New Michigan Press/DIAGRAM chapbook competition. He has poems forthcoming in Indiana Review, Prairie Schooner, and Salt Hill. You can find him online at www.ericqweinstein.com.