Happy 15th day of National Poetry Month. Every day this month, we’re sharing recommendations of five favorite poetry books. Enjoy the lists and learn more about the poets who are sharing their favorite books with you.

Today’s post comes to us by way of Carolina Ebeid:

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I’ve made no hierarchical list. These titles represent a swatch from a library of favorites that are important to me.

Delusions, ETC. by John Berryman
I am waiting for a scholar/poet to come out with the annotations to The Dream Songs. Many of his poems are forever “archived” in my memory.

The Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins
When I’m in a gray funk, GMH jolts me back to life.

Souls of the Labadie Tract by Susan Howe
A quote: “We are all clothed with fleece of sheep I keep saying as if
I were singing as these words do. Throw a shawl over me so you won’t be afraid to sleep. I have already shown that space is God.”

The Master Letters by Lucie Brock-Broido
This book (as well as A Hunger and Trouble in Mind) continues to be one of the most shaping influences upon my imagination.

Columbarium by Susan Stewart
I marvel at the way in which Stewart assembles her books. This one is arranged as a kind of abecedary.

Bio: Carolina Ebeid’s poems appear in Gulf Coast, Poetry, Agni, 32 Poems, Fugue, Copper Nickel, Anti–, and West Branch, among others. Originally from New Jersey, she now lives in Austin where she is a fellow at the Michener Center for Writers, and serves as poetry editor for the Bat City Review. She is at work on her first manuscript, which was a finalist for the Vassar Miller Prize. She was chosen as a CantoMundo fellow for 2011.