I often make the half-kidding/half-serious joke that I buy so much poetry that I stopped counting how many books are in my “to-read pile” and I now measure them in feet. It’s true though. I have several feet of books to read. This isn’t something to be ashamed of though! Poetry, especially, tends to get printed in small batches and go out of print quickly. Get it while you can!

At our local open mic, I often begin by reading something by either a local writer I’d like to share with others, or more often, something by a well-known and/or influential author from last 50 years or so. I’ve found that even some very well-read friends and colleagues often are unfamiliar with some of these names.

That being the case, I wanted to take this week to make a list of authors and books of modern and/or experimental poetry that I particularly enjoy and recommend. I expect this post to be a little shorter than some others recently, but I think it is an important thing to share. This isn’t a comprehensive list, and it is purely based off my personal taste and exploration in recent years, but hopefully those of you who want to explore new/experimental poetry more deeply as well as those of you who, like me, constantly seek out new work to read will find this useful.

This list is in no particular order, other than as authors came to mind/as I browsed my shelves. Not all of these are in print, but once I find writers I like, I definitely keep an eye out with online and local used book sellers for decent prices on things I don’t have.

The List:

Clark Coolidge:
The ROVA Improvisations
The Maintains
Polaroid
The Circus
Radium Out Cold

Carlos Lara (Losarc Raal):
Like Bismuth When I Enter
No Material
The Pact of Non-Self
The End of Figueroa
Subconscious Colossus

Tan Lin:
Lotion Bullwhip Giraffe

Leslie Scalapino:
The Dihedrons Gazelle-Dihedrals Zoom
New Time
It’s Go in Horizontal
Considering how exaggerated music is

Lyn Hejinian:
My Life and My Life in the Nineties
Fall Creek

Hejinian & Scalapino:
Sight
Hearing

Joan Retallack:
Procedural Elegies/Western Civ Cont’d/
BOSCH’D

Christian Bök:
Eunoia

Inger Christensen:
Alphabet

Roberto Harrison:
Bridge of the World
Posthuman Native: The Orchid

John Cage:
Themes & Variations

Jackson Mac Low:
Stanzas for Iris Lezak
The Complete Stein Poems
Thing of Beauty

Bob Cobbing:
ABC in Sound

Steve Timm:
Rule of Composition
Ornithocracy

Will Alexander:
Towards the Primeval Lightning Field
Divine Blue Light (for John Coltrane)

Bernadette Mayer:
88 Sonnets
Poetry State Park

Hannah Weiner:
Hannah Weiner’s Open House
silent teachers remembered sequel

Nat Raha:
apparitions (nines)
Octets

There are a lot of others I would include if I were expanding this to include philosophy, short fiction/novels, music, lectures, aesthetics, essays, as well as poetry from over half a century ago such as Vallejo and Pound, who I think are still important and worth reading. But, this list is especially for those who are curious to explore newer poetry more. My starting place was simply asking a small handful of poets who I admire what they recommended reading, and things sort of exploded from there. It is my hope that someone comes across this list and it provides a seed of interest. Happy reading!

Jay Mollerskov, ArtRoot Writer-in-Residence –2/16/26