09-28-2011, 03:10 PM
High Windows by Phillip Larkin. I can't recommend Larkin highly enough for someone who wants to know what rules to break when it comes to meter, and how to make it work -- plus he says lots of rude stuff and it's fun 
Sonnets from the Portuguese by Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Her sonnets are much lighter than Shakespeare's, and beautifully constructed, although it gets a bit mushy if you try and read it all at once.
Don Juan by Lord Byron. He was a dirty bugger, that Byron! You should be able to get a full text online at Project Gutenberg. Childe Harold's Pilgrimage is worth a read as well. You can get most of the classic texts there, it's like my heaven.
Don't waste(land) your time with Eliot until you've read most of the poems he's referencing -- he wasn't really writing for the man on the street, he was more about how clever other poets would think him (and themselves) when they realised how much he'd read. Maybe that's unfair, but... well, just don't go straight there, work up to it.
Sonnets from the Portuguese by Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Her sonnets are much lighter than Shakespeare's, and beautifully constructed, although it gets a bit mushy if you try and read it all at once.
Don Juan by Lord Byron. He was a dirty bugger, that Byron! You should be able to get a full text online at Project Gutenberg. Childe Harold's Pilgrimage is worth a read as well. You can get most of the classic texts there, it's like my heaven.
Don't waste(land) your time with Eliot until you've read most of the poems he's referencing -- he wasn't really writing for the man on the street, he was more about how clever other poets would think him (and themselves) when they realised how much he'd read. Maybe that's unfair, but... well, just don't go straight there, work up to it.
It could be worse