Read read read read read read read. This is a terribly sparse reading list, but if you asked me to recommend you a good book, the following titles would come to mind first:
Poetry:
the entire collection of e e cummings
the entire collection of Charles Bukowski
the entire collection of CK Williams
the entire collection of Frank O-Hara
The Most of It, Mary Ruefle
The Pill Versus the Springhill Mine Disaster, Richard Brautigan
All-American Poem, Matthew Dickman
Nets, Jen Bervin
The Silver Book, Jen Bervin
Tender Hooks, Beth Ann Fennelly
The Dead and the Living, Sharon Olds
The Gold Cell, Sharon Olds
Next, Lucille Clifton
Tender Hooks, Beth Ann Fennelly
Buddha's Dogs, Susan Browne
How to be Perfect, Ron Padgett
One With Others [a little book of her days] C.D. Wright
The Outlaw Bible of American Poetry, edited by J.D. McClatchy
The World Doesn't End, Charles Simic
I Heart Your Fate, Anthony McCann
Moongarden, Anthony McCann
The Brassgirl Brouhaha, Adrian Blevins
The Book of Nightmares, Galway Kinnell
The Oregon Trail is the Oregon Trail, Gregory Sherl
Heavy Petting, Gregory Sherl
Panic Attack, USA, Nate Slawson
Black Blossoms, Rigoberto Gonzalez
I Am a Very Productive Entrepreneur, Mathias Svalina (this may technically be classified as fiction)
What Narcissism Means to Me, Tony Hoaglund
Insomnia Diary, Bob Hicok
Facts About the Moon, Dorianne Laux
Human Dark with Sugar, Brenda Shaughnessy
Missing You, Metropolis, Gary Jackson
Sorry, Tree, Eileen Myles
Non-Fiction/Essays:
The Art of Recklessness, Dean Young
i: six nonlectures, e e cummings
Of Woman Born, Adrienne Rich
Kurt Cobain's journals
Letters to a Young Poet, Rainer Maria Rilke
Twenty-Five under Twenty-Five, vol. 2 (a look at some amazing young & contemporary photographers)
101 Things to Learn in Art School by Kit White
Madness, Rack, and Honey, Mary Ruefle
I don't have much time to read fiction, but these are some of my favorites:
1984, George Orwell
To the Wedding, John Berger
The History of Love, Nicole Krauss
The Cat's Eye, Margaret Atwood
The Blind Assassin, Margaret Atwood
The Handmaid's Tale, Margaret Atwood
Revolutionary Road, Richard Yates
The Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger
Ham on Rye, Charles Bukowski
First Love, Last Rites, Ian McEwan
The Bluest Eye, Toni Morrison
Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, Jeanette Winterson
the entire collection of William Shakespeare's plays, especially the comedies and tragedies (the histories bore me, I'll admit it)
and so much more--check back. (I'm terrible at naming titles and authors off the top of my head...)
