MORE TRINITY (BOOK) LISTS

My last post—on Nick Piombino’s new book FAIT ACCOMPLI and my love of “incidental” writing or “secondary sources” etc.—generated more trinity lists, not necessarily all related to the above, but mostly:

3 favorite Walt Whitman biographies (I’m almost always reading or re-reading something by or about Whitman):

1. WALT WHITMAN’S AMERICA by David S. Reynolds
2. WALT WHITMAN/A LIFE by Justin Kaplan
3. WALT WHITMAN by Jerome Loving

3 favorite “Beat” biographies (in many ways Whtiman’s heirs):

1. MEMORY BABE: A Critical Biography of Jack Kerouac by Gerald Nicosia
2. GENESIS ANGELS The Saga of Lew Welch and the Beat Generation by Aram Saroyan
3. OFF THE ROAD, My Years with Kerouac, Cassady and Ginsberg by Carolyn Cassady

3 favorite “memoirs” by poets:

1. SKY by Blaise Cendrars translated by Nina Rootes
2. THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS
3. RECOLLECTIONS OF MY LIFE AS A WOMAN The New York Years by Diane DiPrima

3 favorite “diaries” by poets:

1. SPECIMEN DAYS by Walt Whitman
2. DIARIES OF A YOUNG POET by Rainer Maria Rilke, translated by Edward Snow and Michael Winkler
3. THE DIARY OF JAMES SCHUYLER

3 favorite non-fiction prose collections by poets:

1. A QUINCY HISTORY by James Haining
2. EARTH HOUSE HOLD by Gary Snyder
3. SCRATCHING THE BEAT SURFACE by Michael McClure

(and I suspect by the time I finish Nick Piombino’s FAIT ACCOMPLI it will replace one of the above)

3 favorite book-length poems

1. PATERSON by William Carlos Williams
2. HUMAN LANDSCAPES FROM MY COUNTRY by Nazim Hikmet, translated by Randy Blessing and Mutlu Konuk—billed as “an epic novel in verse”)
3. OF by Michael Lally (gotta be honest, and despite some embarrassment over the first few pages and their self-conscious and/or over simplified “clevernesses” and deliberate “awkwardnesses”—I dig it a lot, what can I say)

3 favorite spiritual texts:

1. THE TAO TE CHING by Lao Tzu (I like Stephen Mitchell’s translation, but I’ve read many and find something unique in each one, so I just keep reading whatever new translations I discover)
2. THE ENLIGHTENED MIND edited by Stephen Mitchell (a comprehensive selection of spiritual writing throughout the ages)
3. THE SCRIPTURE OF THE GOLDEN ETERNITY by Jack Kerouac