The Menstuff® library lists pertinent books on Poetry. See also Men's Original Poetry.
The Healing Power of Creative Mourning: Poems. The
poems in this new collection deal with the universal themes of
coping with illness, death, grief, loss, and bereavement. From the
preface by Fred and Jan Yager, "Creativity can help to fill the
emotional void caused by a loss. It empowers you as you take that
loss, whether it's because of terminal illness, death, or
separation and create something from it. But whether or not you
write your own poetry, there is a cathartic benefit to reading the
poems of others. They're also meant to entertain, like a good
blues ballad..." The collection also includes an Epilogue on
coping with grief, including selected references and a list of
resources for information or direct help, including web site
addresses. Topics dealt with in this original collection
include: coping with a miscarriage, illness and death of a
father; a mother, a brother, a grandfather, a friend, a therapist,
and John F. Kennedy, Jr.; the holidays after a loved one dies;
death during the Vietnam War, and more. Hannacroix Creek Books,
www.hannacroix.com or
hannacroix@aol.com 2000.
ISBN 1-889262-47-1 Buy
This Book!
Andreas, Brian has written a series of
collected stories and drawings. I had to go all the way to
Minneapolis to find this magnificent Berkeley, CA fiber artist,
sculptor and storyteller. He uses traditional media from fine art,
theater and storytelling, as well as computer networks and
multimedia to explore new forms of human community. He also likes
to put things together with the rustiest stuff he can find. He now
lives in Iowa. My favorite piece of his magic comes from his
second volume titled Still Mostly True. "In my dream, the
angel shrugged & said, If we fail this time, it will be a
failure of imagination & then she placed the world gently in
the palm of my hand." Here are five of his volumes published by
StoryPeople www.storypeople.com
Mostly True, 1993 Buy
This Book! Still Mostly True, 1994, Buy
This Book! Going Somewhere Soon, 1995, Buy
This Book! Strange Dreams, 1996 Buy
This Book! Hearing Voices, 1998, Buy
This Book!
Baer, Reid, The Man from Four
Quarters: Lover, Warrior, Magician, King. This is an
excellent collection of poetry for any man on a personal journey.
John Lee says "Finally, the burgeoning men's movement has a voice
devoted to it. Reid Baer's poems will capture the hearts and minds
and even the funny bones of the men and women who will give a
listen to this voice." Robert Moore says, "The four
foundational archetypes of masculine selfhood always seek
embodiment in the existential struggles of individual men. Through
this collection of poems, Reid Baer has shown us what it means for
a man to engage these primordial energies in an authentic and
creative dance and to incarnate them in his life." Malidoma Some
says "Like a finely-crafted arrow, Reid Baer's poetry aims
straight for the heart and hits it mark with simplicity and
grace." And finally, Coleman Barks says "Every hunting group
needs a Fool, who is also a medic." Monarch Publishing Associates,
2005, ISBN 0-9759706-5-8 
Beldon, Rick, Iron Man Family
Outing: Poems about transition into a more conscious
manhood. This is the story of the author's recent encounter
with a childhood friend - the comic book super hero Iron Man who
wears a protective suit of armor with an electronically powered
chest plate that keeps his damaged heart beating. The armor
enhances his physical strength, allows him to fly, provides
several powerful weapons, and protects him from severe blows and
explosions such as the one that originally injured his heart. The
armor is topped off by a menacing-looking helmet and face mask,
which hide Iron Man's expressions and his identity from others.
He's safe inside the armor, but almost totally isolated. No one
can hurt him, but no one can touch him either. He does a lot of
lying and covering up to keep those around him from knowing who's
inside. He's sure that if the armor is removed, his wounded heart
will stop and he'll die. This book of poems show a man in
conscious transition to becoming a better man and a better human
being. It's an honest story of pain, awareness, struggle, and
release, the story of an ongoing process of reunion and
reconciliation with the child, the man, the animal and the family
inside the Iron Man armor. 1990 ISBN 0-911051-56-2 
Bly, Robert, The Night Abraham Called to the
Stars. The author's new collection of poetry is made of
forty-eight poems writtern in the intricate form called the
ghazal, which is the central poetic form in Islam. The
influence of Hafez and Rumi is clear, and yet the poems descend
into the wealth of Western history, referring at times to Monet,
Giordano, Bruno, Emerson, St. Francis, Newton, and Chekhov, as
well as to events in the author's own life. The leaping between
joy and "ruin" produces a poetry which makes him, as Kenneth
Rexroth noted, "one of the leaders in a poetic revival which has
returned American literature to the world community." Perennial,
www.harpercollins.com,
2002, ISBN 0-06-093444-1 Buy
This Book!
Bowman, Lee, Doing Life from the Inside
Out. Are all the men behind bars evil, hopeless and incapable
of positive change? This collection of essays represents
those who have benefited from their incarceration. The open,
honest vulnerability of their writings touches a place in our
hearts which knows that it is possible to become whole, to
forgive, and to move on. The voice heard here does not make
excuses, blame, nor dwell on past events. It speaks with
self-acceptance, realistic views of circumstances, and hope for
understanding. Listen to it for there may be a mirror which
reflects an image of our own self-made prisons. Wally Amos,
inspirational man and motivating speaker, says that this book is
"...about transformation; turning caterpillars into
butterflies...Their journey from despair to hope to transformation
is confirmation that we all have the capacity to change and that
good resides in all of us." Planting Moon, PO Box 1721,
Folsom, CA 95763-1721 1999 Buy this Book Direct
Colyer, Nik C., Kicking Ass and Taking
Names: Poetry through the eyes of a tough guy. This piss
you off, make you laugh, break your heart, and give you hope. Nik
writes about manhood, relationship and the creative process with a
fresh point of view, speaking with that other organ not readily
used by men in this culture: his heart. He started writing poetry
during a snowbound winter in 1974 while lising on a cummune with
no electricity or running water. He says, "Remove the trappings of
civilization and all you'll have left is outhouses and poetry."
Singing Reed Press, 2004, ISBN 0-9708163-6-7 
Dunn, Philip, Manuela Dunn Mascetti and R.A.
Nicholson Rumi: A treasury of wisdom from the poet of
the soul. "A majestic tribute to Rumi's life and work. We have
it from Plotinus that to behold the beautiful is to become
beautiful. If he was right, this wonderfully conceived and
executed volume should help the project along." Huston Smith,
author of The World's Religions. The bestselling poet in
America today, thirtenth-century Sufi mystic Jalalu'ddin Rumi, has
inspired and enlightened thousands with his playful, passionate
work celebrating the sacred in everyday life. Now the spiritual
wealth of Rumi's stories and poetry in translation are accompanied
by rare and wonderful art in the Sufi and Islamic tradition. This
fresh rendering brings new life to these incomparable parables,
which have transcended time, place, culture, and religion to speak
directly to the hearts and souls of contemporary readers. The work
of this inimitable mystic is here in prose and poetry taken from
all the works of the master. Harper/San Francisco, www.harpercollins.com,
2000 ISBN 0-06-062017-X Buy
This Book!
Hall, Donald, Without. These poems are
written to and for his wife, who died in 1995. The first half
sketches her illness and death; the second half addresses her in
the ensuing year. Unlike Thomas Hardy's elegies to his wife, Emma,
"they celebrate a marriage of deep intimacy and great happiness".
Hall speaks to us all of grief - as a husband and as a poet
lamenting the death of a poet. Author of thirteen volumes of verse
and many books of prose, this is his greatest achievement. He
continues to inhabit the farmhouse, occupied by his family for
generations, where he and his wife lived. Houghton Mifflin
Company, 1999 ISBN 0-395-95765-6 Buy
This Book!
Hamill, Sam (ed), Poets Against the War. Thunder's Mouth
Press/Nation Books, 2003. ISBN 1560255390 Buy
This Book!
Jackson, David,
Screaming Men: Poems about men and
masculinities. The author has been involved in men and
masculinities issues for fifteen years. In 1990 he co-founded
Nottingham Agenda, an anti-violence men's program. He has been
active in men's health awareness campaigns and is a member of the
Nottingham Men's Health Forum steering group. Screaming Men has
emerged from this background of activism and critical reflection.
Fifty poems are gathered here that explore, both personally and
politically, themes of men and masculinities. Self-published
nimrodd@msn.com 1998
ISBN 0-9533431-0-3 Buy
This Book!
Jones, Don, Hunger for
Wholeness: Poetry by D. H. Lawrence selected and
interpreted. One of the profoundest sources of human wisdom
and inspiration is to be found in The Complete Poems of D. H.
Lawrence. Long recognized as one of the greatest writers of
prose in the twentieth century, his poetry has largely escaped
notice except by the scholars in selected University English
Departments. This book will introduce the reader to the power and
depth of some thirty-five of Lawrence's greatest poems. The common
theme of these verses is the hunger for human wholeness. In them
Lawrence reveals his burning desire that human beings be real -
intellectually honest and emotionally awake. The ten chapters of
this book develop most of the major themes of the human journey.
Many pieces of wisdom will be opened in a complelling way to the
seeking mind of the reader. As contemporary persons take the time
to read and perhaps even memorize these poems, they will find
themselves enriched and broadened in their emotional and spiritual
understanding of this marvelous adventure called human life.
Authorhouse, www.authorhouse.com,
2007 ISBN 978-1-4343-0940-2 
Kabir Helminski, ed, The Rumi
Collection. The phenomenon of Rumi's popularity in America in
the last two decades cries for some explanation. Many people who
were not previously interested in either poetry or spiritual
writing have been drawn by the universality and depth of his
spirit. Rumi's work is being quoted by authors writing not only in
a variety of spiritual traditions, namely Buddhism, Hinduism and
Christianity, as well as Sufism, but also in the fields of
psychology, health, science and government. What is it in Rumi
that strikes the modern reader? First of all, he is
perceived as a universal human being, calling to us from beyond
the concerns of conventional religiosity and limiting beliefs. In
Rumi the divine and the human realms intermingle; our spiritual
dimension and our human nature find happiness in being united.
Finally, Rumi is a clear, powerful voice of divine, ecstatic love.
He awakens us to the fact that not only could God be the Beloved
of the human being - which is radical enough in our culture - but
even more amazing and profound, the human being is the beloved of
God. Shambhala Publications, www.shambhala.com
1999 ISBN 1-57062-531-X Buy
This Book
Kuhn, Jill A., Editor, In Cabin Six: An
anthology of poetry by male survivors of sexual abuse.
Childhood sexual abuse is not a topic that men have felt
comfortable talking about, even though as many as 20 percent of
boys may be victims. After all, men should be strong. Little boys
should be able to defend themselvse. And maybe men who talk about
what happened to them at the hands of a mother, a father, a
relative, camp counselor, neighbor or trusted adult might be
blamed, ignored or called deviant. So male survivors usually have
kept quiet, often compounding the lifelong effects of abuse. Until
now. This is a powerful collection of poems written by adult male
survivors of childhood abuse. Poems explore survivors'
relationships with men and women, their sexuality and sexual
feelings, loss of childhood, numbing, self-image and esteem,
trust, recovery, anger, therapy, blame, betrayal, ending the
silence, confronting the abuser, being believed, remembering and
parenting. This striking anthology provides the reader with a
deeper and more personal understanding of the devastating impact
of sexual abuse on men in all areas of their lives. Impact
Publishing, www.impact-publishing.bigstep.com
2000 ISBN 0-9678187-0-2 Buy
This Book!
Lourie, Dick, Ghost
Radio. "This volume of poetry, the author's first in a long
time, includes elegies and love poems. The themes are mutually
pervasive, not segragated, so that one feels the whole collection
expressses a coherent outlook on life. It's good to hear his voice
again after a lapse of some years - a voice he found early, and
which speaks with a unique and convincing eloquence." Denise
Levertov. This is also where you can find the powerful poem,
"Forgiving Our Fathers" on page 48 which was read during the
closing credits of the incredible film "Smoke
Signals". Hanging Loose Press 1998 Buy
This Book!
McDowell, Robert, ed, Cowboy Poetry
Matters: From Abilene to the Mainstream. For years,
cowboy poetry has been seen by readers of mainstream American
poetry as a marginal art. This is the first book of its kind to
dispel this idea by creating a dialogue between contemporary
mainstream poets and traditional cowboy poets. This book brings
together the work of poets whose common ground is their love of
horses and their dedication to their own style of "cowboying".
Whether it be Maxine Kumin's depiction of her horse being shod, or
Linda McCarriston's haunting vision of Joan of Arc's horse burned
before her eyes, this anthology expands the boundaries as to what
constitutes a cowboy poem. Those who do not consider themselves
lovers of traditional cowboy poetry, will be utterly surprised by
what they find inside: Donald Hall, Wallace McRae and Buck
Ramsey riding their horses side by sde by side. Story Line Press,
www.storylinepress.com
2000 ISBN 1-885266-89-8 Buy
This Book!
Meade, Michael. Robert Bly, James Hillman, ed.,
Rag & Bone Shop of the Heart: Poems for
men, How does the work of men connect to poetry? To
this day in Kazakhstan roomfuls of men sit listening to a poet
chant long narratives. We recall the imporance of poetry in the
lives of Norse farmers, Icelandic sheepherders, Greek olive
growers and fishermen. Their attention cannot be explained in
terms of literacy or electricity - that they can't read or watch
television. Rather, the question becomes how do the life of men
and the life of a culture connect to poetry? While our
European-American tradition questions and argues, and has to teach
poetry to sullen students in English classes, other cultures,
speaking Spanish, Russina, Arabic, to say nothing of the many
tongues of Africa and the Indian subcontinent, grow up inside
poems, drenched through with poetic metaphors and rhythms. As we
learn to criticize, to take a poem apart, to get its meaning, they
learn to listen and to recite. By drawing this sharp contrast with
other cultures, we are pointing to a defect in ours. We live in a
poetically underdeveloped nation. Men blame their own lives for a
deficiency in the culture. For, without the fanciful delicacy and
the powerful truths that poems convey, emotions and imagination
flatten out. For years we have opened and closed the gatherings of
men with poems. Through the collaboration of everyone involved,
the diversity and number of poems have grown. A question painfully
put in one poem is answered in another. Sometimes the answering
poem came from a man in the audiecne, so that listeners became
tellers and the speakers heard lines forgotten or never heard
before. Blake spoken aloud is always great in a company of men.
Yeats is tremendous - his rhetoric penetrates to the bone. James
Wright and Anna Akhmatova move the heart in such simple words when
said quietly aloud. When David Ignatow's poems of ordinary office
and working life are spoken, men say
"unbelievable." H.D. Lawrence, William Carlos Williams,
Etheridge Knight, Sharon Olds, Theodore Roethke, Marianne Moore,
Cesar Vallejo - much great poetry has been written in this
century. A five-star rating for any man, anywhere, at anytime. A
poem read silently or aloud from this book can't help but move
you. Harper Collins, 1993 ISBN: 0-06-092420-9 Buy
This Book!
Mosaic, Voices of Vets:
A bridge back to the world. Poems from veterans and their
families. The soul searching words of wonder and power that
make up the poems in this book were distilled from the lived
experiences of a group of war veterans and their family members
who attended a five-day retreat in May, 2008. Their words were
shaped during the heartfelt retreat and presented on the stage of
the Angus Bowmer Theatre at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival on
Memorial Day. It was compelling work, born of courage and blood,
heat and memory. The voices of the veterans blazed through the
theater with a rare authority and a devastating beauty - stunning
the hearts of the audience and offering an unforgettable
experience of anguish and awe that still reverberates throughout
the town. From the gathered wounds and shared courage a terrible
beauty has been born. It can sear the heart, yet it can also bring
a healing touch to those willing to welcome and embrace our
veterans and their lived stories. Green Fire Press, www.Mosaicvoices.org,
2008, ISBN 0-9766450-7-8 
Neruda,
Pablo, Full Woman, Flesly Apple, Hot Moon. THe author's
poetry is vast in many ways. There are several thousand pages of
it, to begin with, very uneven in quality but stunning in its
sheer profusion. He couldn't help writing poems, he wrote as
naturally as he breathed, wrote with the unthinking, exuberant
abundance of Nature herself. He makes most other great modern
poets seem pinched, restrained, perfectionistic. Compared with
him, even Whitman had writer's block. Many of his greatest poems
were left behind. This book does include the poetry of his
ripeness, beginning with the first book of Elemental Odes,
published when he was fifty years old, and ending with Full
Powers, published when he was fifty-eight, eleven years before
his death. These are the poems of a happy man, deeply fulfilled in
his sexuality, at home in the world, in love with life and its
infinite particular forms, overflowing with the joy of language.
They are largehearted, generous poems, resonant with a humor that
is rare in modern poetry, in any poetry. The sometimes
showy surrealism of the earlier poems has mellowed into a
constant, delicious skating on the edge of nonsense.
HarperPerennial www.harpercollins.com
1998 ISBN 0-06-092877-8 Buy
This Book!
Phillips, Carl,
From the Devotions. The author takes us even further into
that dangerous space he has already made his own, where body and
soul - ever restless - come explosively together. Speaking to a
balance between decorum and pain, he offers here a devotional
poetry that argues for faith, even without the comforting gods or
the organized structures of revealed truth. Neither sage nor saint
nor prophet, the poet is the listener, the mourner, the one who
has some access to the maddening quarters of human consciousness,
the wry Sybyl. It is deeply felt, highly intelligent and
unsentimental and cements the author's reputation as a poet of
enormous talent and depth. Graywolf,
1998 ISBN 1-55597-2632 Buy
This Book!
Sanchez, Trinidad, Jr. Poems by Son.
The "coming of age" of the Chicano people is a complex subject
that will be written about for years to come. Theirs has been a
history of oppression which has affected many generations, dating
back to the Spanish Conquest of Mexico and the birth of the
Mestizo. Their parents have shared with them accounts of the
prejudics that they have endured and their parents have shared the
same with them, and on and on. It is understandable that this
weighing history should have a significant influence on the
thinking of sensitive writers and artists of Mexican American
descent. The vestiges of outright racial discrimination remain and
abound in their present society, as does the actual practice. The
contemporary writer whose focus is the Mexican American experience
has this history to deal with, as much as the dynamic present and
the unveiling future. The author is one such writer who feels
compelled to communicate the social experience of his people. His
adult life has been greatly influenced by the Chicano Movement of
the sixties and seventies. His poetry reflects the anguish and
pain, as well as the vitality and spirit of a generation of
Mexican Americans who managed to break through that stereotype
image of the docile, complacent, uneducated Mexicano.Pecan Grove
Press, 1996. ISBN 1-877603-41-4 Buy
This Book!
Schutz, Susan Polis, One
World, One Heart. Everyone has the same basic needs and
emotions. We must put aside our differences and come together as
one in peace, understanding, and tolerance. The publishers have
produced this book to give away FREE. We hope readers everywhere
will listen to this author's message of hope. Blue Mountain Arts,
www.sps.com, or 303.417.6404 or
oneworldoneheart@sps.com
Smith-Soto, Mark, Our Lives are
Rivers.This book traces the spiritual journey of the Costa
Rican-American poet, an unabashed lover and celebrator of life.
Taking its title from the Spaniard Jourge Manrique's most famous
elegy, this collection is a meditation on time, memory and the
fleeting nature of life. The author exercises the artist's
prerogative to give shape to his experience, reaching beyond the
merely autobiographical to explore the rich complexities of his
cultural heritage in lyrics as varied and technically accomplished
as they are heartfelt. He falls outside the conventional
definitions of the Hispanic. His poems are imbued with the sights,
sounds, smells and textures of his family-rich childhood in Costa
Rica. In compelling language that communicates clearly without
sacrificing mystery, his poems contribute a new and passionate
note to the growing chorus of America's Hispanic poetry.
University Press of Florida, www.upf.com,
2003, ISBN 0-8130-2635-0 
Vallejo, Cesar, Twenty Poems of Cesar Vallejo. Chosen and
translated by John Knoepfle, James Wright and Robert Bly. The
author is not a poet of the partially authentic feeling, as most
poets in the English tradition are, but a poet of the absolutely
authentic. He does not hide part of his life, and describe only
the more "poetic" parts. He lived a difficult life, full of fight,
and in describing it never panders to a love of pleasantries nor a
love of vulgarity. He had a tremendous feeling for, and love of,
his family - his father, his mother, and his brothers - which he
expresses with simple images of great resonance. There is a
tenderness as in Chaucher. His wildness and savagery exist side by
side with it. The wildness and savagery rest on a clear compassion
for others, and a clear intuition into his own inward directions.
He sees roads inside himself. In the remarkable intensity with
which he follows a thought or an image, there is a kind of
herosim. Like a great fish, he follows the poem wherever it goes
in the sea. The Sixties Press, 1962.
Whyte, David, The House of Belonging.
This is the author's fourth book of poetry, following Songs for
Coming Home, Where Many Rivers Meet and Fire in the
Earth. He is the author of a best-selling book of prose,
The Heart Aroused: Poetry and the Preservation of the Soul
in Corporate America, and a highly acclaimed audio lecture
series, available from Many Rivers Press 360.221.1324. 1999
Softcover: ISBN: 0-9621524-3-9 Buy
This Book!
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