PhotoFor his bookshop and website One Grand Books, the editor Aaron Hicklin asked people to name the 10 books they’d take with them if they were marooned on a desert island. “Breathturn,” Paul Celan, translated by Pierre JorisThis book brought me to poetry; I could never read it enough. the Holocaust, suicidal despair) and its most resplendent features (the near mystical possibilities of poetic language, of intimacy). “Single counter- / swimmer, you / count them, touch them / all.’”“The Fire Next Time,” James BaldwinI know, I know, it’s made it onto a lot of lists. “The Selected Poems of T’ao Ch’ien,” translated by David HintonAnother book that brought me to poetry, and which never seems to get old (and this despite the fact that T’ao Ch’ien lived from 365 – 427 C.E.).

Source: New York Times October 07, 2016 16:07 UTC