Top Ten Favorite Poems

In no particular order, here are my top ten favorite poems (at least, my favorite poems at this time):

"Reading Plato" by Jorie Graham
"Passwords" by William Stafford
"This room and everything in it" by Li Young Lee
"Keeping things whole" by Mark Strand
"Eating Poetry" by Mark Strand
"I have taught the Japanese" by Lucilla Perillo
"This is just to say" by William Carlos Williams
"Your Life" by William Stafford
"Thesarus" by Billy Collins
"Sestina" by Elizabeth Bishop

This is the poem I'm bringing to class:

Keeping Things Whole
by Mark Strand

In a field
I am the absence
of field.
This is
always the case.
Wherever I am
I am what is missing.

When I walk
I part the air
and always
the air moves in
to fill the spaces
where my body's been.

We all have reasons
for moving.
I move
to keep things whole.

I like this poem because it deals with both what is present and what is absent - for example, "the field and the absence of field." This poem makes me think of the genre of poetry in general, how poets use both words and blank, white space to create a text. This poem speaks to that relationship between words and emptiness, sound and silence, being and not being. The last stanza, in particular, emphasizes how there is unity between being and not being. It is this relationship between presence and absence that makes "things whole." This makes me wonder in what ways my life creates presence or wholeness in what is around me.