Franco's favorite things

James Franco is no poetic dilettante. He studied poetry at Warren Wilson College and is currently directing a series of poem-based short films. So what sort of poems resonate with the Renaissance man? Franco lists 18 of them, along with personal insights, for New York magazine—including Ginsberg's "America." Franco pontificates on his faves:

Frank Bidart, "Herbert White"
Spencer Reece, "The Clerk's Tale"

Franco: Frank Bidart's "Herbert White" and Spencer Reece's "The Clerk's Tale" are two poems that inspired me to make short films. They have both become friends. These poems are both portraits of loneliness. Bidart wrote "Herbert White" when he was a graduate student at Harvard. In Robert Lowell's workshop, someone said that there were some subjects not fit for poetry, and the subject of Frank's poem was one of them. But Frank proves him wrong. Through this portrait of his anti-self Frank achieves great depth. Spencer worked at Brooks Brothers for over a decade. This poem is a kind of portrait, but it moves beyond portraiture to subtle art. There is great sorrow but also great strength in the poem. The miraculous thing is that it is an accumulative effect, it is hard to nail emotion down to any single line.