My Top Four

Originally published on July 21st, 2024

Sports commentators are obsessed with rankings. Best pocket passers. Best rookie debuts. AP Top 25. So I’ve decided to compile my own rankings….here’s my official Mount Rushmore of favorite writers.

#4: Fernando Pessoa

Average, average, average!

No one was more average than Fernando Pessoa. He was an accountant in Lisbon in the 1920s. People saw him as plain, boring, normal. If only they knew…After he died, his sister was cleaning his apartment and discovered a dusty old trunk. Within lay a galaxy of words – thousands of scraps of ideas (from dozens of pseudonyms) that shimmered with the stuff of Creation. None better than The Book of Disquiet, a kaleidoscopic distillation of subtle truths unlike anything I’ve read or ever will read in my life.

#3: Emily Dickinson

She was born in a yellow house in Massachusetts. She lived inside it for 56 years, then she died.

Within those brick-lined walls, with the high roof and green shutters, Emily Dickinson discovered infinity. This humble woman, unknown in her time, clawed open a hole in reality. Still today, she white-knuckles the fabric and begs us, Look, Look!! Look what I’ve found! But we’re busy; Season 25 of The Voice is on! But maybe, when it’s done, a lucky few will peek the magma within. The glow will leave them transformed.

#2: Rainer Maria Rilke

Once, I fled a flurry of emails to live in a Wyoming cabin for ten days. My first read was Rilke’s Letters To a Young Poet. That enchanted afternoon, four years ago, earns him the #2 spot on my list. Solitude. Mystery. Childhood. Full-blooded Immensity. His rank was maybe slipping, so I revisited it Sunday. Upon re-reading, Rainer has no need to worry.

Best works: Letters to a Young Poet, Duino Elegies

#1: Ralph Waldo Emerson

Emerson will make you quit TED Talks forever.

My TED-loving 21-year-old self was stupefied by the force of Self-Reliance. “I never knew words could be this powerful,” I scribbled in the margins.18 minute self-help speeches felt like toddlers reciting Mother Goose rhymes in comparison. I’ve plunged its depths dozens of times, always resurfacing with some dazzling gem. Enough of these stones might repave your life path. It did for me.

Best essays: Self-Reliance, The Over-Soul, The American Scholar, The Poet, Experience, Circles