Nick Cave lists Rainer Maria Rilke and Lucille Clifton as some of his current favourite poets

For the first response of 2022 on his Q+A site The Red Hand Files, Cave chose a question asking what his favourite poem is. After revealing that he doesn't "have a favourite poem as it changes daily," Cave listed some of his current favourite poets.

Cave wrote, "The first is the Persian lyric poet, Hafiz - who my friend, the sculptor, Thomas Houseago, calls ‘the great trickster’. Thomas recommended Daniel Ladinsky’s revelatory book, A Year with Hafiz, and I read one of these beautiful poems each day."

"I am also revisiting Rainer Maria Rilke’s mind-blowing Duino Elegies," Cave continued. "I was recently reminded of this collection by Philip, a young painter & neighbour at my ceramics studio, who spoke of them with such utter love, I felt compelled to read them again."

He added, "And thirdly, a few weeks ago I was introduced to the work of Lucille Clifton by my email-pal, journalist, Suzanne Moore. I now happily own a massive volume of Clifton’s collected works. I read, at random, one of her amazing poems each day. New Year’s Day gave me this poem, and it couldn’t be more appropriate for me, as a writer who yet still feels that 'early lunge toward language'."

"These poems all speak to us of the imaginative and animating spirit that belongs to us all," Cave concluded. "As we try to fathom this coming year, let’s pray we can live it creatively, in the name of that most obscure and tentative utterance, love - our ‘eve’."