where to start reading / what you like most?

[Todd]

Ben, These are my favorites (they are all collections):

Louise Gluck: The Wild Iris
Mark Strand: Reasons for Moving
Sandra Beasley: Theories of Falling
Nick Flynn: Some Ether
Charles Simic: The Voice at 3 AM
James Wright: Collected Poems
Li-Young Lee: Rose
Arthur Rimbaud: A Season in Hell and The Drunken Boat
Philip Levine: What Work Is
Ed Pavlic: Paraph of Bone & Other Kinds of Blue
Baron Wormser: Impenitent Notes
The Norton Anthology of Poetry 5th Edition

Since you mention Charles Bukowski probably...

Charles Bukowski: Burning in Water, Drowning in Flame