Wednesday, July 21, 2010

More Poetry Recommendations

A few months ago, we posted a "contemporary poetry starter kit" as provided by Jeff Gordinier, which seemed to attract a fair number of readers. Nice for us, great for contemporary poetry! So recently, when a friend on Facebook put up the following status:

Hey poetry folks: Looking for a heap of new books to burrow through. Any recent favorites?

I thought I'd share the recommendations mentioned. I was very pleased to see someone whom admittedly I don't really know asking for new poetry titles. At one point, he specified, "Specifically, folks, I'm looking for brand new books of poetry by living, breathing, and most likely socially awkward writers. BOOYA." Keep that point in mind in looking at this list, though every rec may not meet that qualification. I put some covers in when I could, some of which (including Myles' and Kunin's) are fantastic.

Here 'tis:

My Vocabulary Did This to Me: The Collected Poetry of Jack Spicer


Two Minutes of Light by Nancy Pearson

Sleeping It Off in Rapid City: Poems, New and Selected by August Kleinzahler (this one the original poster knew, and loved apparently)

The Irrationalist by Suzanne Buffam (review here)


Geoffrey Nutter's Christopher Sunset
Christopher Sunset

Rachel Levitsky - any of her books, but especially Neighbor, pub'd by Ugly Duckling Presse (Q&A here - did Ugly Duckling disappear? website not working, which is sad as it's described as a non-profit art & publishing collective, but site seems to no longer exist - ??) (it does exist, and link works! see comments)


Amy Gerstler's Dearest Creatures
Dearest Creature

Eileen Myles' Sorry Tree (orig poster said this was his favorite books of her's)
Sorry, Tree

The Sore Throat & Other Poems

Elisa Gabbert - no title mentioned, but try the most recent, The French Exit

I personally am curious about Sleeping It Off in Rapid City, the Myles, and The Sore Throat. You?

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Ugly Duckling is alive and well at:
http://www.uglyducklingpresse.org/

Brian said...

Glad to hear Ugly Duckling is still around!

Elisa said...

I got a Google alert for this and thought I'd mention that the title of my book is THE FRENCH EXIT. (You can find links in my Blogger profile.) Thanks for the inclusion -- great list!

Brian said...

Thanks, Elisa! I'll change the post so the link is embedded. Sorry I didn't have one - I appreciate you helping me correct the error.