Look Like You Know Your $hit 2014 Poetry as Gifts Guide

Tags

2014 Poetry Collections, a note passed to superman, A Whole New World, Ahsahta Press, Aladdin, Alaska, Alice James Books, Anne Ferry, Apiology with Stigma, Bad NDN, Black Ocean, Carrie Olivia Adams, Claudia Emerson, Clay Matthews, Commonplace Invasions, contraband of hoopoe, Copper Canyon, Dan Vera, Dancing Girl Press, Debt to the Bone-Eating Snotflower, Ewa Chrusciel, Figure Studies, Forty One Jane Doe's, Graywolf Press, Hanging Loose Press, Happenstance, Helena Nelson, holiday gift giving guide, HOT TOPIC, How a Poem Happens, Jo Pitkin, Julie Funderburk, Kelly Andrews, Lavender Ink/Dialogos, Letras Latinas, Look Like You know Your Shit, Louisiana small press, LSU Press, Mad Honey Symposium, Marguerite Guzman Bouvard, Mule-Skinner, NOLA poetry, Omnidawn, Plot and CounterPlot, Poem for Plutocrats, poetheads, Rachel Piercey, Red Hen, Rivers Wanted, Sabotage Reviews, Sally Wen Mao, Salmon Poetry, Sarah Lindsay, Scandlous, sexy christmas elf, Sherman Alexie, southern lit, Southern Messenger Poets, Speaking Wiri Wiri, Split This Rock, Starlight on Water, Steven Scafidi, supernatural, The Cabinetmaker's Window, The Emma Press, The Leviathan of Parsonstown, The Light That Shines Inside Us, The Overhaul, The Title of the Poem, Thoughts to Fold Into Birds, To Whoever Set My Truck on Fire, Unicorn Press, What I've Stolen What I've Earned, women poets

Yes, it is that time of year again, friends….the time of ‘best of’ lists and holiday buying hives. Ok, maybe that’s not you, but you really, really want to impress that super hot poet that lives down the hall or maybe deigns to talk to you in the Starbucks line you happen to keep timing just right so as to consistently run into him/her.

Or maybe, you are married to one of these poethead monsters.  Or gasp! You are one of those word-flingers.

 

Sexy-Christmas-Elf-me can practically guarantee to get you a good snog under the mistletoe, if you will wrap up  a few of these (mostly) 2014 collections.

From AHSAHTA PRESS

Forty-One Jane Doe’s

This is actually a Spring 2013 release that made it into my basket early this year, but boy am I glad that it did.  Combining a print book with a DVD of short films, this combo from  Carrie Olivia Adams (better known as poetry editor for Black Ocean) is definitely a keeper.

Love this tagline:  “A woman knows her body . . . until it is exploded into a multitude of Janes.”

 

from ALICE JAMES

Mad Honey Symposium

Sally Wen Mao‘s May-released debut stunner. Feast your eyes on lines from “Apiology, with Stigma” HERE

I Know! Your eyes are totally blown out of your head.

 

Moving on to 2 Titles from COPPER CANYON  

Debt to the Bone-Eating Snotflower

Sarah Lindsay delves into skeleton-eating worms, sweet potato and squid with brief jaunts to Iraq

Read “The Leviathan of Parsonstown” here

 

 

Sun-Bear  also from Copper Canyon

Matthew Zapruder‘s 4th collection, another zinger from one of Cali’s hottest poets

Check out “Poem for Plutocrats”

 

 

and don’t forget my go-to press DANCING GIRL bringing us…

 

Mule-Skinner by

Kelly Andrews, coeditor of Pretty Owl Poetry/economic journalist, delivering a kick-ass first chapbook plus she loves cats. What’s not to like?

Read a sample poem at the purchase link above.

 

And from (The) EMMA PRESS, one of the cooolest small presses in the UK…

Rivers Wanted

Rachel Piercey’s 2nd pub with EP, but her first full-length pamphlet, bringing every bit of her gobsmacking wit and charm to a head.

Check out the great write-up from Sabotage Reviews here.

from GRAYWOLF PRESS

The Overhaul

Ok, a bit of a cheat.  This is forthcoming Feb. 2015, but I just love the Scottish hell out of Kathleen Jamie and couldn’t help but put this up even without a pre-order button. Why is there no pre-order button?

Oh well, buy this as soon as it’s out.

 

then there is this ball-buster from HANGING LOOSE PRESS

What I’ve Stolen, What I’ve Earned

Sherman Alexie is hands-down the baddest NDN around with multi-genre superpowers, and I basically want to be him when I grow up, only better-looking in a dress, which should be red with imitation feathers.

 

from HAPPENSTANCE  (another small press from across the pond)

Starlight on Water and Plot and Counter-Plot

These pamphlets are actually from 2003 and 2010, but I’ve only just discovered Helena Nelson through performance circles, so bear with me.

Both of these babies rock the cover art and feature marvellous poems.

from LAVENDER INK/DIALOGOS 

The Light That Shines Inside Us

Marguerite Guzman Bouvard‘s poems so good they should have their own shrine. And I am I totally not just saying that because this is like my favorite NOLA based press. Who Dat, Y’all!!

 

from LSU PRESS  (Purple and Gold, Baby)

The Cabinetmaker’s Window from the sexy poet-carpenter who is all over the Southern lit magazines. Love me some Steven Scafidi.

Read “To Whoever Set My Truck on Fire” at How a Poem Happens and see.  See!

Now buy the book and

also snap up

Figure Studies by

Claudia Emerson

which pairs really well with Forty-One Jane Doe’s  from above [top of the list]

 

then again, you can’t really go wrong with most of the Southern Messenger Poets series 

 

 same goes for Ewa Chrusciel, whose latest from OMNIDAWN 

 

contraband of hoopoe has just the right mix of art and ritual to make you want to do research and never stop traveling even if it’s all just in your mind

 

well, that doesn’t really do her justice.  just pick up the book and work your way into her genius.

 

RED HEN also has a stunner with its 2013 Winner of the inaugural Letras Latinas/Red Hen Poetry Prize

Speaking Wiri Wiri by Dan Vera

is good, good, good stuff

Hear him read here. Funny, charming. Brave experimenter with language.

[Dude, I know it was on Split This Rock’s recommended list from last year, but I just got it…so now I’m telling you it’s good. LOL]

 

from SALMON POETRY

Commonplace Invasions by

Jo Pitkin, is a must-have.  She has been accused of “bewitching” her readers, but in the best possible way. 🙂

Everything out of Salmon Poetry is top-notch.

 

and from UNICORN PRESS

Thoughts to Fold Into Birds by

Julie Funderburk

“grounded in the coastal carolina’s wind, sun, and sea”

ahhhhhhhhhhhh. small press goodness from NC.

 

Also, you’ll look really, really smart if you buy and then read….

 

The Title of the Poem by

Anne Ferry

Seriously, though, this will open up a whole new world. Trust me!!!!

Odd Bits from a Creative Life

Tags

A Tree Born Crooked, Alaska, Cloud Pharmacy, colonized Tlingit women, Common Place, December Book Clubs, Erika Dreifus, Hannah Maynard, John T Biggs, language of the earth, Metzger, noir, Pandamoon, Pen-L Publishing, Popsicle Styx, Practicing Writing, Southern grit lit, Steph Post, Stuart Rojstaczer, surrealist photos, Susan Rich, symbolist painting, Teller poem, The Art of Slow Writing, The Mathematician's Shiva, The Next Best Book Club, Tlingit creation story, Tlingit raven, Walking on Air, Women's Poetry List-Serv, work in progress, Writing for Life

PAINTING

I’ve been working on some symbolist paintings about the Tlingit Raven.  Watch a versions of the Tlingit creation story here.

I’ll be trying out some interesting techniques with my new painting mentor beginning in January.  Very excited to embark in this new direction. Have also found some support for my collage work in a small studio in California that will allow access to more materials. Always nice.

READING

Enjoyed the math-flecked debut The Mathematician’s Shiva by Stuart Rojstaczer over the holidays. A tale of family angst in the wake of “the greatest female mathematician in history[‘s]” death and the odd bunch of followers that descend on the family in search of her (possible) solution to the Navier-Stokes problem.  Recommended to me by Erika Dreifus of Practicing Writing and now a pick by BooksAMillion for its December Book Clubs, this is definitely worth a read even by mathphobes.

I also gave a glowing endorsement to John T. Biggs latest Popiscle Styx from PenL.  It’s an impressive sophomore novel that deserves its own category .  I”m going with noir/magical realism/Okie local color/crime for now. Good stocking stuffer!

You might also want to pick up Walking on Air if you are in the mood for some Mississippi small town life.   I’ll have more on this story collection soon and a review of Steph Post’s latest N. Florida noir/ Southern grit lit from Pandamoon with  a full review in  Small Press Book Reviews later this month.

 

 

 

 

POETRY

The Women’s Poetry List-serv has been having an interesting discussion on writing books.  I picked up two of their recommendations: The Art of Slow Writing, which I have yet to read and Metzger’s Writing For Your Life, which has this gorgeous passage:

A poem is a penetration into the essence of something. It begins in a moment, is the thing itself as well as the surrounding space. A poem is in the spaces between the words.

 

This draws me back to the work of poet Susan Rich, whose collection Cloud Pharmacy was gifted to me by The Next Best Book Club (TNBBC) and very enthusiastically discussed on Goodreads recently.

I fell in love with her suite of poems on the surrealist photographs of Hannah Maynard.  So very fascinated by her way of entering into the work, which she describes in detail in her  “Statement of Poetic Research,”  available with some of the work at Common-Place.

I’m thinking of trying something similar with the “colonialized” images of Tlingit women at the Univ. of Washington, The Alaska Digital Archives and Penn Museum.  This would slide in nicely with the suite of Tlingit legend poems I am already working on.

I’ve made a stab towards it with this Work in Progress piece:

 

Teller

I planted myself
in its heart

I grew inside
the story

marrow of history
backbone of myth

body of taboo, image, desire

what a fucking terrifying solid
being

of communal dream

almost too much oneness for one
mother

nevertheless, die to the fictive selves
so that the “real” voice emerges

 

But I’m not sure exactly where I’m going with the project yet.  I find myself (along with my very patient sponsor/mentor) wishing that I could write much, much faster.  This has been a project of long brewing and constant re-immersion in a culture I am somewhat isolated from both generationally and geographically.

Yet, I am finding it very rewarding.   I have hopes of making it to Alaska if Grandpa Kashka’s health improves.   At 87, he clings tenaciously to the Florida sunshine, but my uncles and cousins are still shucking a living from the rocks.

Thank God we all know how to speak the language of the earth.