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!!!!

Men of Letters

Tags

Allan Peterson, Art of Letter Writing, Clay Matthews, Craig Arnold, Epistolary Poems, Letters, The art of manliness, Yusef Komunyakaa

One of the Saturday new programs that I like to watch had a panel that raised the issue of email security.

I know, I know you don’t want to hear anything else about that.

But what was interesting was that one of the panelists (a woman actually) then went on to recommend good, old-fashioned letter writing (as in snail mail) as a safer alternative.

Ok. I’m all for that. And not just because I like the physicality of paper or the sound of a pen dancing across it. But because it takes time.

Time that gives a person a chance to find out what they really have to say.  And then the opportunity to do that as concisely and elegantly as possible.  [Men, remember this on Valentine’s Day! Brownie points guaranteed, even for effort.]

Check out what the Art of Manliness has to say on topic. Then check out this book (from 1863), which is much better than the one that they recommend. So many inspiring and entertaining examples!!!

By then, you’ll be in the mood for some good poetry. Below, I offer four poems that either use the letter form (i.e. epistolary poems) or somehow reference physical letters.  [And don’t panic, ladies. I will offer a selection from female writers in the next post, so hold on to your danties!]

And now for the poems:

The First Letter
by Clay Matthews

Some mornings all we really need is someone to talk to.
Some mornings silence. Some mornings biscuits and silverware.
I shake and the starlings fly away. I shake and think of you.
Here in East TN they’re calling for snow. We will always speak
of the weather. We people in the mountains. We moonshine.
Lips and assholes and white bread. We quilts coming apart
on cold winter nights. The city trucks drive by. Lights flash.
The power lines hover with promises. Neighbor black dog,
neighbor beagle, neighbor bad leg in the Cadillac, the wrap
he keeps there to stop fluid from building up. A good man,
he fed you once. We take the spoons up and we put them in
our mouths. I am writing to tell you about this place. I am writing
to remember. You were conceived here. You were motor oil
on hands and prayers and people’s shadows out waking long
across the back lot. You were afternoons and early evening.
The water as it filled up that back lot. On some days, you can hear
someone practicing a guitar. On some days, even the tulips bloom.
I have nothing to ask of you yet. I’m not even sure what I have
to say. The lovely parts of our days. The pizza parlors and pickup
trucks. It has been a while since I sat at the water’s edge alone,
among the wild roses, and stared into the deep where the large trout
swam, the carp, and dragonflies that floated away on the surface.
Above and below. You will come to understand in life the radio
static and stories of heaven and hell. In Missouri my uncle wears
a cowboy hat and preaches three days of the week. Fire and brimstone.
Turquoise and silver. What do we know inside, when we carry
so much there, what does the future hold, where do we put all this
belief? We race them cars. We grocery shop at the Food City. We with
the garden out back, and the memory of that garden now weeds
and rotten pumpkins lush in the better places of our hearts.
Blesséd roots. I come here from a long ways away. The return
will return. And the summer will burn your face. I have so much to tell you,
who are a part of me, who I don’t even know, ungendered, unbound,
free and floating in the belly of the woman I love. Let this be
a beginning. Let us talk more about this later. Right now a dog
is barking. The sun is moving through the clouds. Across the street
a car is rusting. We wait for something to happen.
We wither. We embrace. We turn, and we come up in shoots.

My Father’s Love Letters

by Yusef Komunyakaa

On Fridays he’d open a can of Jax
After coming home from the mill,
& ask me to write a letter to my mother
Who sent postcards of desert flowers
Taller than men. He would beg,
Promising to never beat her
Again. Somehow I was happy
She had gone, & sometimes wanted
To slip in a reminder, how Mary Lou
Williams’ “Polka Dots & Moonbeams”
Never made the swelling go down.
His carpenter’s apron always bulged
With old nails, a claw hammer
Looped at his side & extension cords
Coiled around his feet.
Words rolled from under the pressure
Of my ballpoint: Love,
Baby, Honey, Please.
We sat in the quiet brutality
Of voltage meters & pipe threaders,
Lost between sentences . . .
The gleam of a five-pound wedge
On the concrete floor
Pulled a sunset
Through the doorway of his toolshed.
I wondered if she laughed
& held them over a gas burner.
My father could only sign
His name, but he’d look at blueprints
& say how many bricks
Formed each wall. This man,
Who stole roses & hyacinth
For his yard, would stand there
With eyes closed & fists balled,
Laboring over a simple word, almost
Redeemed by what he tried to say.

The Inevitable

by Allan Peterson

To have that letter arrive

was like the mist that took a meadow

and revealed hundreds

of small webs once invisible

The inevitable often

stands by plainly but unnoticed

till it hands you a letter

that says death and you notice

the weed field had been

readying its many damp handkerchiefs

all along

Bird-Understander

by Craig Arnold

Of many reasons I love you here is one

 

the way you write me from the gate at the airport

so I can tell you everything will be alright

so you can tell me there is a bird
trapped in the terminal     all the people
ignoring it    because they do not know
what do with it    except to leave it alone
until it scares itself to death

it makes you terribly terribly sad

You wish you could take the bird outside
and set it free or    (failing that)
call a bird-understander
to come help the bird

All you can do is notice the bird
and feel for the bird     and write
to tell me how language feels
impossibly useless

but you are wrong

You are a bird-understander
better than I could ever be
who make so many noises
and call them song

These are your own words
your way of noticing
and saying plainly
of not turning away
from hurt

you have offered them
to me     I am only
giving them back

if only I could show you
how very useless
they are not