Three Poets for Summer
In the summer, it’s hard to leave the house without sunglasses, water bottle, and a book of poetry. Three things that are slim and provide protection and sustenance. Here are three new poetry collections perfect for July:
Mary Jo Bang’s ELEGY. Devastating poems about her son’s overdose. They’re very intense but what’s so astonishing about this book is how Mary Jo Bang captures the weirdness of grief. Grief isn’t sadness. It’s derangement, and interesting. Amazing poems and the book reads like a novel.
Beth Ann Fennelly. UNMENTIONABLES. I fell in Love with Fennelly’s work when she read, goddess-style, at my college a couple of years ago, when her first book came out. Here, kudzu, Faulkner, running, women and painting, being an artist, and desire co-mingle. It’s like gazpacho. And it keeps getting better each time I read it. I love these green glorious poems.
Marie Howe THE KINGDOM OF ORDINARY TIME. Our teacher, Abigail Thomas, suggested we read this book. Howe writes about her kid, New York, bad friends, purposeful misunderstandings, regular days, kind of stabbing at things I walk right on past. She’s very funny. Like the other two books I am suggesting my poetry students read, these read straight through beautifully, they are clear narrative poems–this is a book that walks around on its own. You read it in a park, a bed, a car.
Pandas: what are you reading?
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i ordered all of them.
my brother asked me to read something at his wedding. he asked for recommendations. i’ve been re-reading my poetry shelf. no luck finding wedding poems, but having fun reading poems again.
Heather, I’m not reading anything! Well, I am reading fiction, but not poetry. I have been thirsting after poetry lately–several days in a row now of writing bad hydrangea poems and bad a-house-I-love-on-the-next-street-over-is-being-torn-down poems and bad cancer poems. This is all a good thing, though. I am writing them! And I am actively practicing compassion towards my (writing) self and burning them as sacrifices to the creative writing gods. I need to read something new. Your recommendations come at a perfect time! Sinking into another poet’s collection helps to illuminate and enliven that internal poetry space (which is currently very dimmed by ignoring it since December). Which one of these collections should I begin with? Of course, I know you’re going to say, “All of them!” But I mean as a place to start. Slighly overwhelmed by options! I am also about to start The Lives of the Heart (ie Jane H.).
K: you are so funny asking what order. You have to get them and hold them and spread the new poetry books on your bed. I think they will tell you where to start. I imagine you’ll read some of Beth and some Mary Jo and then you’ll read all of Marie and you will read them all at once. If you want direction: read Marie Howe, then Beth Ann, then Bang. And write me! lots!
Audrey This is a terrible assignment you have been given and it reminds me how much I hate how people use sex and use poetry for Other Things (distraction, decoration…). You can’t say: fall in love and bottle that and bring some to my party, okay? Poems for Production is like sex for reproduction–it’s a good idea. It really is. It’s just so much more complex and tenuous and delicate and implied and indirect. Poems for occasions, like clothing for occasions, work once in a great, great while. But if it’s the only time people are getting their poetry–oh no. What people want from poetry isn’t usually what it has to give. Keep me posted. I want to know everything. What you wear, what you read, what you notice, what’s said.