Deborah Ager's Blog, page 20
April 10, 2011
Day 11: Luke Johnson on Five Poetry Books to Read
Welcome to Day 11 of 30 lists of poetry books to read. Sharing these recommendations is one way we're celebrating National Poetry Month. What are you doing to celebrate?
The Great Fires by Jack Gilbert; a book overflowing with heartbreak: jagged and precise and true—favorite poem: "Highlights and Interstices"
Tantalus in Love by Alan Shapiro; a beautiful excavation of love in all its complexity and nuance—favorite poem: "The Haunting"
Late Wife by Claudia Emerson; the sonnets in the last section of this collection were a formal awakening for me—favorite poem: "Chimney Fire"
Elegy for the Southern Drawl by Rodney Jones; the near-epic title poem is remarkable, sweeping in its scope and its music—favorite poem: "Elegy for the Southern Drawl"
Native Guard by Natasha Trethewey; a rich meditation in personal and public history, one that changed the way I think of image and memory and the ways a poem can bring them together—favorite poem: "Pilgrimage"
BIO: Luke Johnson is the author of After the Ark (NYQ Books, 2011). His poems have appeared recently or are forthcoming in 32 Poems, Best New Poets, New England Review, Southwest Review, Threepenny Review, and elsewhere. He currently lives in Seattle, Washington, where he is working on a second collection. Visit his blog.
Terri Witek: An Interview With Serena M. Agusto-Cox
Poet Terri Witek
1. How would you introduce yourself to a crowded room eager to hang on your every word? Are you just a poet, what else should people know about you?
I prefer not to say anything "about" myself in such instances, especially if people really are hanging there (which is very kind of them). I'm deeply suspicious of the desire to ingratiate myself. I feel instantly tempted. Yet no one's desires will be assuaged by any autobiographical material, no matter how sweet or how shocking it is. Oh good—I didn't tell you/sell you/sellout. My resistance kicked in! Fortunately, the time between the two responses is shortening.
2. Do you see spoken word, performance, or written poetry as more powerful or powerful in different ways and why? Also, do you believe that writing can be an equalizer to help humanity become more tolerant or collaborative? Why or why not?
I love ephemeral creations, and as I have been working with Brazilian new media artist Cyriaco Lopes since 2005, have become more and more enamored of doing things that disappear—words and images (he uses photographs and video), sound pieces. We did some ipod voice pieces for an installation and I loved that…watching people lean into the rooms to catch fragments, etc. Of course I still love words on the page. But I really like staging "events" with him where we switch out—it feels unexpected, even when I know what's going to happen, as I do now with the day you left, a 50-minute piece we've done several times. Actually, I find collaboration deeply mysterious and satisfying. I make no larger claims for it except that it puts you right into someone else's technical stuff in a way that seems pretty magic. Is this equalizing? More that to play together in the same space feels temporary and precious. Maybe world peace would feel just like this.
3. Do you have any obsessions that you would like to share?
Well, I'm completely enthralled by museums, galleries, and contemporary art sites. I now go to Miami Art Basel every year. I have had some of my very best moments in the presence of great art—-sometimes even not great art that just catches me in a certain way. Fill in your own amazing experiences with such things here.
But mostly something just sorts of presents itself and then I follow it without trying to think too much. For example, last summer in Brazil I slept in a pouso in Ouro Preto where it turns out Elizabeth Bishop had stayed. I felt such a hit from that room I'm going back alone this year to try to write in the room. We'll see what this is about—I have a few mini-stirrings, but am ignoring them, as it's early days. But I have the plane ticket, and a folder that says "Ouro Preto."
4. Most writers will read inspirational/how-to manuals, take workshops, or belong to writing groups. Did you subscribe to any of these aids and if so which did you find most helpful? Please feel free to name any "writing" books you enjoyed most (i.e. Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott).
I love writer's workshops. Of course I teach them, which is a great joy—both at writers' conferences (this summer at West Chester) and at Stetson, where I run the creative writing program. But I take them whenever I can—In the last two years I've been in workshops led by Terese Svoboda, Brenda Hillman, and Jericho Brown. I live 40 minutes from the Atlantic Center for the Arts. Always incredibly interesting. I about died in Terese's—didn't realize it was a fiction workshop. I'm the one who left the drunk on the sofa in the group story. But why stop being a student?
5. Poetry is often considered elitist or inaccessible by mainstream readers. Do poets have an obligation to dispel that myth and how do you think it could be accomplished?
I think we have an obligation not to treat people like they are stupid. As a first year student once said to me after a Mark Strand reading: "okay, I don't understand it but I get it". Everybody "gets it."
Can we dispel anxiety? Only by not-dumbing down. Reading only non-fiction prose (the bulk of our educational materials) may inspire a certain lack of confidence in newcomers, and I've taught a few undergrad classes which seemed to be poetry re-hab for smart students who'd been treated poorly elsewhere. But act like we all "get it" because at some level we do. No explanation. No apology. Last night in "Reading the Lyric" A firefighter had gotten her fire station friends (who likewise claimed to hate poetry) to find a sonnet for her online. It was about penguin/human parenting…she had us read this as a class to her 5-month old baby. Don't tell me I couldn't ask this class to read the Waste Land out loud without notes. Baby Samantha gets the Thunder lines.
6. When writing poetry, prose, essays, and other works do you listen to music, do you have a particular playlist for each genre you work in or does the playlist stay the same? What are the top 5 songs on that playlist? If you don't listen to music while writing, do you have any other routines or habits?
I listen to music in the car and in the cardio room—usually only playlist rule is that it has to be in Portuguese. But my husband Rusty made a playlist of R&B hits from the year of the Civil Rights Act (1964) that Cyriaco and I used in an installation, and that's now completely internalized.
But not when I work—I get the rhythms mixed up. My husband works with music, so I hear it in the distance during the day and evening. But I write early—before 9am—so it's bird cacaphonics for the most part. School busses. Trash pick-up. The girl who crosses the lawn to the bus stop talking to friends on her phone.
7. In terms of friendships, have your friendships changed since you began focusing on writing? Are there more writers among your friends or have your relationships remained the same?
Well, I really am grateful for my friends who are writers and artists —as Lynn Chandhok said of AWP 2011: some days it's "one loving face after another." I like that we are so spread out but close via facebook, etc—have been reading Lowell's and Bishop's correspondence, and it sounds so familiar….and yet what a job it was for them to get letters to each other! I love the casual way we can pick up again—and rejoice at each other's successes or feel envy. I love when someone get us to really re-think, as in Claudia Rankine's recent call. Clan recognition. A happy thing.
8. How do you stay fit and healthy as a writer?
Well, I have become a strength-training addict and go to classes 4 times a week. I have walked on the beach with a friend several times a week since 1994. The early morning or late afternoon beaches are never far from my poetry—all the blue and gold musing.
9. Do you have any favorite foods or foods that you find keep you inspired? What are the ways in which you pump yourself up to keep writing and overcome writer's block?
You sound like a gym rat yourself—and maybe a CSA member! Rusty is a great cook and as one or another of our kids is usually a vegetarian he's very resourceful and skilled. Loves doing it, thanks goodness, as I'm impatient and inattentive (bad kitchen combo). Ost of our local friends are foodies so I just let them do it. My contribution is putting fruit in different colored Pyrex bowls
10. Please describe your writing space and how it would differ from your ideal writing space.
I have the best—big chair, light coming in over a shoulder from a wall of window, and Florida outside.
11. What current projects are you working on and would you like to share some details with the readers?
Alison Granucci and I are working on a collaboration from my new book, EXIT ISLAND, due out in 2012—she dances, I read. Pretty interesting so far. Cyriaco is designing an artist's book version of this book, and I'm thrilled—he has amazing ideas. Plus we have a piece due this summer and maybe something else in the fall.
But poetically I'm in a start-up stage again. I've been writing a little under the heading "social art" too early to say what these are yet. Maybe the Bishop/Ouro stuff is connected—and the hits of 1964.
Thanks to Terri for answering my questions. Please check out a sample of her work from her 2012 publication, Exit Island:
Ale'm
q. Where am I?
a. Ale'm (Beyond)
q. What am I tripping over when I try to wake up?
a. Rock underwater
a. Rock awash at any stage of the tide
Given that one eye, the forgetting one, plays it close to the vest, stays small. Given that from here no mar with its fault line horizon, no broken tide of the mouth.
No greeting but green. Fanned (given) but no veil, no dingy velvet curtain yanked to burlesque in a banana hat, Tem Banana na Banda. The ship depends on frapping line, flares, buoys, subjected people. Today's left eye, opening first, depends on palmetto, the understory, what can be eaten without collapsing into some telenovela loop of how the bus left Arlington without her. How the man said my puppy's in the car. A palmetto, one or more handed, fibers by the brown millions curled at the base. Green motionless wavings. The lid palpitating a little–not in memory's exhaustive enumerations (palmetto), not in surprised-in-sand lanterns (palmetto), but in green (verde, verdade) the truth.
Day 10: Jennifer Atkinson on Her Five Favorite Poetry Books
Here are 5 of my all-time favorite books of poems, listed in no special order:
Elizabeth Bishop's Geography III
Gerard Manley Hopkins's Selected Poems
Eugenio Montale, The Occasions (Arrowsmith translation)
Rexroth's One Hundred Poems from the Chinese
The Essential Haiku (Basho, Buson, Issa), Hass, ed.
These are 5 that I come back to always, again and again. If I were to have recorded my Very Favorite book every day for the past 25 years these would have shown up more often than any others. By far. Sure, I have books that I've gone nuts for for a few months—Anne Carson's Red, Louise Bogan's Blue Estuaries, Harryette Mullen's Sleeping with the Dictionary… come to mind. Then there was that six months in Kathmandu with only a Selected Keats and a Selected Roethke I found in the used book shop on New Road. There was the Christmas I was 15 and my grandparents gave me my first book of poems, The Collected Wallace Stevens, which I am happy to confess I loved nearly every page of, but in all honesty I must admit that I also loved for a while my next book, Bob Dylan's Tarantula. I've been reading Gary Snyder so long (since the summer I was 17 and a very cool girl from the Sarah Lawrence summer theater group recommended him—thank you) that I'm surprised to have gotten this far in the paragraph without mentioning his name. From Riprap and the Cold Mountain Poems to Mountains and Rivers (or is it Rivers and Mountains?) Without End I've loved and admired Snyder's poems. But there are dozens and dozens of others I turn to so often I can't not mention them: Michael Palmer's At Passages, Baudelaire's Flowers of Evil, Jorie Graham's first few, Charles Wrights' last several, Psalms, The Book of Job, Jim Galvin's God's Mistress and Elements, Ammons's, Jay Wright's, especially, Boleros, the work of my good friends and brilliant husband whom I'm leaving out because I can't mention them all…
BIO: Jennifer Atkinson is the author of three collections of poetry, The Dogwood Tree, The Drowned City, and most recently, Drift Ice. Individual poems have appeared recently in journals including Field, Image, Witness, New American Writing, Cincinnati Review, and Missouri Review. She teaches in the MFA program at George Mason University in Virginia.
April 9, 2011
Day 9: J.J. Penna's Favorite Poetry Books
1. Denis Johnson. The Incognito Lounge. Desolate characters told through a raw, muscular language that still maintains a loose, lyrical pulse.
2. Nick Flynn. Some Ether. I love how Flynn is able to write from what seems like a dream state and yet be so grounded and emotionally searing.
3. Marie Howe. The Good Thief. For me a defining book of inventive narrative writing.
4. William Carpenter. Rain. I wish this book would come back into print. Gorgeous meditative writing.
5. Larry Levis. Elegy. Impossible to narrow it down to just one Levis book for this list.
If there were a 6th it would be Louise Gluck The Wild Iris.
BIO: J.J. Penna is a musician and poet residing in New Jersey. He received an MFA from Warren Wilson College in 2007 and is the recent recipient of Fellowships from the MacDowell Colony, Atlantic Center For The Arts, Ragdale and the Vermont Studio Center. Recent work is forthcoming in Brilliant Corners, Fugue, Chautauqua Literary Review, Eclipse and Nimrod.
Day 9: Collin Kelley's Five Favorite Poetry Books
Collin Kelley shares his five favorite poetry books with us. In case you are just tuning in, 32 Poems will share a list each day during National Poetry Month (and maybe a bit beyond).
As Collin Kelley says: Without Whitman, we'd all be nothing.
Morning in the Burned House by Margaret Atwood: In my opinion, this 1995 collection is not only her best poetry, but one of the finest volumes of poetry ever published. I read it at least two or three times a year and find something new every time.
Horses Make a Landscape Look More Beautiful by Alice Walker: I discovered this collection in high school and carried it everywhere. This was Walker's collection post-The Color Purple, so she was working at the height of her creative powers.
Singing Yet: New and Selected Poems by Stan Rice: This book came into my life in the early 90s and forever changed my view of poetry. Rice broke down barriers when it came to subject, language (adult language, that is) and surrealism in poetry. His voice is greatly missed.
Leave of Grass by Walt Whitman: Really, what else is there to say? Without him, we would all be nothing.
All My Pretty Ones by Anne Sexton: She's the reason I write poetry at all. Without her, I'd be nothing.
Collin Kelley is the author of the poetry collections Better To Travel, After the Poison and Slow To Burn, which is being re-issued by Seven Kitchens Press in July. His debut novel, Conquering Venus, is out now and his second, Remain in Light, will be published in early 2012.
April 7, 2011
Day 8: David Lehman's 5 Favorite Poetry Books
David Lehman shares five recently read poetry books he enjoyed. Please learn more about this National Poetry Month project.
Erika Meitner's book Ideal Cities (Harper Perennial, 2010) meant a lot to me, not only because of her craft and intelligence but because of the heritage we share, which surfaces in such poems as "Elegy with Construction Sounds, Water, Fish" ("There is clover in the yard, but Yiddish / has almost no flowers"), "1944″ and "The Chimneys in New Jersey," haunted as they are by Bergen-Belsen and Auschwitz.
Todd Swift, a Canadian poet currently residing in London, recently published Seaway, a volume of New and Selected Poems (Salmonpoetry, 2008) that reveals the cosmopolitan range of his interests and the geographical breadth of his imagination. There are poems set in Budapest, London, Paris, Montreal, Cannes, New York, and Austerlitz. He writes most movingly about his father and mother.
Jennifer L. Knox tells the truth between laughs in poems that begin "On their fifth date, Mike and Lou attended / a Grow Your Own Cocaine class at the Y." Her latest gathering is The Mystery of the Hidden Driveway (Bloof Books, 2010). Sample titles: "The Earth is Flat and So's My Ass": "Anomalies of the Female Reproductive System," "Don Ho's Funeral."
The late Gerrit Henry (1950-2003) wrote with singular tenderness and charm in a timbre unmistakably his own and recognizably tinged with a New York School sensibility. In rhymes as clever as the song lyrics he admired, he captures the bliss and heartbreak of a lifelong lover's quarrel with the gods and goddesses of romance. "I take a mid-sized yellow tab, and soon / I';m on a cruiser heading toward the moon. / I take the pill because I am in pain, / And always was, and will be soon, again." The Time of the Night, edited by Marc Cohen with an introduction by John Ashbery (Groundwater Press, 2011), should win Henry new fans.
In his second collection, The Dance of No Hard Feelings (Copper Canyon, 2009), Mark Bibbins solidifies his reputation as a poet of rare wit and brilliant invention, as in his irresistible poem "Concerning the Land to the South of our Neighbors to Our North."
– David Lehman
BIO: David Lehman's books of poems include Yeshiva Boys and When a Woman Loves a Man. His book A Fine Romance: Jewish Songwriters, American Songs won the ASCAP Deems Taylor Award in 2010. He has created a traveling library exhibition based on "A Fine Romance"; it will travel to fifty-five libraries between May 2011 and April 2012. New poems and essays by David Lehman have appeared or are forthcoming in The Atlantic, The New Yorker, Green Mountains Review, 32 Poems, Maggy, American Poetry Review, Boulevard and The American Scholar. Lehman blogs for the Best American Poetry.
Big Poetry Giveaway
Thanks to Kelli Russell Agodon for creating the Big Poetry Giveaway. Due to Kelli, numerous blogger poets decided to participate in a giant poetry book giveaway to celebrate National Poetry Month.
The giveaway guidelines ask participants to:
Give away two books (one can be your own).
Be willing to mail the books anywhere in the world.
Pick a winner at the end of April or in early May.
If you'd like to enter the contests happening around the blogosphere, visit the blogs below and add your name to the comments field. Be sure to include a way for the blogger to contact you in case you win.
A. Book of Kells: Kelli Russell Agodon
B. Jessie Carty Blog: Jessie Carty
C. November Sky Poetry: Christine Klocek-Lim
D. Being Poetry: Erin Hollowell
F. Danka's World: Danica Grunert
G. Utopian Fragments: Guy Traiber
H. Ribbons of Intonation: Jim K.
I. Wait! I Have a Blog?!: Kathleen Kirk
J. Latoyalikestowrite: LaToya Jordan
K. Modern Confessional: Collin Kelley
L. One Poet's Notes: Edward Byrne
M. Tribe of Mad Orphans: Ren Powell
N. Ophelia Unraveling: Carol Berg
O. The Scrapper Poet: Karen J. Weyant
P. The Alchemist's Kitchen: Susan Rich
Q. Matthew Thornburn Blog: Matthew Thornburn
R. Naming Constellations: Joseph Harker
S. Drowning the Field: Katie Cappello
T. Who are "They" & Other Writing Advice: Laura Moe
U. Red Lion Square: Amy Watkins
V. Poet 2.0: Iris Jamahl Dunkle
W. Art Happens 365: Margaret Bednar
X. Alphabet Soup: Jama Rattigan
Y. The Lizard Meanders: Luisa Igloria
Z. Fredericks' Reflections: O.P.W. Fredericks
Za. One Man's Trash: Justin Evans
Zb. Joe's Jacket: Stephen Mills
Zc. Myself the only Kangaroo Among the Beauty: Sandy Longhorn
Zd. Risa's Pieces: Risa Denenberg
Ze. Ghosts in Parentheses: Barry Napier
Zf. Notes fro the Gefilter Review: Jehanne Dubrow
Zg. A View from the Potholes: Marie Gauthier
Zh. Habit of Poetry: Rita Mae Reese
Zi. Desire Seven Small Delicious Fruit: Cati Porter
Zj. The Graphic Haibuneer: Cindy Bell
Zk. Dear Outer Space: Laura E. Davis
Zl. Lorna Dee Cervantes Blog: Lorna Dee Cervantes
Zm. Jeannine Blogs: Jeannine Hall Gailey
Zn. Kristin Berkey-Abbott Blog: Kristin Berkey-Abbott
Zo. Writing With Celia: Celia Lisset Alvarez
Zp. Weaving a New Eden: Sherry Chandler
Zs. Brian Spears Blog: Brian Spears
Zt. On Writing: Tawnysha Greene
Zv. Put Words Together. Make Meaning.: DJ Vorreyer
Zw. Shiva's Arms: Cheryl Snell
Zx. Proof of Blog: Luke Johnson
Day 7: Eric Pankey's 5 Favorite Poetry Books
Today's poetry book recommendations—the seventh set of suggestions during National Poetry Months—come to us from the poet Eric Pankey.
I recommend the following the following five first books that I have been reading this spring with great pleasure and admiration:
LOVELY ASUNDER by Danielle Deulen
UNBEKNOWNST by Julie Hanson
NOTHING FATAL by Sarah Perrier
SIGHTSEER by Cynthia Marie Hoffman
GLEAN by Joshua Kryah
Each of these first books seems to me more like a poet's third or fourth book— wholly individual voices grappling with the medium and its potential and its limitations.
BIO: Eric Pankey is the author of eight collections of poems, most recently THE PEAR AS ONE EXAMPLE: NEW AND SELECTED POEM 1984-2008. A new collection, DISSOLVE, is forthcoming from Milkweed Editions.
April 6, 2011
Join Us in Celebrating National Poetry Month!
Celebrate National Poetry Month with 32 Poems. We're sharing more than 175 favorite poetry books suggested by more than 32 poets in 30 days—and we're sharing them with you.
Thanks to Reb Livingston for the inspiration behind this idea. Each year, she invites poets to share their favorite books in December.
We decided to celebrate this way to:
1. Promote the work of writers who may be new to you. Someone already wrote me to say they bought a few of the books recommended by John Poch on Day One.
2. Promote the work of the writers who volunteer to share their recommendations. At the end of each post, you'll notice a juicy bio with links to the writer's projects. I hope you take a moment to find out what they are working on these days.
The schedule of writers follows. Please feel welcome to share it on your blog. We can have more than one offering per day, so there's no such thing as "there's not enough room" for this project!
April 1: John Poch
April 2: Jonterri Gadson
April 3: Eric Weinstein
April 4: M.E. Silverman
April 5: Arielle Greenberg
April 6: Lucy Biederman
April 7: Eric Pankey
April 8: David Lehman
April 9 AM: Collin Kelley
April 9 PM: J.J. Penna
April 10: Jennifer Atkinson
April 11: Luke Johnson
April 11: Interview with Terri Witek
April 12: Holly Karapetkova
April 13: Daniel Nester
April 14 AM: Donald Illich
April 14 PM: Ravi Shankar
April 15: Carolina Ebeid
April 16: M. Scott Douglass
April 17: Adam Vines
April 18: Elizabeth J. Coleman
April 19: Bernadette Geyer
April 20 AM: Sally Molini
April 20 PM: Amit Majmudar
April 21: Interview with Jeffery L. Bahr
April 21: Kelli Russell Agodon
April 22: Jeannine Hall Gailey
April 23: George David Clark
April 24 AM: Ren Powell
April 24 PM:
April 25: Lisa Russ Spaar
April 26 AM: Mary Biddinger
April 26 PM: Carrie Jerrell
April 27: Rachel Zucker
April 28: Steven Allen May
April 29 AM: TBD
April 29 PM: Erin Elizabeth Smith
April 30: Deborah Ager
Day 6: Lucy Biederman's 5 Favorite Poetry Books
It's hard to say what my five FAVORITE books of poetry are, because favorite can mean so many different things. But there are exactly five books that I've read and read and read again until they broke in half and the covers ripped, and here are those books:
I carry Necessary Stranger, by Graham Foust around with me in my purse, because it's so heartbreakingly direct that if you open it while you're waiting line at Walgreens and then the cashier is ready for you after you've only read a single line, you've still been refreshed, and amazed, and a little bit changed. My favorite poem in it is "Marital," which starts, "To have and have and // have and how / could you not // stop blossoming."
I have an extra-special place in my heart for It is Daylight, by Arda Collins because it, like Necessary Stranger, shows that the suburbs are as beautiful, scary, strange, boring and exciting as driving alone on a Midwestern highway in the middle of the night. My favorite poem in it is "Snow on the Apples," which has a part that goes, "God? You say, but not aloud. Since / there is no god, have you be / both you and god."
I always want to give In the Western Night, by Frank Bidart to people who say they don't get poetry; Frank Bidart was going to be a movie director and it's like watching the scariest, most beautiful movie your own mind could ever invent. Also, the interview at the end sort of contains the meaning of life.
Louise Gluck's First Four Books of Poems is the first book I broke. It spoke to me so strongly, especially the first book, Firstborn, which is formal and controlled and almost mean. I still steal all the time from the the one ("Bridal Piece") that goes, "The moon / Lurched like searchlights, like / His murmurings across my brain– / He had to have his way. As down / The beach the wet wind / Snored… I want / My innocence."
The edition of The Dream Songs, by John Berryman with all of the dream songs in it, not just the first 77. Because some of the most beautiful parts are in the later ones, like "I – I'm / trying to forgive / whose frantic passage, when he could not live / an instant longer, in the summer dawn" (145) or "degraded Henry, at the ebb of love–/ O at the end of love–" (109) or "Dry, ripe with pain, busy with loss, let's guess. / Gone." (224) or "If there were a middle ground between things and the soul // or if the sky resembled more the sea" (385).
BIO: Lucy Biederman's poems appear in the current issues of The Journal, Country Music, and PMSpoememoirstory and are forthcoming in The Apalachee Review and Open City. You can find links to poems of hers that have been published online.
