pile of reading

The Complete Peanuts, 1950-1952 by Charles M. Schulz
This is the Fantagraphics reprint of all Schulz’s Peanuts strips in chronological order. As a kid I owned several reprint collections. I remember resenting the fact that they were selections. What was I missing?

The Poem Behind the Poem: translating Asian poetry edited by Frank Stewart
I wish I knew another language well enough to feel comfortable attempting translations of poetry.

Bastard Out of Carolina by Dorothy Allison
Finely crafted prose, colorful characters, a story without surprises

Asian American Poetry: the next generation edited by Victoria Chang
I was searching for a book with work by a particular poet. She isn’t in here but when I came across this one I thought, there are poets in here I’d like to read.

Muelos: a stone age superstition about sexuality by Weston La Barre
This was a library discard. The cover copy doesn’t tell you what the stone age superstition is. What a tease! There’s a photo on the front of a corpse’s heavily tattooed head. Rather gruesome. Having read a few pages into the Introduction I find the superstition to be the belief that semen and brain are composed of the same material, which notion explains the idea that spending your semen depletes your brain. Fun!

Southern Poetry Review 45:1
When I bought this at the student union on campus the clerk cracked, “Is this real poetry?” He flipped the pages. “Yes,” he said, “I guess it is!”

Sunflower Splendor: three thousand years of Chinese poetry edited by Wu-chi Liu and Irving Yucheng Lo
When I find myself equivocal about three thousand years of poetry I begin to wonder.

Anthology of Magazine Verse and Yearbook of American Poetry, 1980 edited by Alan F. Pater
I read this more than twenty years ago before I’d begun my copying-out project. When I was reading it the first time I put a placemark in when I read a poem I wanted to read again. Then I went back and read the poems I’d marked, took out the marks, and returned the book to the library. It always seemed to me something was missing. I’ve long wanted to come back to this book and see if there are poems in it I want to keep.

Birthday Letters by Ted Hughes
These are all poems Hughes wrote to his wife Sylvia Plath, all written, I believe, after her death. They are rather over the top. Which makes them charming.

In the Hub of the Fiery Force: collected poems, 1934-2003 by Harold Norse
After hearing Norse read in North Beach (& after finishing his memoir) I felt committed to working my way through his collected poems. So I’m doing that.

Premonitions: the Kaya anthology of new Asian North American poetry edited by Walter K. Lew
I like the look of this book. Nicely designed object. I haven’t checked to see where it overlaps with Asian American Poetry: the next generation.