Samuel Allen ….. To Satch
John Ashbery ….. Down by the Station, Early in the Morning
John Ashbery ….. Haibun 4
John Ashbery ….. Rain Moving In
John Ashbery ….. When the Sun Went Down
Lisa Bernstein ….. After He Left Her
Richard Brautigan ….. Albion Breakfast
Richard Brautigan ….. I Live in the Twentieth Century
Richard Brautigan ….. Insane Asylum, Part 8 (from the Galilee Hitch-hiker)
Richard Brautigan ….. Information (from Crows and Mercury)
Richard Brautigan ….. We Meet. We Try. Nothing Happens, But (from Crows and Mercury)
Richard Brautigan ….. Ben (from Crows and Mercury)
Richard Brautigan ….. Molly, Part 13 (from Group Portrait Without the Lions)
Richard Brautigan ….. “Ah, Great Expectations!”, Part 14 (from Group Portrait Without the Lions)
Richard Brautigan ….. What Happened? (from Love)
Richard Brautigan ….. Nine Crows: Two Out of Sequence (from Montana/1973)
Richard Brautigan ….. Early Spring Mud Puddle at an Off Angle (from Montana/1973)
Richard Brautigan ….. Nobody Knows What the Experience Is Worth
Richard Brautigan ….. March 18, Resting in the Maytag Homage (from Section Three)
Richard Brautigan ….. A Moth in Tucson, Arizona (from Section Three)
Isabella M. Brown ….. Prayer
Charles Bukowski ….. Big Bastard with a Sword
Charles Bukowski ….. Experience
Charles Bukowski ….. Face While Shaving
Charles Bukowski ….. Farewell, Foolish Objects
Charles Bukowski ….. The New Place
Charles Bukowski ….. A Report Upon the Consumption of Myself
Raymond Carver ….. For the Record
Raymond Carver ….. Interview
Nurunnessa Choudhurry ….. The Sun Witness
Stephen Crane ….. “In the desert”
Stephen Crane ….. “Love walked alone.”
Stephen Crane ….. “If I should cast off this tattered coat,”
John Daniel ….. Smith L.J.
Birago Diop ….. Breaths
Stephen Dobyns ….. Summer Evenings
Jack Driscoll & Bill Meissner ….. The Somnambulist’s Music
Russell Edson ….. The Prophylactic
an ancient Egyptian poem ….. The Bird Catcher
Paul Engle ….. Water color
Edward Field ….. At the Coney Island Aquarium …
Edward Field from the Eskimo ….. Grandma Takes a Foster Child
Edward Field ….. Notes from a Slave Ship
Edward Field ….. Triad
Edward Field ….. Tulips and Addresses
Edward Field ….. World War II
Carolyn Forche ….. For the Stranger
Fukuda Hiroyuki ….. Praying Mantis
song of Gabon Pygmy ….. Death Rites II
Jay Griswold ….. The Insomnia of the Heart
Linda M. Hasselstrom ….. After the Storm
Anthony Hecht ….. More Light! More Light!
Michael Hettich ….. Anniversary
Emily Hiestand ….. from On Nothing
George Hitchcock ….. Villa Thermidor
song of the Hottentot ….. Song for the Sun that Disappeared Behind the Rainclouds
Antonio Jacinto ….. Monangamba
Robinson Jeffers ….. Pearl Harbor
Bob Kaufman ….. Battle Report
Carolyn Kizer ….. To Li Po from Tu Fu
Ronald Koertge ….. He
Ronald Koertge ….. Tonto
Ronald Koertge ….. The Ubiquity of the Need for Love
Laurie Kuntz ….. Coming Out
Dorianne Laux ….. Ghosts
Denise Levertov ….. Laying the Dust
Ed “foots” Lipman ….. an edited version of Poem for Rupert Weber, 85 Years Too Late
Morton Marcus ….. Watching Your Gray Eyes
Howard McCord ….. My Cow
Jo McDougall ….. Her Story
Pero Meogo ….. Cossante
W. S. Merwin ….. Separation
Frank O’Hara ….. Benjamin Franklin, Or Isadora Duncan
Frank O’Hara ….. “The brittle moment comes”
Frank O’Hara ….. Corresponding Foreignly
Frank O’Hara ….. “Dusk. Dawn. The land. An albatross thinks of Spain.”
Bern Porter ….. The Snow Queen
Miklos Radnoti ….. Foaming Sky
Adrienne Rich ….. Living Memory
Anne Sexton ….. Courage
Anne Sexton ….. Two Hands
Anne Sexton ….. Wanting to Die
Susan Sklan ….. On Passing an Old Lover’s Address
Cathy Song ….. Stray Animals
song of the Susu ….. The Sweetest Thing
May Swenson ….. Dr. Henderson
May Swenson ….. Old No. 1
Tchicaya U Tam’si ….. The Scorner (an excerpt)
Carol Tarlen ….. Prisoner No. 25
James Tate ….. Distance from Loved Ones
Sara Teasdale ….. Moon’s Ending
Lao Tsu ….. Seventy-Six
Allen Upward ….. The Milky Way (from Scented Leaves from a Chinese Jar)
Urakawa Yuriko ….. Father
Julia Vinograd ….. Street Saxophone
David Wagoner ….. The Labors of Thor
Derek Walcott ….. A Sea-Chantey (an excerpt)
C. K. Williams ….. Spit
Keith Wilson ….. The Lake Above Santos
Wang Xiao-ni ….. The Wind is Roaring
Each year I try to read the complete works of a poet or two. I read through each of Anne Sexton’s books in 1991. (More recently I reread Sexton via her Complete Poems.) I would prefer not to read a “selected.” I want the original slim volume(s) or a “complete.” But sometimes a “selected” is the completest collection available. These days there is greater access to obscure books either via the web or libraries borrowing from libraries so it’s been years since I read a “selected.”
I read a lot of anthologies. I began to get a sense of the influence of editors when I realized I was really enjoying some anthologies — and finding others of little interest. It wasn’t just the poets.
I encourage anyone interested in poetry to make their own anthology. If you love a poem you don’t have to let it go. Your choices will not be the same as the Harold Blooms or Louis Untermeyers, even if your anthology includes many of the same poets. I save poems that mean something to me, not poems that are Great by some other measure.
Showing posts sorted by relevance for query "edward field". Sort by date Show all posts
Showing posts sorted by relevance for query "edward field". Sort by date Show all posts
Wednesday, December 03, 2014
Wednesday, August 19, 2015
pile of reading
Why Religion Matters: the fate of the human spirit in an age of disbelief by Huston Smith
I’m reading Why Religion Matters on my breaks at work. I agree with Huston Smith somewhat, he seems a nice enough fellow, but he has yet to lead me to a place where the evils of religion are clearly outweighed by true goodness. It’s not that I’m totally convinced religion is worthless or necessarily monstrous, rather I’m agnostic on the matter. I know there are good and gentle (and fierce) people who are inspired by religious beliefs to do extraordinary and good things. Yet there are so many who seem inspired by their religious beliefs to hack at people with machetes or blow themselves up in crowded marketplaces. As a gay man I pay attention to the role conservative religious beliefs continue to play in forcing people to live inauthentic, stunted, and tragic lives. How mean-spirited many religious seem to be. Still, while genial folks like Smith insist there’s something to it, I will keep open an ear.
In Other Lands Than Ours by Maud Gage Baum
L. Frank Baum, author of The Wizard of Oz, went with his wife Maud to Europe and Egypt in 1906. Maud wrote letters home. The letters were lively and evocative so they were collected and published (privately, I believe). I downloaded the Pumpernickel Pickle e-book version from lulu.com and am reading the book on my iPad.
Gaysia: adventures in the queer east by Benjamin Law
Law is an ethnically Chinese Australian. He devotes a chapter each to Indonesia (although Law doesn’t explore beyond Bali), Thailand, China, Japan, Malaysia, Myanmar, and India. I hadn’t heard before that Bali was a gay destination. That seems to be a new thing. But the locals are more friendly to it than you might expect. I am now reading about Thai ladyboys (the term is not an insult, Law is told).
The Bedside Guide to the No Tell Motel: second floor edited by Reb Livingston and Molly Arden
An anthology of poetry themed (but not terribly strictly) to the sensual and interpersonal. No Tell Motel was an ezine that I visited for a while.
A Byzantine Journey by John Ash
John Ash was a visiting poet-teacher at UC Berkeley one of my years there. I took his workshop. Lately I’ve been catching up on what he’s written in the 20 years since. Ash long had a fascination for Byzantium, what’s often called the Holy Roman Empire. Rome didn’t fall, as far as the Byzantines were concerned; it just contracted a little. I’ve read Ash’s poetry books. A Byzantine Journey is prose, travel literature, the kind of thing I’ve gotten a taste for recently. The writer moves about taking down impressions, complaining about food or transportation, limning the locals and the ruins, and weaving in library research.
Eating Fire: my life as a Lesbian Avenger by Kelly Cogswell
The Lesbian Avengers formed in the wake of AIDS activist group ACT UP, eager to put a strong feminist voice on the streets again. For one action Kelly Cogswell teaches herself to spew fire like a circus performer. She and her colleagues make TIME Magazine flaming up in front of the White House.
A Year of Rhymes by Bernard Cooper
I enjoyed Bernard Cooper’s My Avant-Garde Education, which was billed as memoir. I knew I had a novel on my shelf so I pulled it down.
Two Lines: world writing in translation issue 22
In earlier issues Two Lines featured introductions to the English versions written by the translators who talk about what attracted them to the task, what special challenges were faced, and some biographical info about the non-English-writing author. The intros have been dispensed with, mostly. I miss them.
Variety Photoplays poems by Edward Field
I bought this a long time ago. I even got Edward Field to sign it. But, as much as I like Field’s poetry, I held off reading Variety Photoplays because so many of the poems contained spoilers to old movies. Field basically retells the plots of Frankenstein and Bride of Frankenstein and SHE, and I hadn’t seen them! I still haven’t seen SHE — and now I don’t have to! I had a hankering to read Edward Field’s newest book, After the Fall: poems old and new, but when I opened it I remembered that I hadn’t yet read Variety Photoplays. So I’m reading Variety Photoplays.
Selected Poems by W. H. Auden, edited by Edward Mendelson
I’ve said before that I won’t read a selected when I can read a complete. I have the feeling I’m going to renege on that commitment more often than I’m going to comply. I’m reading Auden rather the way I read Emily Dickinson. I read at least two pages at a sitting. I read at least two pages so I can physically turn a page and know when next I open the book I will be reading a poem new to me. I was doing that thing where I open to the placemark and find myself rereading the poem I read last time then stopping because one poem was all I could handle. One does need to move along.
The Flayed God: the mythology of Mesoamerica by Roberta H. Markman and Peter Markman
I’ve returned to The Flayed God after a long pause.The worldview of the Mesoamerican empires can be, well, unsettling. The Aztecs are known for human sacrifice, but did you know they would strip the skin off a victim and wear the skin around for a month? I know there are intense, world-preserving mystical justifications for this, but — shudder — it still looks like butchery, doesn’t it?
The Pillow Book of Sei Shonagon translated and edited by Ivan Morris
Sei Shonagon was a contemporary of Murasaki, the woman famous for writing what may be the first novel, The Tale of Genji. In her Pillow Book Sei Shonagon records anecdotes, impressions, and likes and dislikes. For instance, in a list titled “Depressing Things,” she mentions, “A dog howling in the daytime. … A cold, empty brazier. An ox-driver who hates his oxen.”
From the Other Side of the Century: a new American poetry 1960-1990 edited by Douglas Messerli
An 1100 page anthology. I’m going to be at this one for quite some time. Messerli’s project focuses on the experimental, the innovative. Lyn Hejinian, yes; Robert Hass, no. Allen Ginsberg, yes; Robert Lowell, no. Rae Armentrout, yes; Louis Gluck, no.
I’m reading Why Religion Matters on my breaks at work. I agree with Huston Smith somewhat, he seems a nice enough fellow, but he has yet to lead me to a place where the evils of religion are clearly outweighed by true goodness. It’s not that I’m totally convinced religion is worthless or necessarily monstrous, rather I’m agnostic on the matter. I know there are good and gentle (and fierce) people who are inspired by religious beliefs to do extraordinary and good things. Yet there are so many who seem inspired by their religious beliefs to hack at people with machetes or blow themselves up in crowded marketplaces. As a gay man I pay attention to the role conservative religious beliefs continue to play in forcing people to live inauthentic, stunted, and tragic lives. How mean-spirited many religious seem to be. Still, while genial folks like Smith insist there’s something to it, I will keep open an ear.
In Other Lands Than Ours by Maud Gage Baum
L. Frank Baum, author of The Wizard of Oz, went with his wife Maud to Europe and Egypt in 1906. Maud wrote letters home. The letters were lively and evocative so they were collected and published (privately, I believe). I downloaded the Pumpernickel Pickle e-book version from lulu.com and am reading the book on my iPad.
Gaysia: adventures in the queer east by Benjamin Law
Law is an ethnically Chinese Australian. He devotes a chapter each to Indonesia (although Law doesn’t explore beyond Bali), Thailand, China, Japan, Malaysia, Myanmar, and India. I hadn’t heard before that Bali was a gay destination. That seems to be a new thing. But the locals are more friendly to it than you might expect. I am now reading about Thai ladyboys (the term is not an insult, Law is told).
The Bedside Guide to the No Tell Motel: second floor edited by Reb Livingston and Molly Arden
An anthology of poetry themed (but not terribly strictly) to the sensual and interpersonal. No Tell Motel was an ezine that I visited for a while.
A Byzantine Journey by John Ash
John Ash was a visiting poet-teacher at UC Berkeley one of my years there. I took his workshop. Lately I’ve been catching up on what he’s written in the 20 years since. Ash long had a fascination for Byzantium, what’s often called the Holy Roman Empire. Rome didn’t fall, as far as the Byzantines were concerned; it just contracted a little. I’ve read Ash’s poetry books. A Byzantine Journey is prose, travel literature, the kind of thing I’ve gotten a taste for recently. The writer moves about taking down impressions, complaining about food or transportation, limning the locals and the ruins, and weaving in library research.
Eating Fire: my life as a Lesbian Avenger by Kelly Cogswell
The Lesbian Avengers formed in the wake of AIDS activist group ACT UP, eager to put a strong feminist voice on the streets again. For one action Kelly Cogswell teaches herself to spew fire like a circus performer. She and her colleagues make TIME Magazine flaming up in front of the White House.
A Year of Rhymes by Bernard Cooper
I enjoyed Bernard Cooper’s My Avant-Garde Education, which was billed as memoir. I knew I had a novel on my shelf so I pulled it down.
Two Lines: world writing in translation issue 22
In earlier issues Two Lines featured introductions to the English versions written by the translators who talk about what attracted them to the task, what special challenges were faced, and some biographical info about the non-English-writing author. The intros have been dispensed with, mostly. I miss them.
Variety Photoplays poems by Edward Field
I bought this a long time ago. I even got Edward Field to sign it. But, as much as I like Field’s poetry, I held off reading Variety Photoplays because so many of the poems contained spoilers to old movies. Field basically retells the plots of Frankenstein and Bride of Frankenstein and SHE, and I hadn’t seen them! I still haven’t seen SHE — and now I don’t have to! I had a hankering to read Edward Field’s newest book, After the Fall: poems old and new, but when I opened it I remembered that I hadn’t yet read Variety Photoplays. So I’m reading Variety Photoplays.
Selected Poems by W. H. Auden, edited by Edward Mendelson
I’ve said before that I won’t read a selected when I can read a complete. I have the feeling I’m going to renege on that commitment more often than I’m going to comply. I’m reading Auden rather the way I read Emily Dickinson. I read at least two pages at a sitting. I read at least two pages so I can physically turn a page and know when next I open the book I will be reading a poem new to me. I was doing that thing where I open to the placemark and find myself rereading the poem I read last time then stopping because one poem was all I could handle. One does need to move along.
The Flayed God: the mythology of Mesoamerica by Roberta H. Markman and Peter Markman
I’ve returned to The Flayed God after a long pause.The worldview of the Mesoamerican empires can be, well, unsettling. The Aztecs are known for human sacrifice, but did you know they would strip the skin off a victim and wear the skin around for a month? I know there are intense, world-preserving mystical justifications for this, but — shudder — it still looks like butchery, doesn’t it?
The Pillow Book of Sei Shonagon translated and edited by Ivan Morris
Sei Shonagon was a contemporary of Murasaki, the woman famous for writing what may be the first novel, The Tale of Genji. In her Pillow Book Sei Shonagon records anecdotes, impressions, and likes and dislikes. For instance, in a list titled “Depressing Things,” she mentions, “A dog howling in the daytime. … A cold, empty brazier. An ox-driver who hates his oxen.”
From the Other Side of the Century: a new American poetry 1960-1990 edited by Douglas Messerli
An 1100 page anthology. I’m going to be at this one for quite some time. Messerli’s project focuses on the experimental, the innovative. Lyn Hejinian, yes; Robert Hass, no. Allen Ginsberg, yes; Robert Lowell, no. Rae Armentrout, yes; Louis Gluck, no.
Thursday, July 13, 2017
Titles Read in 1993
January
A Full Heart by Edward Field
It Was Fever That Made the World by Jim Powell
An Anthology of New York Poets edited by Ron Padgett
Facing the Snow: visions of Tu Fu by Tu Fu, translations by Sam Hamill
One Hundred Poems from the Chinese translations by Kenneth Rexroth
Teachings by David Fisher
One Hundred More Poems from the Chinese: Love and the Turning Year translations by Kenneth Rexroth
The Triggering Town: lectures and essays on poetry and writing by Richard Hugo
Losers Weepers: an anthology of found poems by George Hitchcock
Open Poetry: four anthologies of expanded poems edited by Ronald Gross and George Quasha with Emmett Williams, John Robert Colombo, and Walter Lowenfels
A Natural History of the Senses by Diane Ackerman
Dark of the Moon by Sara Teasdale
Flame and Shadow by Sara Teasdale
Helen of Troy and other poems by Sara Teasdale
February - May
Burning in Water, Drowning in Flame by Charles Bukowski
The Before Columbus Foundation Poetry Anthology: selections from the American Book Awards, 1980 - 1990 edited by J. J. Phillips, Ishmael Reed, Gundars Strads, and Shawn Wong
One Hundred and Seventy Chinese Poems translated by Arthur Waley
Street Samurai by Julia Vinograd
Space by Clark Coolidge
The Abortion: An Historical Romance 1966 by Richard Brautigan
Stand Up, Friend, With Me by Edward Field
Counting Myself Lucky: selected poems, 1963 - 1992 by Edward Field
Mad Maria by Marcio Souza, translated by Thomas Colchie
Downstream from Trout Fishing in America: a memoir of Richard Brautigan by Keith Abbott
Revenge of the Lawn: stories, 1962 - 1970 by Richard Brautigan
The Wounded Breakfast by Russell Edson
The Childhood of an Equestrian by Russell Edson
American Poetry in the Twentieth Century by Kenneth Rexroth
Becoming a Man: half a life story by Paul Monette
The Hunt by Lyn Hejinian
An Atlas of the Difficult World: poems, 1988 - 1991 by Adrienne Rich
The Lotus Lovers: Tzu Yeh and Li Ch’ing Chao translated by Sam Hamill
Fade to Prompt by John Mason
Ocker by P. Inman
Dora, Doralina by Rachel de Queiroz, translated by Dorothy Scott Loos
New American Poets of the 90s edited by Jack Myers and Roger Weingarten
Once Out of Nature by Jim Simmerman
The Storyteller by Mario Vargas Llosa, translated by Helen Lane
Into the Heart: one man’s pursuit of love and knowledge among the Yanomama by Kenneth Good with David Chanoff
Poetry with an Edge edited by Neil Astley
The Whale and Other Uncollected Translations by Richard Wilbur
The Orchid Boat: women poets of China translations by Kenneth Rexroth
Edificio Sayonara by John Yau
The Poems of Catullus by Catullus, translated by Charles Martin
Travelling in the Family: selected poems by Carlos Drummond de Andrade, edited by Thomas Colchie and Mark Strand
Rapture by Susan Mitchell
The Stillness, the Dancing by Linda Bierds
June - July
The Landscape of Exile by Jay Griswold
The Contemporary World Poets edited by Donald Junkins
Contemporary Macedonian Poetry edited by Ewald Osers
Field Trips on the Rapid Transit by Jack Anderson
The Goodbyes by John Ash
Ceremonies: prose and poetry by Essex Hemphill
The Tokyo-Montana Express by Richard Brautigan
The Collected Verse of Lewis Carroll by Lewis Carroll
A Confederate General from Big Sur by Richard Brautigan
Dreaming of Babylon by Richard Brautigan
The Hawkline Monster by Richard Brautigan
Out in the World: gay and lesbian life from Buenos Aires to Bangkok by Neil Miller
American Tongue and Cheek: a populist guide to our language by Jim Quinn
The Chalice and the Blade: our history, our future by Riane Eisler
The Branching Stairs by John Ash
Poems Before and After: collected English translations by Miroslav Holub
Kidstuff by William Talcott
Papua Pocket Poets vol. 1 - 22, (1967 - 1971), edited by Ulli Beier
The book of Nods by Jim Carroll
Papua Pocket Poets vol. 34 - 36, 39, 40, (1973) edited by Prithvindra Chakravarti
Beyond Paradise: poetry by lesbians and gay men editor uncredited
Battle for the Elephants by Iain and Oria Douglas-Hamilton
New and Selected Poems by Brendan Kennelly
A Small Light by Brendan Kennelly
The Sun Placed in the Abyss and Other Texts by Francis Ponge, translated by Serge Gavronsky
The Gay Decades: from Stonewall to the present: the people and events that shaped gay lives by Leigh Rutledge
The People Rising: the campaign against the Bork nomination by Michael Pertschuk and Wendy Schaetzel
The City in Which I Love You by Li-Young Lee
August
Family Values: two moms and their son by Phyllis Burke
Vanishing Lung Syndrome by Miroslav Holub, translated by David Young and Dana Habova
Calafia: the California poetry edited by Ishmael Reed
Anthology of L. A. Poets edited by Charles Bukowski, Neeli Cherry, and Paul Vangelisti
The Culture of Desire: paradox and perversity in gay lives today by Frank Browning
Eight Little Piggies: reflections in natural history by Stephen Jay Gould
Blue Boys: poems by Philebus, Edmund John, Cathbert Wright edited by Paul I. Webb
Wonderful Life: the Burgess shale and the nature of history by Stephen Jay Gould
John by Ron Schrieber
Going To and Fro and Walking Up and Down by Charles Reznikoff
Trumpets from the Islands of Their Eviction by Martin Espada
Bright Moon, Perching Birds by Li Po and Tu Fu, translations by J. P. Seaton and James Cryer
Disbelief by John Ash
September
Queer in America: sex, the media, and the closets of power by Michelangelo Signorile
The Burnt Pages by John Ash
The Magic World: American Indian songs and poems edited by William Brandon
Impresario: Malcolm McLaren and the British New Wave by Paul Taylor
The Cell by Lyn Hejinian
The Sacred Path: spells, prayers, and power songs of the American Indians edited by John Bierhorst
Song of the Sky: versions of Native American songs and poems by Brian Swann
Self-Made by Florence Elon
October - December
The Complete Poems of Charles Reznikoff, vol. 1: 1918 - 1936 by Charles Reznikoff, edited by Seamus Cooney
Play the Piano Drunk Like a Percussion Instrument Until the Fingers Begin to Bleed a Bit by Charles Bukowski
Coast to Coast by Bruce Bawer
My Alexandria by Mark Doty
The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros
In the Absence of the Sacred: the failure of technology and the survival of the Indian nations by Jerry Mander
Frisk by Dennis Cooper
Willard and His Bowling Trophies by Richard Brautigan
Gay Ideas: outing and other controversies by Richard D. Mohr
Bully for Brontosaurus: reflections in natural history by Stephen Jay Gould
Styrofoam Ghosts by Julia Vinograd
Heartlands: a gay man’s odyssey across America by Darrell Yates Rist
The Complete Poems of Charles Reznikoff, vol. 2: poems, 1937 - 1975 by Charles Reznikoff, edited by Seamus Cooney
The Best American Poetry 1993 edited by Louise Gluck; series editor: David Lehman
Lakota Woman by Mary Crow Dog and Richard Erdoes
This Earth, That Sky by Manuel Bandeira, translated by Candace Slater
Collected Poems by Paul Goodman, edited by Taylor Stoehr
Possession: a romance by A. S. Byatt
A Full Heart by Edward Field
It Was Fever That Made the World by Jim Powell
An Anthology of New York Poets edited by Ron Padgett
Facing the Snow: visions of Tu Fu by Tu Fu, translations by Sam Hamill
One Hundred Poems from the Chinese translations by Kenneth Rexroth
Teachings by David Fisher
One Hundred More Poems from the Chinese: Love and the Turning Year translations by Kenneth Rexroth
The Triggering Town: lectures and essays on poetry and writing by Richard Hugo
Losers Weepers: an anthology of found poems by George Hitchcock
Open Poetry: four anthologies of expanded poems edited by Ronald Gross and George Quasha with Emmett Williams, John Robert Colombo, and Walter Lowenfels
A Natural History of the Senses by Diane Ackerman
Dark of the Moon by Sara Teasdale
Flame and Shadow by Sara Teasdale
Helen of Troy and other poems by Sara Teasdale
February - May
Burning in Water, Drowning in Flame by Charles Bukowski
The Before Columbus Foundation Poetry Anthology: selections from the American Book Awards, 1980 - 1990 edited by J. J. Phillips, Ishmael Reed, Gundars Strads, and Shawn Wong
One Hundred and Seventy Chinese Poems translated by Arthur Waley
Street Samurai by Julia Vinograd
Space by Clark Coolidge
The Abortion: An Historical Romance 1966 by Richard Brautigan
Stand Up, Friend, With Me by Edward Field
Counting Myself Lucky: selected poems, 1963 - 1992 by Edward Field
Mad Maria by Marcio Souza, translated by Thomas Colchie
Downstream from Trout Fishing in America: a memoir of Richard Brautigan by Keith Abbott
Revenge of the Lawn: stories, 1962 - 1970 by Richard Brautigan
The Wounded Breakfast by Russell Edson
The Childhood of an Equestrian by Russell Edson
American Poetry in the Twentieth Century by Kenneth Rexroth
Becoming a Man: half a life story by Paul Monette
The Hunt by Lyn Hejinian
An Atlas of the Difficult World: poems, 1988 - 1991 by Adrienne Rich
The Lotus Lovers: Tzu Yeh and Li Ch’ing Chao translated by Sam Hamill
Fade to Prompt by John Mason
Ocker by P. Inman
Dora, Doralina by Rachel de Queiroz, translated by Dorothy Scott Loos
New American Poets of the 90s edited by Jack Myers and Roger Weingarten
Once Out of Nature by Jim Simmerman
The Storyteller by Mario Vargas Llosa, translated by Helen Lane
Into the Heart: one man’s pursuit of love and knowledge among the Yanomama by Kenneth Good with David Chanoff
Poetry with an Edge edited by Neil Astley
The Whale and Other Uncollected Translations by Richard Wilbur
The Orchid Boat: women poets of China translations by Kenneth Rexroth
Edificio Sayonara by John Yau
The Poems of Catullus by Catullus, translated by Charles Martin
Travelling in the Family: selected poems by Carlos Drummond de Andrade, edited by Thomas Colchie and Mark Strand
Rapture by Susan Mitchell
The Stillness, the Dancing by Linda Bierds
June - July
The Landscape of Exile by Jay Griswold
The Contemporary World Poets edited by Donald Junkins
Contemporary Macedonian Poetry edited by Ewald Osers
Field Trips on the Rapid Transit by Jack Anderson
The Goodbyes by John Ash
Ceremonies: prose and poetry by Essex Hemphill
The Tokyo-Montana Express by Richard Brautigan
The Collected Verse of Lewis Carroll by Lewis Carroll
A Confederate General from Big Sur by Richard Brautigan
Dreaming of Babylon by Richard Brautigan
The Hawkline Monster by Richard Brautigan
Out in the World: gay and lesbian life from Buenos Aires to Bangkok by Neil Miller
American Tongue and Cheek: a populist guide to our language by Jim Quinn
The Chalice and the Blade: our history, our future by Riane Eisler
The Branching Stairs by John Ash
Poems Before and After: collected English translations by Miroslav Holub
Kidstuff by William Talcott
Papua Pocket Poets vol. 1 - 22, (1967 - 1971), edited by Ulli Beier
The book of Nods by Jim Carroll
Papua Pocket Poets vol. 34 - 36, 39, 40, (1973) edited by Prithvindra Chakravarti
Beyond Paradise: poetry by lesbians and gay men editor uncredited
Battle for the Elephants by Iain and Oria Douglas-Hamilton
New and Selected Poems by Brendan Kennelly
A Small Light by Brendan Kennelly
The Sun Placed in the Abyss and Other Texts by Francis Ponge, translated by Serge Gavronsky
The Gay Decades: from Stonewall to the present: the people and events that shaped gay lives by Leigh Rutledge
The People Rising: the campaign against the Bork nomination by Michael Pertschuk and Wendy Schaetzel
The City in Which I Love You by Li-Young Lee
August
Family Values: two moms and their son by Phyllis Burke
Vanishing Lung Syndrome by Miroslav Holub, translated by David Young and Dana Habova
Calafia: the California poetry edited by Ishmael Reed
Anthology of L. A. Poets edited by Charles Bukowski, Neeli Cherry, and Paul Vangelisti
The Culture of Desire: paradox and perversity in gay lives today by Frank Browning
Eight Little Piggies: reflections in natural history by Stephen Jay Gould
Blue Boys: poems by Philebus, Edmund John, Cathbert Wright edited by Paul I. Webb
Wonderful Life: the Burgess shale and the nature of history by Stephen Jay Gould
John by Ron Schrieber
Going To and Fro and Walking Up and Down by Charles Reznikoff
Trumpets from the Islands of Their Eviction by Martin Espada
Bright Moon, Perching Birds by Li Po and Tu Fu, translations by J. P. Seaton and James Cryer
Disbelief by John Ash
September
Queer in America: sex, the media, and the closets of power by Michelangelo Signorile
The Burnt Pages by John Ash
The Magic World: American Indian songs and poems edited by William Brandon
Impresario: Malcolm McLaren and the British New Wave by Paul Taylor
The Cell by Lyn Hejinian
The Sacred Path: spells, prayers, and power songs of the American Indians edited by John Bierhorst
Song of the Sky: versions of Native American songs and poems by Brian Swann
Self-Made by Florence Elon
October - December
The Complete Poems of Charles Reznikoff, vol. 1: 1918 - 1936 by Charles Reznikoff, edited by Seamus Cooney
Play the Piano Drunk Like a Percussion Instrument Until the Fingers Begin to Bleed a Bit by Charles Bukowski
Coast to Coast by Bruce Bawer
My Alexandria by Mark Doty
The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros
In the Absence of the Sacred: the failure of technology and the survival of the Indian nations by Jerry Mander
Frisk by Dennis Cooper
Willard and His Bowling Trophies by Richard Brautigan
Gay Ideas: outing and other controversies by Richard D. Mohr
Bully for Brontosaurus: reflections in natural history by Stephen Jay Gould
Styrofoam Ghosts by Julia Vinograd
Heartlands: a gay man’s odyssey across America by Darrell Yates Rist
The Complete Poems of Charles Reznikoff, vol. 2: poems, 1937 - 1975 by Charles Reznikoff, edited by Seamus Cooney
The Best American Poetry 1993 edited by Louise Gluck; series editor: David Lehman
Lakota Woman by Mary Crow Dog and Richard Erdoes
This Earth, That Sky by Manuel Bandeira, translated by Candace Slater
Collected Poems by Paul Goodman, edited by Taylor Stoehr
Possession: a romance by A. S. Byatt
Friday, November 08, 2024
Field theory of poetry
I run a Poetry Circle at the library. People sit around a table, taking turns reading poetry to each other. Mostly they read their own poems, but I lay out in the middle of the table a few anthologies and will open one now and then and read at random. I like to discover a poem as I read it aloud. I’m good at cold reads. One night a few years ago three different people who tried out a cold read, each opening an anthology at random and reading what their eye fell upon, voiced a poem by Edward Field.
Field has long been a favorite of mine. His poems sound like someone talking to you. I read an interview with Edward Field recently and snipped out a bit of ars poetica. Field says poetry isn’t “about language,” even though he’s just said, “It can be anything.”
“I’ve always seen poetry as therapeutic. … [Writing poetry]* is absolutely a tool. It’s a tool for staying focused, for remembering your feelings. … They always say, ‘Poetry isn’t therapy.’ Bullshit. It can be anything; it’s so many things. For me it’s a way of life … One thing it is [is] prayer. … Somehow poets get the idea that poetry is about this and not about that. So poets don’t often let out their political feelings in their poems. I’ve always included it some, but lately more.”
“The thing is that poetry, as presented to us, is supposed to be airy-fairy, up-there, philosophical, religious, abstract. And now the cant idea is that it’s about language. That’s one of the pernicious ideas about poetry. The second is the stricture against sentimentality. That is so evil! Every feeling you have is, of course, sentimental. We are sentimental. … I don’t like … differentiating between good feelings and bad feelings. … Why should we sneer at our feelings? … You have to tell the truth. If you’re telling the truth, you’re not going to be false. … [W]hen our world is ruled by liars, we have to stand up for truth and speak the truth. Even if no one is listening. You still do it for yourself. … That’s what poetry is about.”
*interviewer’s brackets
source:
Our Deep Gossip: conversations with gay writers on poetry and desire
by Chistopher Hennessy
2013. University of Wisconsin Press, Madison WI
Tuesday, July 11, 2017
Titles Read in 1991
January - February
Who Will Know Us? by Gary Soto
In the North by Nina Bogin
The Great Poetry Bake-Off by Robert Peters
Hunting the Snark: a compendium of new poetic terminology by Robert Peters
Elephant Memories: thirteen years in the life of an elephant family by Cynthia Moss
March
The Odyssey by Homer, translated by Robert Fitzgerald
Graywolf Annual Six: stories from the rest of the world edited by Scott Walker
Nobody Knows My Name: notes of a native son by James Baldwin
Borrowed Time: an AIDS memoir by Paul Monette
Brother Songs: a male anthology of poetry edited by Jim Perlman
New and Selected Things Taking Place by May Swenson
Where Water Comes Together with Other Water by Raymond Carver
The Woman Warrior: memoirs of a girlhood among ghosts by Maxine Hong Kingston
April
The Beautiful Room Is Empty by Edmund White
Lighting the Night: revolution in Eastern Europe by William Echikson
More Man Than You’ll Ever Be: gay folklore and acculturation in Middle America by Joseph P. Goodwin
Son of the Morning Star by Evan S. Connell
A New Path to the Waterfall by Raymond Carver
Men and Intimacy: personal accounts exploring the dilemmas of modern male sexuality edited by Franklin Abbott
Articles of War: a collection of poetry about World War II edited by Leon Stokesbury
The Morning Star by Kenneth Rexroth
A Man Without Words by Susan Schaller
The Awful Rowing Toward God by Anne Sexton
In the Name of God: the Khomeini decade by Robin Wright
May
Awake by Dorianne Laux
Mystery and Manners by Flannery O’Connor
The Politics of History by Howard Zinn
Swimmer in the Secret Sea by William Kotzwinkle
Down in My Heart by William E. Stafford
The Life That Lives on Man by Michael Andrews
Collected Poems by Marianne Moore
These Green-Going-to-Yellow by Marvin Bell
I am the Bitter Name by C. K. Williams
With Ignorance by C. K. Williams
Making Peace with the Planet by Barry Commoner
Zero Makes me Hungry: a collection of poems for today edited by Edward Leuders and Primus St John
Drawn by Stones, by Earth, by Things that Have Been in the Fire by Marvin Bell
The Complete Poems of Stephen Crane by Stephen Crane, edited by Joseph Katz
Cruelty by Ai
June - July
Family Reunion by Paul Zimmer
Loading Mercury with a Pitchfork by Richard Brautigan
Nobody’s Business: the paradoxes of privacy by Alida Brill
Tar by C. K. Williams
Peacemaking among Primates by Frans de Waal
The Book of Embraces by Eduardo Galeano
Selected Poems of Cristina Rossetti by Cristina Rossetti, edited by Marya Zaturenska
Picture Bride by Cathy Song
Stolen Words: forays into the origins and ravages of plagiarism by Thomas Mallon
Indian Givers: how the Indians of the Americas transformed the world by Jack Weatherford
Century of the Wind, vol. 3 of The Memory of Fire by Eduardo Galeano
Time’s Power: poems, 1985 - 1988 by Adrienne Rich
A Wild Patience Has Taken Me This Far: poems, 1978 - 1981 by Adrienne Rich
3000 Years of Black Poetry edited by Alan Lomax and Raoul Abdul
Home Before Morning: the story of an army nurse in Vietnam by Lynda Van Devanter with Christopher Morgan
Pipers at the Gates of Dawn: the wisdom of children’s literature by Jonathan Cott
The Choices We Made: twenty-five women and men speak out about abortion by Angela Bonavoglia
Migraine: understanding a common disorder by Oliver Sacks
Men and Women: together and alone edited by Morty Sklar and Mary Biggs
Gay Fathers by Robert L. Barrett and Bryan E Robinson
New Negro Poets: USA edited by Langston Hughes
August
Under All Silences, Shades of Love edited by Ruth Gordon
Shapinky’s Karma, Boggs’s Bills, and Other True-life Tales by Lawrence Weschler
Life Doesn’t Frighten Me at All edited by John Agard
Good Times by Lucille Clifton
Men on Men 3 edited by George Stambolian
Blues for the Berkeley Inn by Julia Vinograd
The Hidden Wound by Wendell Berry
California Poets / California Bicentennial Poets Anthology edited by A. D. Winans
Lefties: the origins and consequences of being left-handed by Jack Fincher
Hidden from History: reclaiming the gay and lesbian past by Martin Bauml Duberman, Martha Vicinus, and George Chauncey Jr.
Turtle, Swan by Mark Doty
Bethlehem in Broad Daylight by Mark Doty
Carrying Over: poems from the Chinese, Urdu, Macedonian, Yiddish, and French African translated and edited by Carolyn Kizer
September
The Peters Black and Blue Guide to Current Literary Journals by Robert Peters
Bad Dog Blues by Bruce Isaacson
love affairs with hardly any people in them by Bruce Isaacson
Velcro Heart by Tim Donnelly
Reminiscing About Next Week by Judy Stedman
Erotic Poems from the Greek Anthology translated and edited by John Gill
Darkness Visible: a memoir of madness by William Styron
American Poetry Confronts the 1990s edited by Peter Gravis and Harry Burrus
Cures: a gay man’s odyssey by Martin Duberman
Through a Window: my thirty years with the chimpanzees of Gombe by Jane Goodall
Poems Retrieved by Frank O’Hara
Twin Sons of Different Mirrors: poems in dialogue by Jack Driscoll and Bill Meissner
Copacetic by Yusef Komunyakaa
I Apologize for the Eyes in My Head by Yusef Komunyakaa
Fate by Ai
Everybody Loves You by Ethan Mordden
Dien Cai Dau by Yusef Komunyakaa
Cemetery Nights by Stephen Dobyns
Black Dog, Red Dog by Stephen Dobyns
October
New and Selected Poems by Edward Field
Mexico in Crisis by Judith Adler Hellman
Son of the Male Muse edited by Ian Young
Distance from Loved Ones by James Tate
Body Traffic by Stephen Dobyns
The Blind Man’s Peep Show by Julia Vinograd
Life on the Edge of the Continent: selected poems by Ronald Koertge
November
Wolfwatching by Ted Hughes
A Geography of Poets edited by Edward Field
The Marzipan Pig by Russell Hoban
Eskimo Songs and Stories translated and edited by Edward Field
Collected Poems by Yvor Winters
African Poetry: an anthology of traditional African poems edited by Ulli Beier
There Are Two Lives: poems by children of Japan edited by Richard Lewis, translated by Haruna Kimura
The Country Between Us by Carolyn Forche
December
The Pill Versus the Springhill Mine Disaster by Richard Brautigan
Patron Happiness by Sandra McPherson
Eye Contact Is a Confession by Julia Vinograd
The Book of Folly by Anne Sexton
The Best Poems of 1925 selected by Thomas Moult
The Selected Poems of Tu Fu by Tu Fu, translated by David Hinton
To Bedlam and Partway Back by Anne Sexton
Leap Year Day by Maxine Chernoff
Imagist Poetry edited by Peter Jones
All My Pretty Ones by Anne Sexton
Live or Die by Anne Sexton
Love Poems by Anne Sexton
The Lady in Kicking Horse Reservoir by Richard Hugo
Walking with the Great Apes: Jane Goodall, Dian Fossey, Birute Galdikas by Sy Montgomery
The Roominghouse Madrigals: early selected poems, 1946 - 1966 by Charles Bukowski
Strange Victory by Sara Teasdale
Personal Dispatches: writers confront AIDS edited by John Preston
Forced March by Miklos Radnoti, translated by Clive Wilmer and George Gomori
To Whom It May Concern: an investigation into the art of elephants by David Gucwa and James Ehmann
Who Will Know Us? by Gary Soto
In the North by Nina Bogin
The Great Poetry Bake-Off by Robert Peters
Hunting the Snark: a compendium of new poetic terminology by Robert Peters
Elephant Memories: thirteen years in the life of an elephant family by Cynthia Moss
March
The Odyssey by Homer, translated by Robert Fitzgerald
Graywolf Annual Six: stories from the rest of the world edited by Scott Walker
Nobody Knows My Name: notes of a native son by James Baldwin
Borrowed Time: an AIDS memoir by Paul Monette
Brother Songs: a male anthology of poetry edited by Jim Perlman
New and Selected Things Taking Place by May Swenson
Where Water Comes Together with Other Water by Raymond Carver
The Woman Warrior: memoirs of a girlhood among ghosts by Maxine Hong Kingston
April
The Beautiful Room Is Empty by Edmund White
Lighting the Night: revolution in Eastern Europe by William Echikson
More Man Than You’ll Ever Be: gay folklore and acculturation in Middle America by Joseph P. Goodwin
Son of the Morning Star by Evan S. Connell
A New Path to the Waterfall by Raymond Carver
Men and Intimacy: personal accounts exploring the dilemmas of modern male sexuality edited by Franklin Abbott
Articles of War: a collection of poetry about World War II edited by Leon Stokesbury
The Morning Star by Kenneth Rexroth
A Man Without Words by Susan Schaller
The Awful Rowing Toward God by Anne Sexton
In the Name of God: the Khomeini decade by Robin Wright
May
Awake by Dorianne Laux
Mystery and Manners by Flannery O’Connor
The Politics of History by Howard Zinn
Swimmer in the Secret Sea by William Kotzwinkle
Down in My Heart by William E. Stafford
The Life That Lives on Man by Michael Andrews
Collected Poems by Marianne Moore
These Green-Going-to-Yellow by Marvin Bell
I am the Bitter Name by C. K. Williams
With Ignorance by C. K. Williams
Making Peace with the Planet by Barry Commoner
Zero Makes me Hungry: a collection of poems for today edited by Edward Leuders and Primus St John
Drawn by Stones, by Earth, by Things that Have Been in the Fire by Marvin Bell
The Complete Poems of Stephen Crane by Stephen Crane, edited by Joseph Katz
Cruelty by Ai
June - July
Family Reunion by Paul Zimmer
Loading Mercury with a Pitchfork by Richard Brautigan
Nobody’s Business: the paradoxes of privacy by Alida Brill
Tar by C. K. Williams
Peacemaking among Primates by Frans de Waal
The Book of Embraces by Eduardo Galeano
Selected Poems of Cristina Rossetti by Cristina Rossetti, edited by Marya Zaturenska
Picture Bride by Cathy Song
Stolen Words: forays into the origins and ravages of plagiarism by Thomas Mallon
Indian Givers: how the Indians of the Americas transformed the world by Jack Weatherford
Century of the Wind, vol. 3 of The Memory of Fire by Eduardo Galeano
Time’s Power: poems, 1985 - 1988 by Adrienne Rich
A Wild Patience Has Taken Me This Far: poems, 1978 - 1981 by Adrienne Rich
3000 Years of Black Poetry edited by Alan Lomax and Raoul Abdul
Home Before Morning: the story of an army nurse in Vietnam by Lynda Van Devanter with Christopher Morgan
Pipers at the Gates of Dawn: the wisdom of children’s literature by Jonathan Cott
The Choices We Made: twenty-five women and men speak out about abortion by Angela Bonavoglia
Migraine: understanding a common disorder by Oliver Sacks
Men and Women: together and alone edited by Morty Sklar and Mary Biggs
Gay Fathers by Robert L. Barrett and Bryan E Robinson
New Negro Poets: USA edited by Langston Hughes
August
Under All Silences, Shades of Love edited by Ruth Gordon
Shapinky’s Karma, Boggs’s Bills, and Other True-life Tales by Lawrence Weschler
Life Doesn’t Frighten Me at All edited by John Agard
Good Times by Lucille Clifton
Men on Men 3 edited by George Stambolian
Blues for the Berkeley Inn by Julia Vinograd
The Hidden Wound by Wendell Berry
California Poets / California Bicentennial Poets Anthology edited by A. D. Winans
Lefties: the origins and consequences of being left-handed by Jack Fincher
Hidden from History: reclaiming the gay and lesbian past by Martin Bauml Duberman, Martha Vicinus, and George Chauncey Jr.
Turtle, Swan by Mark Doty
Bethlehem in Broad Daylight by Mark Doty
Carrying Over: poems from the Chinese, Urdu, Macedonian, Yiddish, and French African translated and edited by Carolyn Kizer
September
The Peters Black and Blue Guide to Current Literary Journals by Robert Peters
Bad Dog Blues by Bruce Isaacson
love affairs with hardly any people in them by Bruce Isaacson
Velcro Heart by Tim Donnelly
Reminiscing About Next Week by Judy Stedman
Erotic Poems from the Greek Anthology translated and edited by John Gill
Darkness Visible: a memoir of madness by William Styron
American Poetry Confronts the 1990s edited by Peter Gravis and Harry Burrus
Cures: a gay man’s odyssey by Martin Duberman
Through a Window: my thirty years with the chimpanzees of Gombe by Jane Goodall
Poems Retrieved by Frank O’Hara
Twin Sons of Different Mirrors: poems in dialogue by Jack Driscoll and Bill Meissner
Copacetic by Yusef Komunyakaa
I Apologize for the Eyes in My Head by Yusef Komunyakaa
Fate by Ai
Everybody Loves You by Ethan Mordden
Dien Cai Dau by Yusef Komunyakaa
Cemetery Nights by Stephen Dobyns
Black Dog, Red Dog by Stephen Dobyns
October
New and Selected Poems by Edward Field
Mexico in Crisis by Judith Adler Hellman
Son of the Male Muse edited by Ian Young
Distance from Loved Ones by James Tate
Body Traffic by Stephen Dobyns
The Blind Man’s Peep Show by Julia Vinograd
Life on the Edge of the Continent: selected poems by Ronald Koertge
November
Wolfwatching by Ted Hughes
A Geography of Poets edited by Edward Field
The Marzipan Pig by Russell Hoban
Eskimo Songs and Stories translated and edited by Edward Field
Collected Poems by Yvor Winters
African Poetry: an anthology of traditional African poems edited by Ulli Beier
There Are Two Lives: poems by children of Japan edited by Richard Lewis, translated by Haruna Kimura
The Country Between Us by Carolyn Forche
December
The Pill Versus the Springhill Mine Disaster by Richard Brautigan
Patron Happiness by Sandra McPherson
Eye Contact Is a Confession by Julia Vinograd
The Book of Folly by Anne Sexton
The Best Poems of 1925 selected by Thomas Moult
The Selected Poems of Tu Fu by Tu Fu, translated by David Hinton
To Bedlam and Partway Back by Anne Sexton
Leap Year Day by Maxine Chernoff
Imagist Poetry edited by Peter Jones
All My Pretty Ones by Anne Sexton
Live or Die by Anne Sexton
Love Poems by Anne Sexton
The Lady in Kicking Horse Reservoir by Richard Hugo
Walking with the Great Apes: Jane Goodall, Dian Fossey, Birute Galdikas by Sy Montgomery
The Roominghouse Madrigals: early selected poems, 1946 - 1966 by Charles Bukowski
Strange Victory by Sara Teasdale
Personal Dispatches: writers confront AIDS edited by John Preston
Forced March by Miklos Radnoti, translated by Clive Wilmer and George Gomori
To Whom It May Concern: an investigation into the art of elephants by David Gucwa and James Ehmann
Monday, July 16, 2007
Harold Norse
I went to see Harold Norse read Sunday (7/15) at the Beat Museum in San Francisco. First time I’ve been to the Beat Museum. My friend Tim calls it a tourist trap. The museum is upstairs. It’s less than half the size of the gift shop at street level. The major artifact is one of Allen Ginsberg’s organs, which is about 2/3 the size of an upright piano. Most of the exhibits are big photo blow-ups with captions. A couple cases filled with books by the Beats and books about them, including racy paperbacks from the 50s: she found her kicks among the denizens of the Beat undergroundI bought Harold Norse’s Memoirs of a Bastard Angel last December. It’s been sitting by the bed since. When I heard Norse would be reading to celebrate his 91st birthday I figured I ought to go. I brought along Memoirs, beginning it on the BART train. I had just read Edward Field’s memoir, The Man Who Would Marry Susan Sontag, and Field doesn’t mention Norse. The two had friends in common. They are near the same age (Field is eight years younger). Both are gay, Jewish, New York natives. Both are poets. You’d think they’d have an inkling of each other. Of course, a memoir is not a methodical chronicle of everything. Most of life ends up left out. I haven’t finished Norse’s book yet (Field is not listed in the index), but I can say it’s better written. Not saying I didn’t enjoy the Field memoir.
Harold Norse read from his collected poems, In the Hub of the Fiery Force. He has a deep, resonant voice, which would have carried well without a microphone. Norse would hold the book up and say, “It’s a big book, isn’t it? More than 600 pages. Lot of poems in it.” He seems to be having trouble with his short term memory. He would introduce a poem, read a line or two from it, which would lead him to make some other remark, then he would return to the poem, reintroduce it with the same words he had just used and read it from the beginning. More than once he was uncertain whether he’d yet read it. “Yes, you did!” chorused the audience. Or in one case: “No, no. You haven’t. Read it!”
I got my copy of Memoirs signed after the reading. Actually, I thought Norse had already left and was getting ready to leave myself when I saw him sitting at a table near the cash register. “I’m tired,” he said, “so I’m just going to write my name. Is that OK?” But when he’d finished with his name he looked up and asked if I wanted him to add my name. I did, so he did.
Harold Norse is living in an assisted care facility and the friend who had brought him to the reading encouraged us to make contact. He even had a hand-out. I will quote from it.
“Harold’s ability to stay strong and healthy is [greatly helped by] outside contact … Please make an effort to reach out to him … Remember that being 91 is no walk in the park.”
Harold Norse
Hayes Valley Care
601 Laguna St, Room 13
San Francisco CA 94102
I am going to send him a card. My thanks to Todd Swindell for the contact info.
Sunday, January 10, 2016
Titles Read in 2015
January
I Hugged This Pony Today by Leo Puppytime, et al
The Stop & Go Show #1 by Leo Puppytime
Perpetual Nervousness #6 & #6.5 by Maira
The Solstice Submarine a 3D minicomic by Christopher Joel & Donna Almendrala
Parthenon West Review, issu3 7, 2010
This Layer of Plush by Ann Veronica Simon
The Transparent Body by Lisa Berstein
The Graces by Aaron Shurin
Index/Fist, Feb 2014: The Opposite of edited by Caroline Kessler, Janet Frishberg, Lulu Richter
Fairy Tales and After by Roger Sale
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain (ebook)
Wet Reckless by Cassandra Dallett
Another Bullshit Night in Suck City by Nick Flynn
What Light Can Do by Robert Hass
The Reenactments by Nick Flynn
Poetry Jan 2014, vol. 203 no. 4
February
Mouth by Lisa Chen
Mixed Up! a zine about mixed race queer & feminist experience
It Never Happened Again by Sam Alden
A Short History of Laos, 2002 edition by Grant Evans
Poetry Feb 2014, vol. 203 no. 5
Notes on the Mosquito: selected poems by Xi Chuan
Secrets of the Kingdom: the inside story of the Saudi-U.S. connection by Gerald Posner
7 Poets, 4 Days, 1 Book by Marvin Bell, Tomaz Salamun, et al
Sister by Raina Telgemeier
Lockjaw & the Pet Avengers by Eliopoulos & Guara
Poetry March 2014, vol. 203 no. 6
The Man Who Folded Himself by David Gerrold
Irene #5, 2014 edited by Andy Warner & Dakota McFadeean
’68 by Paco Ignacio Taibo II
Poetry April 2014, vol. 204 no. 1
March/April
Two Lines no. 18: Counterfeits edited by Luc Sante & Rosanna Warren
Poetry May 2014, vol. 204 no. 2
The Rock from Mars by Kathy Sawyer
My Judy Garland Life by Susie Boyt
The Gate by Francois Bizot
Second Avenue Caper by Joyce Brabner & Mark Zingarelli
Destination Cambodia by Walter Mason
Eavesdrop Soup by Matt Cook
The Wild Trees by Richard Preston
Cinder’s Kingdom by Adeline Esquerra & Ryane Acalin
Poems Out of Harland County by Vivian Shipley
Poetry June 2014, vol. 204 no. 3
Against Forgetting: 20th century poetry of witness edited by Carolyn Forche
City of Coughing and Dead Radiators by Martin Espada
Fanny Kemble’s Civil Wars by Catherine Clinton
Greenpoint by Russell Lichter
The Unreasonable Slug by Matt Cook
The Narnian: the life & imagination of C. S. Lewis by Alan Jacobs
The Virtues of Poetry by James Longenbach
Poetry July/Aug 2014, vol. 204 no. 4
Proving Nothing to Anyone by Matt Cook
Driving Mr. Albert: a trip across America with Einstein’s brain by Michael Paterniti
10 Pocket Poems coutesy of Mrs Dalloway’s bookstore, Berkeley
The Selected Poems of Irving Layton by Irving Layton
Astro City: The Tarnished Angel by Kurt Busiek
Poetry Sept 2014, vol. 204 no. 5
Some Angels Wear Black: selected poems by Eli Coppola
Astro-City: Shining Stars by Kurt Busiek
Destination Saigon by Walter Mason
Americana: the Kinks, the riffs, the road by Ray Davies
Arroyo Literary Review Spring 2012
Astro-City: Through Open Doors by Kurt Busiek
A Place I’ve Never Been by David Leavitt
May
The Sculptor by Scott McCloud
A Coney Island of the Mind by Lawrence Ferlinghetti
Again by Lynne Knight
Poetry Oct 2014, vol. 205 no. 1
Petty Theft by Pascal Girard
The Legend of Oz: the Wicked West #4 by Hitchison & Borges
All-New, All-Different Avengers free comic book day sampler from Marvel by Mark Waid, Mahmud Asrar
Magnus Robot Fighter & Nexus #1 by Baron & Rude
A Member of the Family: gay men write about their families edited by John Preston
Astro-City: Local Heroes by Busiek & Anderson
The Tales of Olga da Polga by Michael Bond
William and the Lost Spirit by Bonneval & Bonhomme
Poetry Nov 2014, vol. 205 no. 2
Einstein’s Daughter: the search of Lieserl by Michele Zackheim
A Year of the Hunter by Czeslaw Milosz
The Great Comic Book Heroes by Jules Feiffer
Autobiography by Morrissey
Lucky Life by Gerald Stern
The Infinite Wait & other stories by Julia Wertz
Difficult News by Valerie Berry
Poetry Dec 2014, vol. 205 no. 3
June
It’s Not Over by Michelangelo Signorile
Super 8 by Richard Lopez
Smile by Raina Telgemeier
Mirror Maker by Primo Levi
In the Wake of the Day by John Ash
The Family of Max Desir by Robert Ferro
Tomboy by Liz Prince
Reader Please Supply Meaning by Jim Murdoch
Two Lines 2012: Passageways edited by Camille T. Dungy and Daniel Hahn
Pippi Longstocking by Astrid Lindgren
The Stranger by Albert Camus
Enizagam 2011, issue 5
Sparks-tastic: 21 nights with Sparks in London by Tosh Berman
American Zen: a gathering of poets edited by Ray McNiece & Larry Smith
Berkeley Poetry Review 2012, #42
Oatmeal Magazine #8
When I Grow Up by W. W. Denslow (ebook)
Project Pendulum by Robert Silverberg
Anorexia by Lisa Bernstein
Terms of Service by Jacob Silverman
The New York Review of Books May 7, 2015, vol. LXII no. 8
Best American Comics 2014 edited by Scott McCloud
July
The Anatolikon by John Ash
The Spectral Boy by Donald Petersen
On the Move by Oliver Sacks
The Enchanted Apples of Oz by Eric Shanower
The Ice King of Oz by Eric Shanower
The Secret Island of Oz by Eric Shanower
The Forgotten Forest of Oz by Eric Shanower
Portfolios of the Poor by Daryl Collins, et al
Masters of Sex by Thomas Maier
Snaggletooth in Ocean Park by FrancEye
Smash Cut by Brad Gooch
Berkeley Poetry Review 2010, #41
The Blue Witch of Oz by Eric Shanower (as appears in Adventures in Oz)
Pippi Goes on Board by Astrid Lindgren
Seriously Funny edited by Barbara Hamby & David Kirby
Massive: gay erotic manga edited by Ishii, Kidd, Kolbeins
Second Son by Robert Ferro
Nippon by Jonathan Hayes
The Parthian Stations by John Ash
Tablegeddon a mini comics anthology edited by Robert Kirby
Deep: free-diving, renegade science … by James Nestor
BUMF vol. 1 by Joe Sacco
August
To Keep Time by Joseph Massey
Chasing the Scream by Johann Hari
Berkeley Poetry Review 2009, #40
The Gift to Be Simple: a garland for Ann Lee by Robert Peters
Pratfall a mini comics anthology edited by Robert Kirby
My Avant-Garde Education by Bernard Cooper
Pippi in the South Seas by Astrid Lindgren
To the City by John Ash (as appears in Two Books: The Anatolikon & To the City)
This One Summer by Jillian & Mariko Tamaki
Gay in America portraits by Scott Pasfield
The World Between Two Covers by Ann Morgan
Roots and Branches edited by Howard Junker
Eating Fire: my life as a Lesbian Avenger by Kelly Cogswell
The Bedside Guide to the No Tell Motel, Second Floor edited by Reb Livingston & Molly Arden
Why Religion Matters by Huston Smith
Modern Romance by Aziz Ansari with Eric Klinenberg
Variety Photoplays by Edward Field
Heat a zine edited by Camille & Tom
Two Lines Spring 2015, no. 22
September
Gaysia: adventures in the queer east by Benjamin Law
The Flayed God: the mythology of Meso-America by Roberta & Peter Markman
A Byzantine Journey by John Ash
How I Killed Pluto and why it had it coming by Mike Brown
Half Magic by Edward Eager
Snowden by Ted Rall
A Year of Rhymes by Bernard Cooper
Knight’s Castle by Edward Eager
Digest by Gregory Pardlo
An Age of License: a travelogue by Lucy Knisley
Catamaran Literary Reader Fall 2014, vol. 2 iss. 4
Evening Brings Everything Back by Jaan Kaplinski
Being Mortal by Atul Gawande
Rick Sings by Phil Taggart
Alone Forever by Liz Prince
Please Excuse This Poem edited by Lauer & Melnick
Displacement: a travelogue by Lucy Knisley
October
So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed by Jon Ronson
Brief History of the Slinky by Andy Warner
Hornblower Proper by R. G. Mandrake
I Have No Idea What I’m Doing by Maggie Ramm
Professor Cuties by Dave Baker
Hotel Bikini by Gilbert Armendariz
The Old Well by Chris Pianki
Butt Planet by Sienna Jane Robrock
Escargoteric by Johnny Herber
Cringe: an anthology of embarrassment edited by Peter S. Conrad
After the Fall: poems old & new by Edward Field
Magic by the Lake by Edward Eager
The Walrus 2010, issue 53
We Shoot Typewriters by Paul Cormen-Roberts
Crazy Child Scribbler Oct 2015, issue 85, guest editor: Tobey Kaplan
Frank by Barney Frank
The Time Garden by Edward Eager
November
Treasury of Mini Comics, vol. 2 edited by Michael Dowers
Why We Hate by Jack Levin & Gordana Rabrenovic
A New Time for Mexico by Carlos Fuentes
The Motherless Oven by Rob Davis
Talking to Girls About Duran Duran by Rob Sheffield
December
The Interior Circuit: a Mexico City chronicle by Francisco Goldman
Magic or Not? by Edward Eager
Burning the Midnight Oil edited by Phil Cousineau
Trembling a mini comic by Sarah Adams
Drinking Stories by Amy Burek
A Semblance of Adulthood by Erika Sjule
Coyote Tails by Stephanie Houden
if you’d like to hear it, I can sing it for you: a zine on aging #1 edited by A. L.
Milk & Carrots #3: the science fiction issue edited by Brian Hernick
I Like Your Headband by Elizabeth Beier
Seven-Day Magic by Edward Eager
Solar System by Marcus Chown
Asswipe #8 by Vanessa X
Little Nemo: return to Slumberland by Shanower & Rodriguez
Irene #6 edited by Andy Warner
Becoming Nicole by Amy Ellis Nutt
Ruins by Peter Kuper
Saturday, July 29, 2017
Titles Read in 2007
January - February
Beeswax Magazine no. 2, spring/summer 2006
Gay Marriage, Real Life: ten stories of love and family by Michelle Bates Deakin
The Iron Giant: a story in five nights by Ted Hughes
Book Business: publishing past, present, and future by Jason Epstein
The Scarecrow and Tin-Man of Oz by W. W. Denslow
Berkeley Poetry Review no. 35, 2004; no. 36, 2005, and no. 37, 2006
Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler
Parable of the Talents by Octavia Butler
Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson
Searching for Mercy Street: my journey back to my mother, Anne Sexton by Linda Gray Sexton
Poems for the Millennium: the University of California book of modern and postmodern poetry, vol. 2: From Postwar to Millennium edited by Jerome Rothenberg and Pierre Joris
A Bunch of Keys: selected poems by Mitsuo Takahashi
The Quitter by Harvey Pekar, Dean Haspiel
The Mail from Anywhere by Brad Leithauser
Marvel 1602 by Neil Gaiman, Andy Kubert, et al
Yellow Woman and a Beauty of the Spirit: essays on Native American life today by Leslie Marmon Silko
The Best American Comics 2006 edited by Harvey Pekar; series editor: Anne Elizabeth Moore
Twinkle and Chubbins: their astonishing adventures in nature-fairyland by L. Frank Baum, introduction by Michael Patrick Hearn; illustrations by Maginel Wright Enright
John Dough and the Cherub by L. Frank Baum; illustrated by John R. Neill
Misquoting Jesus: the story behind who changed the Bible and why by Bart D. Ehrman
In Cold Blood by Truman Capote
Young Avengers, vol. 1: Sidekicks by Allan Heinberg, writer; Jim Cheung, pencils; etc.
Carnet de Voyage: travel journal, volume one by Craig Thompson
Confessions of the Other Mother: nonbiological lesbian moms tell all edited by Harlyn Aizley
26: a journal of poetry and poetics issue no. e
Oaxaca Journal by Oliver Sacks
Geisha by Andi Watson
Breakfast After Noon by Andi Watson
Syllogism no. 5, 2001
Saint Morrissey: a portrait of this charming man by an alarming fan by Mark Simpson
Rules of the House by Tsering Wangmo Dhompa
Matter, no. 8: Land 2006, edited by Todd Simmons
Critical Citadel by Jon Vermilyer, Nicholas Breutzman, Koren Shadmi, Raymond Sohn, Matt Berinier, Eamon Espey, Panayiotis Terzis
Ur-Vox no. 4, 2007, edited by Lee Ballentine
Global City Review, no. 16: Simple Virtues spring 2006
Aimee and Jaguar: a love story, Berlin 1943 by Erica Fischer, translated by Edna McCown
The World in the Evening by Christopher Isherwood
The Magic Whip by Wang Ping
Free Lunch no. 36, autumn 2006, edited by Ron Offen
Chicken with Plums by Marjane Satrapi, translated by Anjali Singh
The Pleasures of C by Edward Smallfield
The Collected Poems by Sylvia Plath, edited by Ted Hughes
Within the Margin by Truong Tran
Richard Speakes: a sampler of his poems by Richard Speakes
Lynn Lyman Trombetta: a sampler of her poems by Lynn Lyman Trombetta
The Botany of Desire: a plant’s-eye view of the world by Michael Pollan
North Coast Review issue 2: Expericon; Vince Storti, editor
A Small Place by Jamaica Kinkaid
The Man Everybody Was Afraid Of by Joseph Hansen
Skinflicks by Joseph Hansen
How to Cure a Fanatic by Amos Oz
The Secret Powers of Naming by Sara Littlecrow-Russell
The PIP Anthology of World Poetry of the 20th Century vol. 2, edited by Douglas Messerli
The Company of Animals: a naturalist’s adventures in the jungle of Malaya by Ronald McKie
The Three Way Tavern: selected poems by Ko Un, translation by Clare You and Richard Silberg
March
The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus by L. Frank Baum
The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
Mirage #4/Period(ical) no. 138, February 2007, and no. 139 (March 2007), edited by Kevin Killian and Dodie Bellamy
Liaison by Joyce Wadler
Twist of Address by Spencer Selby
6 X 6 no. 11, spring 2006
Air by Paul Vangelisti
Inscape by Adam Joshua Sass
Atlanta Review vol. XIII, no. 1, fall/winter 2006
The Mammoth Book of Best New Manga edited by Ilya
By the Dozen: sixty short poems by Don Emblen
A Public Space vol. 1 no.2, summer 2006; edited by Brigid Hughes
Living Free: the story of Elsa and her cubs by Joy Adamson
Electric Girl by Michael Brennan
Electric Girl, vol. 2 by Michael Brennan
Emma by Jane Austen
Small Town issue 2, spring 2003; edited by Logan Ryan Smith
April - September
The Trainwreck Union Presents: Switchyard. The Two-handed Engine edited by The Trainwreck Union
Holiday Funeral by Nick Mullins
Man Enough: a queer romance by Bill Roundy
Blood Seeds Become Poetry by Jonathan Hill
Capacity #6, 2005; by Theo Ellsworth
Nome Sang #1, 2007; by A. Vanderhoof
Gaylord Phoenix #4, 2007; Edie Fake
Little Moments edited by John Lowe
World Poetry: an anthology of verse from antiquity to our time edited by Katharine Washburn and John S. Major and Clifton Fadiman
Whispering in the Giant’s Ear: a frontline chronicle from Bolivia’s war on globalization by William Powers
The PIP Anthology of World Poetry of the 20th Century vol. 4, edited by Douglas Messerli
Stranger in a Strange Land: encounters in the disunited states by Gary Younge
Free Lunch #7, spring 2007; edited by Ron Offen
Rock Names by Adam Dolgins
Collapse: how societies choose to fail or succeed by Jared Diamond
Mad Night by Richard Sala
Gravedigger by Joseph Hansen
Nightwork by Joseph Hansen
New American Writing no. 24, 2006; edited by Maxine Chernoff and Paul Hoover
Beeswax Magazine no. 3, January 2007; edited by John Peck and Laureen Shifley
Slipstream no. 22, 2002; edited by Robert Borgatti, Livio Farallo, Dan Sicoli
Digerati: 20 contemporary poets in the virtual world edited by Steve Mueske
Gratitude to You for the Food of Our Abundance by Judy Grahn, art by Tona Luisa Osher
The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman
The Subtle Knife by Philip Pullman
The Amber Spyglass by Philip Pullman
Any Old Wolf by Murray Silverstein
Wind: a journal of writing and community no. 87, 2002; edited by Chris Green
Jessica Farm by Joshua Simmons
Dishwasher: one man’s quest to wash dishes in all fifty states by Pete Jordan
Dishwasher #16, 2007, by Pete Jordan
Nobody’s Angel by Thomas McGuane
The Living House of Oz by Edward Einhorn, illustrated by Eric Shanower
Mornings in Mexico / Etruscan Places by D. H. Lawrence
Home Places: contemporary Native American writing from Sun Tracks edited by Larry Evers and Ofelia Zepeda
Hiroshima Notes by Kenzaburo Oe, translated by David L. Swain and Toshi Yanezawa
Haircut and other stories by Ring Lardner
Up Above the World by Paul Bowles
Want List and other poems about aging by D. L. Emblen, with block prints by Linda Emblen
Fuff nos. 1, 4, 5, 6; by Jeffrey Lewis
Parthenon West Review issue 4, 2006; edited by David Holler and Chad Sweeney
The Journal vol. 26 no. 1, spring/summer 2002; edited by Kathy Fagan, Michelle Herman
Monday Night: a journal of literature and art no. 3, 2004; edited by Jessica Wickens, Rob Pierce, Sharon McGill, Allison Landa
The Loved One: an Anglo-American tragedy by Evelyn Waugh
The Man Who Would Marry Susan Sontag, and other intimate literary portraits of the Bohemian Era by Edward Field
Forever Free by Joy Adamson
Memoirs of a Bastard Angel: a fifty-year literary and erotic odyssey by Harold Norse
The Gay Metropolis: 1940 - 1996 by Charles Kaiser
Ragtime by E. L. Doctorow
A Primate’s Memoir by Robert M. Sapolsky
The Saint Ann’s Review: a journal of contemporary arts and letters summer/fall 2006, edited by Beth Bosworth
Twilight - Los Angeles, 1992: on the road: a search for American character by Anna Deavere Smith
The Twinkle Tales by L. Frank Baum, illustrations by Maginel Wright Enright
580 Split: a journal of arts and letters issue 9, 2007; Erika Staiti, managing editor
Indian Days of the Long Ago: Indian life and Indian lore by Edward S. Curtis
American Born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang
Anne Sexton: a biography by Diane Ward Middlebrook
Bay Poetics edited by Stephanie Young
Mine by Tung-Hui Hu
City of Night by John Rechy
Blue Latitudes: boldly going where Captain Cook has gone before by Tony Horwitz
October
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J. K. Rowling
Bastard Out of Carolina by Dorothy Allison
The Complete Peanuts, vol. 1: 1950 to 1952 by Charles Schulz
The Poem Behind the Poem: translating Asian poetry edited by Frank Stewart
Brandstetter and Others: five fictions by Joseph Hansen
Backtrack by Joseph Hansen
Swann’s Way by Marcel Proust, translated by C. K. Scott Moncrieff
A Boy in Winter by Maxine Chernoff
Southern Poetry Review 45:1, 2007?, Robert Parham, editor
Muelos: a stone age superstition about sexuality by Weston La Barre
Lucky by Gabrielle Bell
Asian American Poetry: the next generation edited by Victoria M. Chang
November - December
Meanwhile Take My Hand by Kirmen Uribe, translated by Elizabeth Macklin
Hunger: an unnatural history by Sharman Apt Russell
The Virginia Quarterly Review: a national journal of literature and discussion Fall 2006, vol. 92 no. 4, Ted Genoways, editor
The Mouse and His Child by Russell C. Hoban
Sunflower Splendor: three thousand years of Chinese poetry edited by Wu-Chi Liu and Irving Yucheng Lo
Thinking in Pictures and other reports from my life with autism by Temple Grandin
The Book of Boy Trouble: gay boy comics with a new attitude edited by Robert Kirby and David Kelly
Poetry International #11, 2006/2007, edited by Fred Moramaro
Amnesty International Summer 2007, vol. 33 no. 2, edited by Gwen Fitzgerald
Instant City: a literary exploration of San Francisco no. 4, 2007, editors: Gravity Goldberg and Eric Zassenhaus
Glitz by Elmore Leonard
Ceremonies by Essex Hemphill
I Love Led Zeppelin: pany-dropping comics by Ellen Forney
Volt: a magazine of the arts, vol. 13: The War Issue 2007, edited by Gillian Conoley
1491: new revelations of the Americas before Columbus by Charles C. Mann
Eye of the Whale: epic passage from Baja to Siberia by Dick Russell
Beeswax Magazine no. 2, spring/summer 2006
Gay Marriage, Real Life: ten stories of love and family by Michelle Bates Deakin
The Iron Giant: a story in five nights by Ted Hughes
Book Business: publishing past, present, and future by Jason Epstein
The Scarecrow and Tin-Man of Oz by W. W. Denslow
Berkeley Poetry Review no. 35, 2004; no. 36, 2005, and no. 37, 2006
Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler
Parable of the Talents by Octavia Butler
Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson
Searching for Mercy Street: my journey back to my mother, Anne Sexton by Linda Gray Sexton
Poems for the Millennium: the University of California book of modern and postmodern poetry, vol. 2: From Postwar to Millennium edited by Jerome Rothenberg and Pierre Joris
A Bunch of Keys: selected poems by Mitsuo Takahashi
The Quitter by Harvey Pekar, Dean Haspiel
The Mail from Anywhere by Brad Leithauser
Marvel 1602 by Neil Gaiman, Andy Kubert, et al
Yellow Woman and a Beauty of the Spirit: essays on Native American life today by Leslie Marmon Silko
The Best American Comics 2006 edited by Harvey Pekar; series editor: Anne Elizabeth Moore
Twinkle and Chubbins: their astonishing adventures in nature-fairyland by L. Frank Baum, introduction by Michael Patrick Hearn; illustrations by Maginel Wright Enright
John Dough and the Cherub by L. Frank Baum; illustrated by John R. Neill
Misquoting Jesus: the story behind who changed the Bible and why by Bart D. Ehrman
In Cold Blood by Truman Capote
Young Avengers, vol. 1: Sidekicks by Allan Heinberg, writer; Jim Cheung, pencils; etc.
Carnet de Voyage: travel journal, volume one by Craig Thompson
Confessions of the Other Mother: nonbiological lesbian moms tell all edited by Harlyn Aizley
26: a journal of poetry and poetics issue no. e
Oaxaca Journal by Oliver Sacks
Geisha by Andi Watson
Breakfast After Noon by Andi Watson
Syllogism no. 5, 2001
Saint Morrissey: a portrait of this charming man by an alarming fan by Mark Simpson
Rules of the House by Tsering Wangmo Dhompa
Matter, no. 8: Land 2006, edited by Todd Simmons
Critical Citadel by Jon Vermilyer, Nicholas Breutzman, Koren Shadmi, Raymond Sohn, Matt Berinier, Eamon Espey, Panayiotis Terzis
Ur-Vox no. 4, 2007, edited by Lee Ballentine
Global City Review, no. 16: Simple Virtues spring 2006
Aimee and Jaguar: a love story, Berlin 1943 by Erica Fischer, translated by Edna McCown
The World in the Evening by Christopher Isherwood
The Magic Whip by Wang Ping
Free Lunch no. 36, autumn 2006, edited by Ron Offen
Chicken with Plums by Marjane Satrapi, translated by Anjali Singh
The Pleasures of C by Edward Smallfield
The Collected Poems by Sylvia Plath, edited by Ted Hughes
Within the Margin by Truong Tran
Richard Speakes: a sampler of his poems by Richard Speakes
Lynn Lyman Trombetta: a sampler of her poems by Lynn Lyman Trombetta
The Botany of Desire: a plant’s-eye view of the world by Michael Pollan
North Coast Review issue 2: Expericon; Vince Storti, editor
A Small Place by Jamaica Kinkaid
The Man Everybody Was Afraid Of by Joseph Hansen
Skinflicks by Joseph Hansen
How to Cure a Fanatic by Amos Oz
The Secret Powers of Naming by Sara Littlecrow-Russell
The PIP Anthology of World Poetry of the 20th Century vol. 2, edited by Douglas Messerli
The Company of Animals: a naturalist’s adventures in the jungle of Malaya by Ronald McKie
The Three Way Tavern: selected poems by Ko Un, translation by Clare You and Richard Silberg
March
The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus by L. Frank Baum
The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
Mirage #4/Period(ical) no. 138, February 2007, and no. 139 (March 2007), edited by Kevin Killian and Dodie Bellamy
Liaison by Joyce Wadler
Twist of Address by Spencer Selby
6 X 6 no. 11, spring 2006
Air by Paul Vangelisti
Inscape by Adam Joshua Sass
Atlanta Review vol. XIII, no. 1, fall/winter 2006
The Mammoth Book of Best New Manga edited by Ilya
By the Dozen: sixty short poems by Don Emblen
A Public Space vol. 1 no.2, summer 2006; edited by Brigid Hughes
Living Free: the story of Elsa and her cubs by Joy Adamson
Electric Girl by Michael Brennan
Electric Girl, vol. 2 by Michael Brennan
Emma by Jane Austen
Small Town issue 2, spring 2003; edited by Logan Ryan Smith
April - September
The Trainwreck Union Presents: Switchyard. The Two-handed Engine edited by The Trainwreck Union
Holiday Funeral by Nick Mullins
Man Enough: a queer romance by Bill Roundy
Blood Seeds Become Poetry by Jonathan Hill
Capacity #6, 2005; by Theo Ellsworth
Nome Sang #1, 2007; by A. Vanderhoof
Gaylord Phoenix #4, 2007; Edie Fake
Little Moments edited by John Lowe
World Poetry: an anthology of verse from antiquity to our time edited by Katharine Washburn and John S. Major and Clifton Fadiman
Whispering in the Giant’s Ear: a frontline chronicle from Bolivia’s war on globalization by William Powers
The PIP Anthology of World Poetry of the 20th Century vol. 4, edited by Douglas Messerli
Stranger in a Strange Land: encounters in the disunited states by Gary Younge
Free Lunch #7, spring 2007; edited by Ron Offen
Rock Names by Adam Dolgins
Collapse: how societies choose to fail or succeed by Jared Diamond
Mad Night by Richard Sala
Gravedigger by Joseph Hansen
Nightwork by Joseph Hansen
New American Writing no. 24, 2006; edited by Maxine Chernoff and Paul Hoover
Beeswax Magazine no. 3, January 2007; edited by John Peck and Laureen Shifley
Slipstream no. 22, 2002; edited by Robert Borgatti, Livio Farallo, Dan Sicoli
Digerati: 20 contemporary poets in the virtual world edited by Steve Mueske
Gratitude to You for the Food of Our Abundance by Judy Grahn, art by Tona Luisa Osher
The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman
The Subtle Knife by Philip Pullman
The Amber Spyglass by Philip Pullman
Any Old Wolf by Murray Silverstein
Wind: a journal of writing and community no. 87, 2002; edited by Chris Green
Jessica Farm by Joshua Simmons
Dishwasher: one man’s quest to wash dishes in all fifty states by Pete Jordan
Dishwasher #16, 2007, by Pete Jordan
Nobody’s Angel by Thomas McGuane
The Living House of Oz by Edward Einhorn, illustrated by Eric Shanower
Mornings in Mexico / Etruscan Places by D. H. Lawrence
Home Places: contemporary Native American writing from Sun Tracks edited by Larry Evers and Ofelia Zepeda
Hiroshima Notes by Kenzaburo Oe, translated by David L. Swain and Toshi Yanezawa
Haircut and other stories by Ring Lardner
Up Above the World by Paul Bowles
Want List and other poems about aging by D. L. Emblen, with block prints by Linda Emblen
Fuff nos. 1, 4, 5, 6; by Jeffrey Lewis
Parthenon West Review issue 4, 2006; edited by David Holler and Chad Sweeney
The Journal vol. 26 no. 1, spring/summer 2002; edited by Kathy Fagan, Michelle Herman
Monday Night: a journal of literature and art no. 3, 2004; edited by Jessica Wickens, Rob Pierce, Sharon McGill, Allison Landa
The Loved One: an Anglo-American tragedy by Evelyn Waugh
The Man Who Would Marry Susan Sontag, and other intimate literary portraits of the Bohemian Era by Edward Field
Forever Free by Joy Adamson
Memoirs of a Bastard Angel: a fifty-year literary and erotic odyssey by Harold Norse
The Gay Metropolis: 1940 - 1996 by Charles Kaiser
Ragtime by E. L. Doctorow
A Primate’s Memoir by Robert M. Sapolsky
The Saint Ann’s Review: a journal of contemporary arts and letters summer/fall 2006, edited by Beth Bosworth
Twilight - Los Angeles, 1992: on the road: a search for American character by Anna Deavere Smith
The Twinkle Tales by L. Frank Baum, illustrations by Maginel Wright Enright
580 Split: a journal of arts and letters issue 9, 2007; Erika Staiti, managing editor
Indian Days of the Long Ago: Indian life and Indian lore by Edward S. Curtis
American Born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang
Anne Sexton: a biography by Diane Ward Middlebrook
Bay Poetics edited by Stephanie Young
Mine by Tung-Hui Hu
City of Night by John Rechy
Blue Latitudes: boldly going where Captain Cook has gone before by Tony Horwitz
October
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J. K. Rowling
Bastard Out of Carolina by Dorothy Allison
The Complete Peanuts, vol. 1: 1950 to 1952 by Charles Schulz
The Poem Behind the Poem: translating Asian poetry edited by Frank Stewart
Brandstetter and Others: five fictions by Joseph Hansen
Backtrack by Joseph Hansen
Swann’s Way by Marcel Proust, translated by C. K. Scott Moncrieff
A Boy in Winter by Maxine Chernoff
Southern Poetry Review 45:1, 2007?, Robert Parham, editor
Muelos: a stone age superstition about sexuality by Weston La Barre
Lucky by Gabrielle Bell
Asian American Poetry: the next generation edited by Victoria M. Chang
November - December
Meanwhile Take My Hand by Kirmen Uribe, translated by Elizabeth Macklin
Hunger: an unnatural history by Sharman Apt Russell
The Virginia Quarterly Review: a national journal of literature and discussion Fall 2006, vol. 92 no. 4, Ted Genoways, editor
The Mouse and His Child by Russell C. Hoban
Sunflower Splendor: three thousand years of Chinese poetry edited by Wu-Chi Liu and Irving Yucheng Lo
Thinking in Pictures and other reports from my life with autism by Temple Grandin
The Book of Boy Trouble: gay boy comics with a new attitude edited by Robert Kirby and David Kelly
Poetry International #11, 2006/2007, edited by Fred Moramaro
Amnesty International Summer 2007, vol. 33 no. 2, edited by Gwen Fitzgerald
Instant City: a literary exploration of San Francisco no. 4, 2007, editors: Gravity Goldberg and Eric Zassenhaus
Glitz by Elmore Leonard
Ceremonies by Essex Hemphill
I Love Led Zeppelin: pany-dropping comics by Ellen Forney
Volt: a magazine of the arts, vol. 13: The War Issue 2007, edited by Gillian Conoley
1491: new revelations of the Americas before Columbus by Charles C. Mann
Eye of the Whale: epic passage from Baja to Siberia by Dick Russell
Saturday, April 07, 2012
Best Poems of 2001
Rafael Alberti ….. The Dead Angels
Yehuda Amichai ….. The Narrow Valley
Paul Celan ….. “Husks of the finite …”
Gunter Eich ….. A Mixture of Routes
an Eskimo song ….. The Word-Fisher
Edward Field ….. To My Country
Louise Gluck ….. Screened Porch
Thom Gunn ….. In the Post Office ….. A Young Novelist
Lyn Hejinian ….. from Nights
Brad Leithauser ….. On a Seaside Mountain
Richard McCann ….. Nights of 1990
Leslie Norris ….. The Pit Ponies
Marlene Pearson ….. To Document a 20-second Hug …
Julien Poirier ….. “Slow astronauts are obliged”
Joanna Sondheim ….. “breeze within”
Alfonso Quijada Urias ….. There’s an Orange Tree Out There
Victor Valle ….. Teofilo
Alice Walker ….. from African Images: “A strange noise!” & “The native women”
Ray A. Young Bear ….. Always Is He Criticized
I heard Louise Gluck read “Screened Porch” this spring. She read in UC Berkeley’s Lunch Poems series. I was only able to make half of her hour reading as it was on my lunch break and getting up the hill from the public library where I work took ten minutes hoofing. It was a little strange hearing her say words I’ve repeated to myself many times, as though she had snuck the poem out of a place I’d thought hidden.
The Best Poems of 2011
The Best Poems of 2010
The Best Poems of 2009
The Best Poems of 2008
The Best Poems of 2007
The Best Poems of 2006
The Best Poems of 2005
The Best Poems of 2004
The Best Poems of 2000
Yehuda Amichai ….. The Narrow Valley
Paul Celan ….. “Husks of the finite …”
Gunter Eich ….. A Mixture of Routes
an Eskimo song ….. The Word-Fisher
Edward Field ….. To My Country
Louise Gluck ….. Screened Porch
Thom Gunn ….. In the Post Office ….. A Young Novelist
Lyn Hejinian ….. from Nights
Brad Leithauser ….. On a Seaside Mountain
Richard McCann ….. Nights of 1990
Leslie Norris ….. The Pit Ponies
Marlene Pearson ….. To Document a 20-second Hug …
Julien Poirier ….. “Slow astronauts are obliged”
Joanna Sondheim ….. “breeze within”
Alfonso Quijada Urias ….. There’s an Orange Tree Out There
Victor Valle ….. Teofilo
Alice Walker ….. from African Images: “A strange noise!” & “The native women”
Ray A. Young Bear ….. Always Is He Criticized
I heard Louise Gluck read “Screened Porch” this spring. She read in UC Berkeley’s Lunch Poems series. I was only able to make half of her hour reading as it was on my lunch break and getting up the hill from the public library where I work took ten minutes hoofing. It was a little strange hearing her say words I’ve repeated to myself many times, as though she had snuck the poem out of a place I’d thought hidden.
The Best Poems of 2011
The Best Poems of 2010
The Best Poems of 2009
The Best Poems of 2008
The Best Poems of 2007
The Best Poems of 2006
The Best Poems of 2005
The Best Poems of 2004
The Best Poems of 2000
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