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Ece Ayhan - A Blind Cat Black and Orthodoxies (translated from the Turkish by Murat Nemet-Nejat) Amiri Baraka - Somebody Blew Up America & Other Poems Eavan Boland - An Origin Like Water: Collected Poems 1957-1987 Eavan Boland - Object Lessons: The Life of the Woman and the Poet in Our Time Kamau Brathwaite - Words Need Love Too Adrian Castro - Cantos to Blood and Honey Wanda Coleman - Mercurochrome: New Poems Billy Collins - Sailing Alone Around the Room: New & Selected Poems Victor Hernandez Cruz - Panoramas Lawrence Ferlinghetti, ed. - City Lights Pocket Poets Anthology Gary Mex Glazner, ed. - Poetry Slam: The Competitive Art of Performance Poetry Nathalie Handal, ed. - The Poetry of Arab Women: A Contemporary Anthology Edward Hirsch - Lay Bay the Darkness Barbara Hoffman - Griots at War John Hollander & Eavan Boland, eds. - Committed To Memory: 100 Best Poems To Memorize Paul Hunter - Breaking Ground June Jordan - Kissing God Goodbye Kenneth Koch - New Addresses Koon Woon - The Truth in Rented Rooms devorah major - Where River Meets Ocean Vladimir Mayakovsky, El Lissitzky, Patricia Railing - For the Voice Tony Medina and Louis Reyes Rivera, eds. - Bum Rush the Page: A Def Poetry Jam E. Ethelbert Miller - How We Sleep on the Nights We Don’t Make Love Czeslaw Milosz, ed. - A Book of Luminous Things: International Anthology of Poetry Thylias Moss - Last Chance for the Tarzan Holler Grace Paley - Begin Again: Collected Poems Robert Pinsky, ed. - Americans' Favorite Poems: The Favorite Poem Project Anthology Adrienne Rich - An Atlas of the Difficult World: Poems 1988-1991 Adrienne Rich - Dark Fields of the Republic: Poems 1991-1995 Luis J. Rodriguez - Trochemoche Jerome Rothenberg & Pierre Joris, editors - Poems for the Millennium: The University of California Book of Modern & Postmodern Poetry, Vol. 1: From Fin de Siecle to Negritude Jerome Rothenberg & Pierre Joris, editors - Poems for the Millennium: The University of California Book of Modern & Postmodern Poetry, Vol. 1: From Fin de Siecle to Negritude Jerome Rothenberg & Pierre Joris, editors - Poems for the Millennium: The University of California Book of Modern & Postmodern Poetry, Vol. 2: From Postwar to Millennium Jerome Rothenberg & Pierre Joris, editors - Poems for the Millennium: The University of California Book of Modern & Postmodern Poetry, Vol. 2: From Postwar to Millennium Ed Sanders - 1968: A History in Verse Frank Stanford - The Battlefield Where the Moon Says I Love You Timothy Steele - All the Fun's in How You Say a Thing Wislawa Szymborska - View with a Grain of Sand, Selected Poems Jordan and Amy Trachtenberg, editors - Verses That Hurt: Pleasure and Pain from the Poemfone Poets
(Sun and Moon, 1997) Astonishing book -- too dark for surrealism, a deep mined mind at work here, a subtle music. Two little books make one little book, and the tone haunts as the meaning slides. This is a Turkey where East & West collide, sink, only the word, a dusty column, a translator in glasses. I can honestly say I do not know why I like this book, which is why I like this book so much. --bh paperback
(Small Press Distribution, 2003) Amiri Baraka is “the Father of contemporary Black Literature,” the Beat poet LeRoi Jones, the former Poet Laureate of New Jersey who was ousted only when the State Legislature abolished that position, and still the newest kid on the block when he starts swinging with his controversial masterpiece, “Somebody Blew Up America.” In performance it’s woven into the strains of Monk’s Mysteriosoas performed by his band, Blue Ark; in the book it’s just the words, thanks. --bh paperback
(W.W. Norton & Company, 1997) Eavan Boland is the model for poet in the next millennium. The first Irish woman poet to surface, she flips the classic/romantic mode that has been poetry's underlying conceit -- woman as object/subject -- to woman as Maker. There is no better place to begin than with this collection of five early volumes of her work. --bh paperback
(W.W. Norton & Company, 1996) If her poetic voice captures you, you'll want to read this, Eavan Boland's prose exploration “through autobiography and argument, [of] a woman's life in Ireland together with a poet's work.” --ms paperback
(Small Press Distribution, 2000) Kamau Brathwaite is Poet Laureate of the Caribbean. He is of the place and the sea and he is language in all forms natural which includes: cyberrealities. He is indescribable television -- I’d start with his new book Words Need Love Too (House of Nehisi), then try Trenchtown Rock (Lost Roads) and his dialogue with Nathaniel Mackey, conVersations. --bh paperback
(Coffee House Press, 1997) Read the words of new poet singing like a cucu and bopping flesh back to life. That'd be Cuba in your backyard, that'd be Miami floating pinks in your blues. That'd be Adrian Castro pumping the bandwidth to a conversation, and you are the participating aunt, the munching uncle, the cigar that lights the way. Cantos to Blood and Honey is a blessing, a dance. a performance, a ritual, a hurricane. --bh paperback
(Black Sparrow Press, 2001) Wanda Coleman is High Priestess of Poetry, her work a hypnotic blend of form and magic -- and in this newest collection, nominated for the National Book Award, she engages life & color in contemporary society -- and in a fascinating collection of transliterations & adaptations, the mostly dead, mostly white male poets who preceded her. --ms paperback
(Random House, 2001) Before he became Poet Laureate, before The New York Times called him “most popular poet in America,” & before the publishing industry brouhaha about his move from indie university press to mainstream, Billy Collins was regarded by many as a gentle, accessible & thoroughly enjoyable poet -- and this new collection is your chance to see why. --ms hardcover
(Coffee House Press, 1997) Here's the fresh roasted off Coffee House Press, stepping to the heartbeat of la poesia nueva: Victor Hernandez Cruz, the maestro of Puerto Rican poetics, bringing a new view to the Spanish-English dialogue in Panoramas. This book is a mature work, big vistas, acute and incisive, rolling in poetry play but serious serious. --bh paperback
(City Lights Books, 1995) Celebrating 40 years of publishing the Pocket Poets Series -- those small square volumes known for introducing Beats, leftists & avant garde poets to readers -- this sampler reveals the breadth of the series, which also included books by Vosnesensky, Pablo Picasso (!), William Carlos Williams & Robert Bly. --ms hardcover
(Manic D Press, 2000) This anthology documents the socio-literary phenomenon of poetry slam in 100 poems from slam-winners all over the US, interspersed with articles on the history of the slam movement, the rules of competition, tips on organizing slams & performance tours. It's the first collection that spans the nationwide slam scene, a necessity if you're into it. --ms paperback
(Interlink Books, 2000) Here it is, with a knowledgeable intro and a big heart, the book that will strip the veil off and allow the silence of Arab women to become the Past. From Bahrain to Morocco, Algeria to Yemen -- an important book. --bh paperback
(Random House, 2003) Ed Hirsch is a fine, fine poet, an ambassador for poetry, and was recently appointed Director of the Guggenheim Foundation. He plunges directly into madness and love and pain as if they are things you can talk about. Which he does, in his poetry. His newest book, Lay Back the Darkness, is a fine place to start; he’s at the top of his game. --bh paperback
(Indiana University Press, 2000) Maybe you haven't been bit by the griot bug (which means you didn't listen when we said Griots & Griottes by Tom Hale was required reading) -- but the intrigue of officially sanctioned vs. traditionally sanctioned facing-off in Keita, Mali makes for some of the most fascinating reading of the year. Not least of which because author Hoffman has actually been accepted into the griot caste in Mali. --bh hardcover
(Turtle Point Press, 1996) This collection offers numerous opportunities to relearn the nearly forgotten pleasure of reciting memorized poetry, from storytelling favorites like Ernest L. Thayer's “Casey at the Bat” to classic poems like Rudyard Kipling's “If” and Robert Frost's “The Road Less Traveled” to short modern lyrics selected for performance. --ms hardcover
(Silverfish Review Press, 2004) Paul Hunter is a publisher of handmade limited-edition books, a man who lives close to the land in the Pacific Northwest, and a poet whose book, Breaking Ground, “honors the intelligence of language” and contains almost no punctuation, honoring the Thomas More fragment attributed to none other than Shakespeare. --ms paperback
(Anchor, 1997) June Jordan is, of course, the creator of “Poetry for the People,” the student revolutionary poetry posse, an outgrowth of her teaching at Berkeley. In this, her most recent book, she dedicates many of her poems to the young poets, poems on the Gulf War, Clearance Thomas, Lebanon, Bosnia -- direct, razor-sharp analysis, with hooks and choruses, yes. And twining amidst this politico dynamo are other poems, about love and longing, the human face of politics, the face we all share. This is inspired, inspiring, work. --bh paperback
(Knopf, 2001) Awarded the new Phi Beta Kappa Poetry Prize, this collection addresses the elements of Kenneth Koch's personal history in witty apostrophes that are both informal in tone & deep enough to reward rereading. “To My Twenties,” “To Jewishness,” “To Breath”... Koch infuses a great deal of life into what could be a chilly, formal sort of oration & the results are delightful. --ms paperback
(Kaya Press, 1998) Koon Woon's single room becomes the world; his vision shared with Whitman's American epic, Li Po's physical metaphysics, the dark victory of Anne Sexton (“Now you know what poetry / Essentially is:” he writes, “it is the communication / of pain.”). I've never read anything quite like this poetry: harrowingly perfect, revolutionary, and still. This is his first book. --bh paperback
(City Lights Books, San Francisco Poet Laureate series, 2003) devorah major is the current Poet laureate of San Francisco, and City Lights’ SF Poets Laureate series is another example of how forward Lawrence Ferlinghetti and City Lights are in defining US poetics. Where River Meets Ocean includes her Inaugural Addess, an arresting blend of poetry, prose, rhetoric. --bh paperback
(MIT Press, 2000) Looking for the perfect $45 stocking stuffer? This sumptuous Futurist three-volume set is destined to be an Ultimate Possession. Lissitzky's design is sensational, matching Vlad's poetry dream for scream. One volume in Russian, another in English, and then some intriguingly great critco-interpretation. Valuable! --bh paperback (boxed set)
(Three Rivers Press/Random House, 2001) From John Rodriguez to Amiri Baraka, Gwendolyn Brooks to Beau Sia, Umar Bin Hassan to DJ Renegade, I mean this is from and to ’till your ears turn blue, a universe that turns the hinge on the millennium like a can-opener. And once you open this particular can o’words, Pandora, they will never ever fit back in. --bh paperback
(Curbstone Press, 2004) Miller’s new book makes a good case for his being Mayor of DC (he’s lived in Washington for years, where he professes and directs at Howard). The work is direct and atilt, politics lurks in love, they sing. When he reads, it’s song, too, a rev and rush into silence and thought. --bh paperback
(Harcourt, 1998) Nobel Laureate Czeslaw Milosz has selected 300 poems from around the world past & present for this “book of enchantments,” choosing poems that are “short, clear, readable... loyal to reality”... from Li Po to Li Young-Lee, Gary Snyder to Wislawa Szymborska, Elizabeth Bishop to Tomas Transtromer, May Swenson to Steve Kowit, Walt Whitman to Raymond Carver... --ms paperback
(Persea Books, 1999) Last Chance for the Tarzan Holler is Thylias Moss's sixth book, her first after grabbing one of the MacArthur genius grants. Her work has changed -- moved further out, encyclopedia-ized. This is a thin volume, but spectacularly dense, provocative (is her cheating poem about Lazurus “cheating” death? or her and her husband's affairs?). The long, more formal open-field works, particulately “Advice,” “Sour Milk,” and the title poem, all break new ground. I want the book! I want the movie! --bh paperback
(Farrar, Strous & Giroux, 2001) Grace lives the life and the novels exist like she's talking to you, you read them and you'll laugh and seamlessly become a better person. You'll get arrested with her, and share meals, and learn what mishpukah is. The whole mishpukah, it's the all of all of us, and you read these poems, they are thoughts post-revolutionary, in the center of the struggle. --bh paperback
(W.W. Norton & Co., 1999) When Pinsky was Poet Laureate, he asked Americans to share their favorite poems & tell how the poems had touched their lives -- and the result was both inspiring proof that poetry matters, and a national portrait at the turn of the century, in this book and in the audio/video archive of people reading & talking about their choices. --ms hardcover
(Norton, 1991) “Here is a map of our country,” she says, “where do we see it from is the question.” She is a master cartographer, she maps the terrible beauties of life on this continent at the end of this century in poems so full of truth & courage & soul they burn. Do as I did -- live with this book, carry it around with you for a few months & read a bit of it whenever you're moving around in the difficult world. It's that important. It will change you. --ms paperback
Rich's newer collection of poems. paperback
(Curbstone Press, 1998) In which the cholo meets the rabbi, the Bald Cricket (to try to keep the lice from propagating, bro) gives up booze, and Spanish -- and English -- are spoken with an East LA accent. Trochemoche (trot-ch'e-mot-ch'e), “helter-skelter” in Spanish, is indeed, all over the place. But luckily our guide is the renowned founder of Tia Chucha Press, a poet who digs his sweet Chicano Chicago so deep that it feels like home all over the place, where we are all born poets and should be respected as such. --bh paperback
(University of California Press, 1995) Pierre Joris & Jerry Rothenberg's Poems for the Millennium is the first of a two-volume set that situates good ol' po as feisty po, from an internationalist perspective. While missing some pop and perf links, and some political stew, this book slings out a big banner and fills up the void with words. Number One. --bh hardcover
(University of California Press, 1995) paperback
(University of California Press, 1998) Volume 1 was a must have. The new volume of Poems for the Millennium from University of California Press is essential as well. Rothenberg & Joris have reconstituted poetry as something to delve into and savor, as an international conspiracy open to all. Highly recommended. --bh hardcover
(University of California Press, 1998) paperback
(Black Sparrow Press, 1997) This investigative poetics text contains the most amazing year of the century seen afresh and personal as Ed Sanders led the Fugs through the year of Chicago and RFK assassination. Here we are in the year of the Death of the Beat Generation -- Huncke, Ginsberg, Burroughs. But we have he who has refused to be burnt out, torch-bearer Ed Sanders, providing us with a way forward through the past. --bh paperback
(Lost Roads, 2000) What can you say about a 400-page book that is not only a single poem but a single sentence? Seeing through the eyes of a mindreading poet-type Ozark kid who hangs out across the race line is like discovering a new language. A beautiful new version of the long out-of-print classic - if you buy one for a gift, you'd better buy one for yourself, ’cause you’ll never give it away. --bh paperback
(Ohio University Press, 1999) Subtitled “An explanation of meter & versification” and with a rebus cover, here's the book for deep reading of rhythms. Steele doesn't shy away from metrical paradox, uses the variable beat as a way into poetry. Bravo!! --bh paperback
(Translated from the Polish by Stanislaw Baranczak & Clare Cavanagh, Harvest Books, 1995) This selection of poems from seven of her books is a wonderful introduction to Szymborska, who is not well enough known in the West, even since she received the Nobel Prize in 1996. The English translations are elegant, poetry themselves, & the poems are transcendant revelations, irony, incantation, crystal, wit. --ms paperback
(St. Martin's, 1997) Masquerading simply as a collection of wonderful, accessible poems, this book rates a place at the top of the antho ladder because it is the first major work to lay out the perf-po/spoken word aesthetic nakedly on the page and say, read for yourself. This is poetry that works. --bh paperback
