Later than I'd like to have this posted, but I just got back from a two-week trip to Virginia. So here it finally is: 2011 by the numbers and in books.
I wrote 63 poems in 2011, which is down from 72 last year but still a really high number. And it works out to more than 1 poem per week, which has been my goal while in my MFA program.
I made 17 poetry submissions in 2011 and received 15 rejections. Not the greatest year for submissions, but not too shabby either. The 2 that worked out were Anti- picking up 1 of my TV poems and D.A. Powell selecting 2 of my poems to win the University of Iowa's John Logan Poetry Prize.
I only completed 1 piece of artwork in 2011. I worked on another, but between not having the best space to paint and trying to focus more on my writing, I'm just happy I managed to complete the 1 piece.
I read 29 books in 2011, which is way down from 41 last year, but there's a reason for that. I read 9 poetry chapbooks last year, compared to only 2 this year, and I also only read 5 non-poetry books last year, compared to 14 this year. So if I looked at the number of words or pages instead of books, I think I actually read more this year than last.
Here's what I read in 2011:
Griffin & Sabine: An Extraordinary Correspondence by Nick Bantock
The Bat-Poet by Randall Jarrell
If Birds Gather Your Hair for Nesting by Anna Journey
The Essential Haiku: Versions of Basho, Buson & Issa edited by Robert Hass (for school)
Longing Distance by Sarah Hannah
Kindred by Octavia Butler (a re-read) (for school) (twice)
The Emily Dickinson Reader by Paul Legault
There's Never Been a Day that Didn't Require Knives Like These by Jeff Griffin
Scary, No Scary by Zachary Schomburg
7-9 January by Jeff Griffin
New Exercises by Franck Andre Jamme
Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
Tongue by Rachel Contreni Flynn
Daddy's by Lindsay Hunter
Scorch Atlas by Blake Butler
The Easter Parade by Richard Yates
Download Helvetica for Free.com by Steve Roggenbuck
100 Love Sonnets by Pablo Neruda (a re-read)
Blankets by Craig Thompson
The Hot Tub/Glory Hole by Jon Leon/Dan Hoy
A Home at the End of the World by Michael Cunningham
Tea by D.A. Powell
The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
And my top five, in alphabetical order:
"I find people confusing. This is for two main reasons. The first main reason is people do a lot of talking without using any words. Siobhan says that if you raise one eyebrow it can mean lots of different things. It can mean 'I want to do sex with you' and it can also mean 'I think that what you just said is very stupid.'"
I had been meaning to read this book for years, and I wish I had picked it up sooner. It's so fantastic. It's a murder mystery but also the main character is writing the book, so there's a wonderful investigation (har har) into structure. The main character is autistic, and Haddon inhabits his voice beautifully. I can't recommend this book enough. It's moving and intelligent and such a joy to read.
"For year's after my father's death, when the subject of parents came up in conversation I would relate the information in a flat, matter-of-fact tone...
My dad's dead. He jumped in front of a truck.
...eager to detect in my listener the flinch of grief that eluded me."
This graphic memoir was my first foray into the genre, and it's excellent. I read Craig Thompson's Blankets after and was not impressed, but my interest in the graphic genres was enough to carry me through all 500 pages of that one. I'm actually teaching Fun Home in the upcoming semester, so we'll see how that goes, but I love the idea of a powerful work that (among other things) argues for the necessity of literature via text AND images.
"Talk into my bullet hole. Tell me I'm fine."
Just read it.
"I thought that maybe / If you aren't too busy, we could spend our lives / Parting in stations, promising to write / War and Peace, this time with feeling"
Part love poem, part elegy, Lerner's Mean Free Path is all awesome. The explicit discussions about writing poems and the struggles of doing so can feel a little obnoxious at points, but he just does it so damn well that you forgive him. Plus he seems to be doing so, discussing the ways language fails us, as a way of talking about the ways everything fails us and the ways we try to survive, which, in my book, is the only reason one should ever write about writing: as a way of writing about what's more important.
"I want to sit very calmly with my bangs curled...
But my pet monster has bitten my hand!
Life makes me sad.
So sad that I walk down the street etc."
And even though I just wrote that in my book one should only write about writing as a way of writing about what's more important, then you have Minnis' Poemland. The book is full of poetry that mocks poetry, that mocks the Poet, while at the same time admitting that the mocker herself is a poet, obviously. I could see some people being annoyed by this, but the book is often really funny. So as much as I sometimes found Lerner's writing about being a Poet pretentious, I also sometimes found Minnis' writing about being a poet so desperate to be unpretentious that it came off a bit juvenile. And of course Minnis can write all she wants about how stupid it is to write poems, but when she does so in verse, it can feel forced at times. Sort of, We Get It, you know? But again, the book is often hilarious and often incredibly sad and Minnis skillfully slips in some wonderful images amid the exclamation points and silliness. I read this book at a time when I was so sick of not being moved by the poems I was reading, and Poemland was exactly what I needed at that time.
