Beginning 1 September 2009 I will read a book of poetry each day for a year, writing 140-character reviews on Twitter, at http://twitter.com/yearofpoetry and on Molossus. I hope to accomplish more than the compilation of 365 pithy back cover blurbs, to truly experiment with the medium as an effective venue for contemporary book reviewing.
I remember once, during my early interest in poetry, explaining to my mother in a bookstore that collections of poetry shouldn’t be read through—that poems should be enjoyed by themselves and that collections, even by single authors, were basically anthologies of one hit wonders. By graduate school I was vehemently opposed to the one hit wonder made popular by the MFA—what Donald Hall calls the McPoem—and interested in interconnected sequences of lyrics and the framework that connected them. I read collections straight through, often in a single sitting, trying to understand how the poems worked together.
As an online broadside, our interest in electronic media is obvious. As a critic, I am especially interested in new networks of media exposure: blogs, Facebook, Twitter, and the like. With the recent upsurge in literary content on Twitter—ranging from Penguin Poetry news updates to the alleged musings Edgar Allen Poe—I wondered if poetry, a medium known for its succinctness, could be effectively reviewed in 140 characters. Rather than experimenting with an occasional Twitter review, I have decided to commit myself to developing an effective format for the medium, by reviewing a collection each day for a year.
I have selected the first twenty-three days’ selection of poetry collections, courtesy of Copper Canyon, Enitharmon Press, FSG, Graywolf, the Poetry Translation Centre, University of Oklahoma Press, University of Pittsburgh Press, and Whit Press. I’ll update the list as it continues to develop. Selections are, for the most part, recent or forthcoming publications, and reflect Molossus’ emphasis on world literature. Publishers and the media are welcome to participate, by sending books to our editorial address.
Do follow me on Twitter!
David Shook, Editor
An Update – 20 September 2009
I’m now twenty days into the Year of Poetry experiment. I’ve lagged behind a few days, owing to an out-of-state funeral, review deadlines for other magazines, and a few other projects, but I’ve always caught up within a few days. I’ve read some really good books; my favorites, so far: A Time in Xanadu, by Lars Gustafsson, The Scattered Papers of Penelope, by Katerina Anghelaki-Rooke, and Look There, by Agi Mishol. It’s also been nice reading the Poetry Translation Centre/Enitharmon chapbook boxset—I just wish the selections were longer.
Since its initial conception, the experiment has evolved. The first day I realized that 140 characters would not allow for any quotations, which I deem crucial to the quality review. I made the decision to quote 140 characters of verse immediately following their respective 140 character reviews, and I think that those short fragments have interacted interestingly.
The most difficult thing about these reviews is the most obvious: their length. It is difficult in 140 characters to balance the good and bad qualities of any work—especially when that work is for the most part, thus far, good. My reviews sound a little too much like back-cover blurbs, despite my best efforts to achieve balance. Likewise, with the few books I haven’t liked, it’s difficult to do justice to their better qualities, something I think important.
I’ve now announced by next nine titles, and I’m preparing to update the list again soon. Do feel free to comment here or on Twitter, to let me know what you think of the brief reviews, of how they could be improved, and if they’re at all useful.
Thanks for following the Year of Poetry!
David Shook, Editor
A Week with Old Friends – 14 January 2010
I’ve now been reading a book of poetry a day for over 100 days, and an update on the project is long overdue. I’ve been more consistent than I expected, catching up quickly when I lag a day or two behind (like now). The 140-character review quickly led to my addition of its 140-character excerpt counterpart, in which I try to allow—as much as possible—the poets’ work to speak for itself. In practice, it’s nearly impossible to generate anything more meaningful than a back cover blurb. (Kwame Dawes suggested the experiment would be excellent training for a future career as book blurber.) 140 characters is just enough to comment on a book in most general sense or to comment on one more specific feature, seldom both. Likewise, it’s nearly impossible to include both the positive and negative aspects of a work.
What then, is the value of the Twitter review? It is, I suppose, the value of a single, hopefully singular observation about a book of poetry. The relationship between criticism and marketing is ever murkier as both move online, and the Twitter review can be viewed as a subversion of a social marketing application for the purpose of social criticism or as a corruption of more traditional criticism for the sake of marketing. More realistically I think it is probably something of both.
While I continue this project I hope to write more, citing specific examples from actual tweets to demonstrate the difficulty and nuance of the task. In the meantime, I’d like to introduce next week’s selection of books. During my processing I began to wonder what it would be like to review a book that I knew more intimately than one I had just read that day—as that is, especially for a poetry review, somewhat of an unusual time constraint. So rather than choose from the new collections I gratefully receive from their publishers, I decided to select a week’s worth of collections I know well. These have been selected arbitrarily, from a single shelf in my office, and don’t particularly represent my taste beyond the fact that I own and have read them at least once. Though most of these poets are American (most men, most white, as well), I suggest that the diversity of the greater list, available here, better reflects the international character of Molossus.
Here’s the list of old friends:
136. Time and Materials, Robert Hass. (Ecco, 2007) $22.95
137. Without, Donald Hall (Mariner Books, 1999) $13
138. On Purpose, Nick Laird (Faber & Faber, 2007) £9.99
139. What the Living Do, Marie Howe (W.W. Norton, 1999) $11
140. the book for my brother, Tomaž Šalamun (Harcourt, 2006) $16
141. Rose, Li-Young Lee (BOA Editions Ltd, 1986) $14.50
142. The Singing, C.K. Williams (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2003) $20
Thanks for following Year of Poetry on Twitter and Molossus. I’ll continue to discuss the project here in the near future.
DS
Year of Poetry Book Selections
- No Shelter, Pura López-Colomé, tr. Forrest Gander (Graywolf Press) $15
- ]Open Interval[, Lyrae Van Clief-Stefanon (U Pittsburgh P) $14.95
- Sestets, Charles Wright (FSG) $23
- The Dream We Carry, Olav. H. Hauge, tr. Robert Bly & Robert Hedin (Copper Canyon) $18
- A Wake for the Living, Radmila Lazi`c, tr. Charles Simic (Graywolf Press) $14
- Before Saying Any of the Great Words, David Huerta, tr. Mark Schafer (Copper Canyon) $20
- The Scattered Papers of Penelope, Katerina Anghelaki-Rooke, ed. Karen Van Dyck (Graywolf Press) $15
- A Time in Xanadu, Lars Gustafsson, tr. John Irons (Copper Canyon) $16
- Look There, Agi Mishol, tr. Lisa Katz (Graywolf Press) $14
- Too Long a Solitude, James Ragan (U Oklahoma P) $12.95
- Burn and Dodge, Sharon Dolin (U Pittsburgh P) $14
- She Says, Vénus Khoury-Ghata, tr. Marilyn Hacker (Graywolf Press) $15
- Prayers Like Shoes, Ruth Forman (Whit Press) $16.95
- Poems, Al-Saddiq Al-Raddi, tr. Sarah Maguire (PTC/Enitharmon) £4
- Poems, Corsino Fuentes, tr. Sean O’Brien (PTC/Enitharmon) £4
- Poems, Farzaneh Khojandi, tr. Jo Shapcott (PTC/Enitharmon) £4
- Poems, Kajal Ahmad, tr. Mimi Khalvati (PTC/Enitharmon) £4
- Poems, Maxamed Xaashi Dhamac ‘Gaarriye’, tr. W.N. Herbert (PTC/Enitharmon) £4
- Poems, Noshi Gillani, tr. Lavinia Greenlaw (PTC/Enitharmon) £4
- Poems, Coral Bracho, tr. Katherine Pierpoint (PTC/Enitharmon) £4
- Poems, Gagan Gill, tr. Jane Duran (PTC/Enitharmon) £4
- Poems, Toeti Heraty, tr. Carole Satymurti (PTC/Enitharmon) £4
- Poems, Partaw Naderi, tr. Sarah Maguire (PTC/Enitharmon) £4
- The Beaded Curtain, Megan O’Reilly Green (Spire Press, Inc.) $8
- Stupid Hope, Jason Shinder (Graywolf Press) $15
- Crazy Love, Pamela Uschuk (Wings Press) $16
- 67 Mogul Miniatures, Raza Ali Hasan (Autumn House Press)
- Flowered Landscape, Sharif S. Elmusa (Interlink Books) $15
- New Caribbean Poetry, ed. Kei Miller (Carcanet Press) £12.95
- Reservoir Voices, Brendan Kennelly (Bloodaxe Books) £8.95
- Hope’s Hospice, Kwame Dawes & Joshua Cogan (Peepal Tree Press) £7.99
- Prague with Fingers of Rain, Vítězslav Nezval (Bloodaxe Books) £8.95
- For the Fighting Spirit of the Walnut, Takashi Hiraide (New Directions) $17.95
- Rock Candy, Jenifer Rae Vernon (West End Press) $12.95
- Desolation of the Chimera, Luis Cernuda (White Pine Press) $17
- If I Were Another, Mahmoud Darwish (Farrar, Straus and Giroux) $26
- Pluriverse, Ernesto Cardenal (New Directions) $17.95
- To Be Read in 500 Years, Albert Goldbarth (Graywolf Press) $16
- In Advance of All Parting, Ansie Baird (White Pine Press) $16
- Archicembalo, G.C. Waldrep (Tupelo Press) $16.95
- The Hymns of Job and Other Poems, Maya Bejerano (BOA Editions LTD) $16.95
- As When, In Season, Jim Schley (Marick Press) $14.95
- Mountain Tasting, Santoke Teneda (White Pine Press) $16
- New Wings, Robyn Bolam (Bloodaxe) £8.95
- Night Mowing, Chard deNiord (U Pittsburgh P) $14
- Body Bereft, Antjie Krog (Umuzi) R100
- Over, Jane Draycott (Carcanet) £9.95
- Flinch of Song, Jennifer Militello (Tupelo Press) $16.95
- Furniture, Lorraine Mariner (Picador Poetry) £8.99
- Tell Me Lies, Adrian Mitchell (Bloodaxe) £10.95
- My Floating Mother, City, Kazuko Shiraishi (New Directions) $14.95
- My Brother is Getting Arrested Again, Daisy Fried (U Pittsburgh P) $14
- Flowers of Perhaps, Ra’hel (Toby Press) $14.95
- Lobster with Ol’ Dirty Bastard, Michael Cirelli (Hanging Loose Press) $16
- This Clumsy Living, Bob Hicok (U Pittsburgh P) $14
- Get Some, Sonja Yelich (Auckland UP)
- Zero Readership, Filip Marinovich (Ugly Duckling Presse) $15
- Between the Floating Mist, Ryōkan (White Pine Press) $14
- Pulling a Dragon’s Teeth, Shao Wei (U Pittsburgh P) $12.95
- Very, Annemarie Austin (Bloodaxe) £9.95
- for that return passage, Lisa Birman (Hollow Deck Press)
- The Book of Whispering in the Projection Booth, Joshua Marie Wilkinson (Tupelo Press) $16.95
- Sexless Solitude and Other Poems, R.K. Singh. (Prakash Book Depot) ₨98
- Seaway: New and Selected Poems, Todd Swift (Salmon Poetry) €15
- Plan B, Paul Muldoon. (Enitharmon) ₤15
- Big Pink Umbrella, Susan Millar DuMars (Salmon Poetry) €12
- 100 Poems, S S Prasad (STD Publications) ₨100/$10
- The Upshot, Anne Rouse (Bloodaxe) ₤8.95
- Object Found, Gustáv Báger, tr. Thomas Kabdébo (Salmon Poetry) €12
- Dropping the Bow: Poems of Ancient India (White Pine) $15
- The Most Marvelous Piece of Luck, Greg Williamson (The Waywiser Press) $15.95
- The Graph of Roads, Gilles Cyr (Guernica) $15 Canada
- Orpheus on the Red Line, Theodore Deppe (Tupelo Press) $16.95
- Majestic Nights: Love Poems of Bengali Women (White Pine) $15
- Diary of a Wave Outside the Sea, Dunya Mikhail, tr. Elizabeth Winslow & Dunya Mikhail. (New Directions) $16.95
- This Side of Early, Naomi Ayala (Curbstone Press) $13.95
- Darwin’s Ark, Philip Appleman (Indiana U P) $19.95
- Carta Marina, Ann Fisher-Wirth (Wings Press) $16
- Forgiven Submarine, Ruxandra Cesereanu & Andrei Codrescu (Black Widow Press) $19.95
- Breaking the Willow: Poems of Parting, Exile, Separation, & Reunion (White Pine) $14
- Richesses: Francophone Songwriter Poets, ed. & tr. Aidan Hayes (SouthWord Editions) $22.55
- In Train, Peter van de Kamp (Salmon Poetry) €12
- The Steel Veil, Jack Marshall (Coffee House Press) $16
- Connotations, Maurice Kenny (White Pine) $15
- To Speak, to Tell You? Sabine Sicaud, tr. Norman R. Shapiro (Black Widow Press) $18.95
- Written on the Sky: Poems from the Japanese, tr. Kenneth Rexroth (New Directions) $12.95
- Letters to Guns, Brendan Constantine (Red Hen Press) $17.95
- Infinity Blues, Ryan Adams (Akashic Books) $15.95
- Ezekiel’s Wheels, Shirley Kaufman (Copper Canyon Press) $14
- Continental Shelf, Fred D’Aguiar (Carcanet) ₤9.95
- The Mother/Child Papers, Alicia Suskin Ostriker (U Pittsburgh P) $14.95
- The Lost Leader, Mick Imlah (Faber) ₤9.99
- If Birds Gather Your Hair for Nesting, Anna Journey (The U of Georgia P) $16.95
- All-American Poem, Matthew Dickman (The American Poetry Review) $14
- An Aquarium, Jeffrey Yang (Graywolf Press) $15
- The Floating Bridge, David Shumate (U Pittsburgh P) $14
- King of a Hundred Horsemen, Marie Étienne, tr. Marilyn Hacker (FSG) $25
- Selected Poems, Aldo Vianello, tr. Richard Burns, Peter Jay, Linda Lappin (Anvil) £9.95
- In Daily Accord, Frank Golden (Salmon Poetry) €12
- The Endarkenment, Jeffrey McDaniel (U Pittsburgh P) $14
- 77 Love Sonnets, Garrison Keillor (Common Good Books) $15
- Unrest, Joanna Rawson (Graywolf Press) $15
- Baghdad Mon Amour, Salah Al Hamdani (Curbstone Press) $15
- The Journey to Le Repentir, Mark McWatt (Peepal Tree) £9.99
- Elsewhere, Yasmine Alwan (Red Dust) $8
- Purgatory, Raúl Zurita (U California P) $19.95
- Firefly Under the Tongue, Coral Bracho, tr. Forrest Gander (New Directions) $16.95
- Edward Hopper, Ernest Farrés, tr. Lawrence Venuti (Graywolf) $16
- Word Comix, Charlie Smith (W.W. Norton) $23.95
- jealous witness, Andrei Codrescu (Coffee House Press) $19.95
- Points of Departure, Paul Hogan (White Pine Press) $16
- Selected Poems, Bernard O’Donoghue (Faber & Faber) £12.99
- Blood Dazzler, Patricia Smith (Coffee House Press) $16
- Time to Die Alone and Other Poems, Balbir Singh (ABC Group) ₨125
- In a Boston Night, Sasenarine Persaud (TSAR) $16.95
- Westlake: Poems, Wayne Kaumualii Westlake (U Hawai’i P) $17.95
- Caribbean Blues & Love’s Geneology, Dannabang Kuwabong (TSAR) $16.95
- Things I Have Known, A.B. Spellman (Coffee House Press) $16
- Mister Skylight, Ed Skoog (Copper Canyon) $15
- Duties of an English Foreign Secretary, Macgregor Card (Fence Books) $16
- Save the Last Dance, Gerald Stern (W.W. Norton) $13.95
- staring at the animal, John Cross (Tupelo Press) $9.95
- Leaf, Sunlight, Asphalt, Ben Howard (Salmon Poetry) €12
- Aim Straight at the Fountain and Press Vaporize, Elizabeth Marie Young (Fence Books) $16
- A River Dies of Thirst: Journals, Mahmoud Darwish (Archipelago Books) $16
- transcript, Heimrad Bäcker (Dalkey Archive Press) $16.95
- The Shadow of Sirius, W.S. Merwin (Copper Canyon Press) $16
- sentences, Johannah Rodgers (Red Dust) $10
- Bougainvillea Ringplay, Marion Bethel (Peepal Tree) £7.99
- Seasons of Lotus, Seasons of Bone, Matthew Shenoda (BOA Editions) $16
- The Beginning of the Fields, Angela Shaw (Tupelo Press) $16.95
- Leavings, Wendell Berry (Counterpoint Press) $23
- Rising, Falling, Hovering, C.D. Wright (Copper Canyon Press) $17
- Then, Something, Patricia Fargnoli (Tupelo Press) $16.95
- Stranger, Laura Sims (Fence Books) $16
- Time and Materials, Robert Hass. (Ecco, 2007) $22.95
- Without, Donald Hall (Mariner Books, 1999) $13
- On Purpose, Nick Laird (Faber & Faber, 2007) £9.99
- What the Living Do, Marie Howe (W.W. Norton, 1999) $11
- the book for my brother, Tomaž Šalamun (Harcourt, 2006) $16
- Rose, Li-Young Lee (BOA Editions Ltd, 1986) $14.50
- The Singing, C.K. Williams (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2003) $20
- The Second Blush, Molly Peacock (W.W. Norton) $13.95
- type O negative, Joël Barraquiel Tan (Red Hen Press) $19.95
- Entrepôt, Mark McMorris (Coffee House Press) $16
- Hello Sunshine, Ryan Adams (Akashic Books) $15.95
- Bestiary, Elise Paschen (Red Hen Press) $16.95
- Praises and Offenses, Aída Cartagena Portalatín, Ángela Hernández Núñez, Ylonka Nacidit-Perdomo, tr. Judith Kerman (BOA Editions) $16
- The Stranger Manual, Catie Rosemurgy (Graywolf Press) $15
- Catch Light, Sarah O’Brien (Coffee House Press) $16
- Man at Leisure, Alexander Trocchi (Oneworld Classics) $16.95
- The Wave-Maker, Elizabeth Spires (W.W. Norton) $13.95
- Saint Nobody, Amy Lemmon (Red Hen Press) $18.95
- Long Division, Andrea Cohen (Salmon Poetry/Dufour Editions) €12
- The Ravenous Audience, Kate Durbin (Black Goat/Akashic Books) $15.95
I’m revamping the Year of Poetry during my travel in Burundi. The first six titles:
- Snapshots from Istanbul, Jacqueline Bishop (Peepal Tree Press) £7.99
- darkacre, Greg Hewett (Coffee House Press) $16
- Self-Portrait with Expletives, Kevin Clark (Louisiana State UP) $16.95
- Fruitcake, Selima Hill (Bloodaxe Books/Dufour Editions) £9.95
- Dead Ahead, Ben Doller (Fence Books) $16
- living must bury, Josie Sigler (Fence Books) $16
[…] (most men, most white, as well), I suggest that the diversity of the greater list, available here, better reflects the international character of […]
I am happy my collection of poems, SEXLESS SOLITUDE AND OTHER POEMS, has been included in this year’s poetry book selection.
Thank you very much.
R.K.Singh
It’s pleasing to know that there are thinkers in my country keeping the great culture alive. Even I’m a published Hindi poet. To catch a glimpse of my work, visit- http://souravroy.com/poems/
Keep Walking…
Dear David Shook
If you read each day a poem you liked
How about someone like me
Wrote almost every day a poem of every kind.
During three yesrs of her life
She wrote 11-12 poetry collections
All in Amazon books stay alive.
Sylva Portoian,MD
[…] (most men, most white, as well), I suggest that the diversity of the greater list, available here, better reflects the international character of […]
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