Seven Poetry Books at Year End

In the great tradition of year-end lists, I've decided to do seven quick reviews --or anyway, reactions -- to books of poetry that I read this year and fell head over heels for.

I won't claim this is a "best" list. I couldn't make one. I read a lot of poetry but I'm far from a comprehensive reader. I've read, for instance, only one of the books nominated for the GG this year. And nothing at all nominated for the National Book Award. Some of the things I read this year weren't published this year, though all are fairly recent, and still (I think) in print.

So why do it at all? Well, people do ask me for recommendations occasionally. And more often, someone will say they like my poetry, even though they don't like modern poetry. Since my poetry is pretty mainstream, I suspect they simply don't know modern poetry, and this is my chance to be evangelical about it. Here goes:

Read this stuff. It's better than it was in high school, honest. No one is going to ask you "what do you think the poet is trying to say?" as if the poet had a tracheotomy and you were about to be required to put your finger over the hole. No one will require an essay on what the dead gopher symbolizes.

Yes, it's an acquired taste, but it's also immediate as strawberries. Try it, you might like it.

The seven books, in no particular order, are:

The Probable World -- Lawrence Raab
Always Filling, Always Full -- Margaret Chula
Apocrypha of Light -- Lorna Crozier
Short Talks -- Anne Carson
The Leaf and the Cloud -- Mary Oliver
The Moon in Pines: Zen Haiku -- Johnathon Clements, translator
Beowulf -- Seamus Heaney, translator

And they'll be appearing here over the next month or so. Hope you like.