It’s April, so I went to the poetry section and started picking out books by their covers. Soon, I had a stack of eight books by authors I knew little about. That is not difficult, because while I read a lot of books, poetry is not one of my go to sections.
So this blog is about what I found, and what I think of them based on their covers. If you know these authors, leave me a note and let me know which I should read first, or if you have a favorite poem I should bookmark.
First off the shelf was For All We Know by Ciaran Carson. It’s printed on high quality paper, and the back cover promises a lot! The poet’s face is shown through an indigo filter, and he looks very serious and spylike. It claims a story like connection full of intrigue and politics. It looks like poetry, but maybe it is a thriller?
Next Up is The Other Voice. A Collection of 20th Century Women’s Poetry in Translation. It’s published by W.W. Norton, a publisher I hold in high esteem and was released in 1976. 1976 is an interesting time to curate a collection of female poets. So much was happening in the women’s movement at that time., I have never heard of Leah Goldberg, Ada Negri, Cheng Min, Fadwa Tuqan or any of the others. The book has over 180 pages of the words of women from around the world, and frankly I am very curious about what they say.
I have not read Nikita Gill, but I have shelved her work often. t I am excited to open Wild Embers and immerse myself in her words. The cover is the outline of a woman surrounded by dots of color that fade into black as they pull away from her. The back cover has the line “you cannot burn away what has always been aflame.” This is at the top of my TBR stack.
No bookstore has perfect shelving, and next I found a collection of essays by Denise Levertov, published by New Directions. Levertov is a poet, and this collection assembles her statements about art and its nature. The back cover recommends this book for both the writer and the reader of poetry. I am not the former, but as I describe these books, I am thinking hard about becoming the latter.
Next up is 100 Great Poems by Women, published by Ecco. This 1995 book pulls from the 15th century to contemporary poets. I am always leery of anyone who says these are the greatest 100 anything, but I am sure there are good pieces in here. Clearly part of the requirement was to have women be brief because 100 poets in 180 pages is not a lot of space.
The Other Side/El Otro Lado by Julia Alvarez leapt off the shelf and into my hand. I love her prose and have read nearly everything she has written, but not this book! Published by Dutton in 1995, this collection covers the breadth of Alvarez’s poetry. And the cover is worth a second look. It is a painting by German Perez titled Emigrating to the Sky.
I picked the next book because of the poet’s name. Gjertrud Schnackenberg. What an incredible name! She is from Seattle Washington, and the book was published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux in 1982. The poems have titles that evoke a European sensibility, and the one about Chopin intrigues me.
My last book is another hardcover titled Once in the West by Christian Wiman. It’s another FSG publication and was released in 2014. Obama was president, and I hope this book c captures some of the optimism of that time.
So now you have the entire stack that I pulled from the poetry section at the Reading Room CLE. Which would you read first? What section would you explore?
Happy Reading, friend.