2022 turned out to be a year of new experiences–the most major for me came in the form of leaving teaching and moving into the role of program manager. This was another challenging year and reading continued to be a way to ground myself, to travel beyond my house, and and to feed my mind. Looking forward to a calmer, taking care year for 2023.
- An Abolitionist Handbook: 12 Steps to Changing Yourself and the World by Patrisse Cullors
- When You Trap a Tiger by Tae Keller
- A Children’s Bible by Lydia Millet
- How to Be an Antiracist by Ibram X Kendi
- Two Brown Dots by Danni Quintos
- The Museum of Things by Liz Chang
- No Distance Between Us by Marianne Peel
- Chesapeake Requiem: A Year with the Vanishing Watermen of Tangier Island by Earl Swift
- Synthesizing Gravity: Selected Prose by Kay Ryan
- Bittersweet: How Sorrow and Longing Make Us Whole by Susan Cain
- The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas by John Boyne
- Let Me Tell You: New Stories, Essays, and Other Writings by Shirley Jackson
- Why I Wake Early: New Poems by Mary Oliver
- Time is a Mother by Ocean Vuong
- Perfect Black by Crystal Wilkinson
- On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century by Timothy Snyder
- Holy Moly Carry Me by Erika Meitner
- The Magician’s Nephew by C.S. Lewis
- The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis
- The Little Island by Margaret Wise Brown
- The Dead Bird by Margaret Wise Brown
- Zone One by Colson Whitehead
- World of Wonders: In Praise of Fireflies, Whale Sharks, and Other Astonishments by Aimee Nezhukumatathil
- A Field Guide to Mermaids by Emily B. Martin
- Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life by Anne Lamott
In 2021, I thought often about what sustains us, how we can take care of ourselves even within the eye of this pandemic–personally, how I might both maintain my footing and also grow. Reading has always been a joyful activity and a way to expand my thinking beyond whatever might be tugging me under in the present. In 2021, my sister (we pass books back and forth) noted that I kept handing over “sad” books–but they were really great! As in they made me think deeply and move beyond myself–so while I read several “sad” books this year, I appreciate the ideas that continue to spin in my head long after the reading was finished. Here’s to a bright 2022!
- The Book of Delights by Ross Gay
- Silent Spring by Rachel Carson
- How the Word is Passed by Clint Smith
- Having and Being Had by Eula Biss
- A Most Beautiful Thing by Arshay Cooper
- Worldly Things by Michael Kleber-Diggs
- Postcolonial Love Poem by Natalie Diaz
- White Blood: A Lyric of Virginia by Kiki Petrosino
- Our Only World by Wendell Berry
- Animals of a Bygone Era by Maja Säfström
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Goodbye 2020. While fumes from the dumpster fire still linger, it is a new year and I’m happy to look back on the books I read last year. Each of these worked to make a new branch, a new bough to hold onto in the storm. I’m still reading several books at once (savoring The Books of Delights–so that’ll show up next time.) In 2020, I read poetry, essays, memoir, novels, some incredible nonfiction, and a poem as children’s picture book (Under the Ocelot Sun)–which you all should read!
- Fabulous Beast by Sarah Kain Gutowski
- Look, Look, Look by Callista Buchen
- WWJD and Other Poems by Savannah Sipple
- The Sixth Great Extinction: An Unnatural History by Elizabeth Kolbert
- Doomstead Days by Brian Teare
- Wolf Pack by Abby Wambach
- On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong
- In Which I Play the Runaway by Rochelle Hurt
- To Make Room for the Sea by Adam Clay
- The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead
- When We Were Birds by Joe Wilkins
- Good Bones by Maggie Smith
- The Clearing by Allison Adair
- The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead
- Under the Ocelot Sun by Jeremy Paden
- The Way of Imagination by Scott Russell Sanders
- The Poisoned City: Flint’s Water and the American Urban Tragedy by Anna Clark
- Heart: A History by Sandeep Jauhar
- The Balloonists by Eula Biss
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And here we are in 2020!
In 2019, I read to escape and to understand this world. I read more essays than in previous years and more sci-fi, with the constant heart beat of poetry. Although I’m sure there are more, here are the books that made it into my notes (I think you should also read these!):
- All Its Charms by Keetje Kuipers
- Sky Country by Christine Kitano
- To Keep from Undressing by Aisha Sharif
- Calf Canyon by Sarah McCartt-Jackson
- Unnatural Habitats & Other Stories by Angela Mitchell
- Book of Hours by Kevin Young
- How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America by Kiese Laymon
- American Sonnets for My Past and Future Assassin by Terrance Hayes
- Hunter & He Dog Up a Holler by James Dunlap
- The Crown Ain’t Worth Much by Hanif Abdurraqib
- When I Grow Up I Want to Be a List of Further Possibilities by Chen Chen
- Incendiary Art by Patricia Smith
- Heavy by Kiese Laymon
- Silence in the Age of Noise by Erling Kagge
- Hunger by Roxane Gay
- The Grownup by Gillian Flynn
- dark // thing by Ashley M. Jones
- Known by Salt Tina Mozelle Braziel
- Harbingers by B.J. Hollars
- The Wrong Way to Save Your Life by Megan Stielstra
- The Broken Earth Trilogy by N.K. Jemisin
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No one knows what happened to 2018. Or what I read in 2017.
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O, 2017.
As we begin this Year One of the Alternative Universe, books, especially poetry, feel ever vital. Looking back at what I read in 2016, my heart is glad for all these thoughty (my grandpa Fritz’s term) folks, who braved the blank page to build the worlds of these books. I am thankful for the presses/publishers, editors, book designers, publicists, and writers who are working to make written language available and stunning. We are provoked in so many ways, let us be provoked toward contemplation and empathy, as we are by books. Please: seek, read widely, and be awake.
- Small Fires, by Julie Marie Wade
- Sound of the Ax: Aphorisms and Poems, by William Stafford
- Trampoline, by Robert Gipe
- Tongue Screw, by Heather Derr-Smith
- Plucking the Stinger, by Stephanie Rogers
- Everything in the Universe, by Amy Wright
- Meditations, by Marcus Aurelius
- The Goddess Monologues, by Vandana Khanna
- Mother May I, by Tina Parker
- Too Bright to See & Alma, by Linda Gregg
- The Nomenclature of Small Things, by Lynn Pedersen
- Shahid Reads His Own Palm, by Reginald Dwayne Betts
- Like a Beggar, by Ellen Bass
- Appalachian Elegy, by bell hooks
- One with Others, by C.D. Wright
- Encyclopedie of the Common & Encompassing, by Allison Campbell
- Expecting Something Else, by A.M. O’Malley
- Alive: New and Selected Poems, by Elizabeth Willis
- Big Magic, by Elizabeth Gilbert
- Ark, by Ed Madden
- Objects in Vases, by Alina Stefanescu
- Not Even Close to What She Planned On, by Sandy Gingras
- Bucolics, by Maurice Manning
- four-legged girl, by Diane Seuss
- Ceremony, by Mary Austin Speaker
- Second Childhood, by Fanny Howe
- In the Belly of the Albatross, by Patricia Caspers
- Wolf Centos, by Simone Muench
- Flashes of Life, Micah Ling
- The Multitude, Hannah Faith Notess
- Borrowed Wave, Rachel Moritz
- One Blackbird at a Time, by Wendy Barker
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Hello 2016!
This past year I managed to read more than double my goal of one book a month; this may be thanks to kids sleeping through the night. I have also been focusing on getting my book, The Spoons in the Grass are There to Dig a Moat fine tuned in collaboration with the awesome folks at Sarabande Books–so that it is all ready for you in April 2016! You can pre-order the book now by visiting Sarabande Books. As usual, the books I read this year have tremendously helped my writing and my being a better human. Please check them out, buy a copy, give a copy to someone else–and support the presses/publishers who makes these books possible:
- Citizen: An American Lyric, by Claudia Rankine
- Model of a City in Civil War, by Adam Day
- Faithful and Virtuous Night, by Louise Gluck
- Compass Rose, by Arthur Sze
- Seed Across Snow, by Kathleen Driskell
- Digest, by Gregory Pardlo
- The Do-Over, by Kathleen Ossip
- Maybe the Saddest Thing, by Marcus Wicker
- Mosquito & Ant, by Kimiko Hahn
- Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude, by Ross Gay
- Museum of Distance, by Ashley Seitz Kramer
- Missing You, Metropolis, by Gary Jackson
- The World is Round, Nikky Finney
- My Feelings, by Nick Flynn
- Why God is a Woman, by Nin Andrews
- To the Bramble and the Briar, by Steve Scafidi
- Brown Girl Dreaming, by Jacqueline Woodson
- Field Study, by Travis Mossotti
- The Wise and Foolish Builders, by Alexandra Teague
- Hunger Wide as Heaven, by Max Garland
- Southern Comfort, by Nin Andrews
- Reel to Reel, by Alan Shapiro
- Spill, Michael Chitwood
- Hustle, by David Tomas Martinez
Bonus Reads:
Poetry Chapbooks
- Kings of the Rock and Roll Hot Shop (Or, What Breaks), by Lynnell Edwards.
- Ghost House, Hannah Faith Notess
Fiction
- Redeployment, by Phil Klay
- This is How You Lose Her, Junot Diaz
- The Ballad of the Sad Cafe, by Carson McCullers
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Welcome to 2015!
2014 was a fantastic year for reading poetry (and for publishing poetry…in 2016 my debut collection of prose poems will be published by Sarabande Books!). This year I managed to read, and keep track of reading, at least one collection a month. I also read a powerful chapbook (Then Gone) and a great anthology of prose poems. While I don’t have the notes I’d hoped to share with you, I will put in links so you can easily locate more information about each of these books. I am thankful for these books as they informed my own thinking and writing in 2014; please check them out or return to them.
- Black Aperture by Matt Rasmussen http://mattrasmussen.net
- Head Off & Split by Nikky Finney http://nikkyfinney.net/books.html
- Life on Mars by Tracy K. Smith http://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poet/tracy-k-smith
- My American Kundiman by Patrick Rosal http://www.patrickrosal.com
- Kimonos in the Closet by David Shumate http://www.indianahumanities.org/think-read-talk/kimonos-in-the-closet/
- The Forrest of Sure Things by Megan Snyder-Camp http://www.snydercamp.com/poems.php
- Beautiful in the Mouth by Keetje Kuipers http://www.keetjekuipers.com/beautiful.html
- Long Division by Alan Michael Parker http://alanmichaelparker.com
- Phantom Noise by Brian Turner http://www.brianturner.org/poetry/
- The Body’s Question by Tracy K. Smith
- Little Strangers by Lisa Olstein https://www.coppercanyonpress.org/pages/browse/book.asp?bg=%7B1445DD24-9B56-460B-B9B7-66FD4BF92484%7D
- Hymn for The Black Terrific by Kiki Petrosino http://www.sarabandebooks.org/all-titles/hymn-for-the-black-terrific-kiki-petrosino
Bonus Reads:
- Then Gone by Romayne Rubinas https://blifetoday.files.wordpress.com/2014/12/screen-shot-2014-12-03-at-11-22-48-am.png From Electron Pencil: “Poets, writers, and all-around Hoosier sophisticates Ross Gay, Chris Mattingly, and Dave Torneo run Ledge Mule. Then Gone was produced on a hand-fed Chandler & Price letterpress machine and was hand-bound by the three. The trio opted to produce only 200 copies of the book so it just may become a priceless collectors item one day.” Contact http://www.ledgemulepress.com
- The Rose Metal Press Field Guide to Prose Poetry: Contemporary Poets in Discussion and Practice edited by: Gary L. McDowell and F. Daniel Rzicznek http://www.rosemetalpress.com/Catalog/prose_poetry.html
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Happy New Year!
To welcome in 2014, here are the books of poetry that I read in 2013; it was one of my new year’s resolutions for 2013 to read at least one volume of poetry each month. Some months I didn’t complete a single book and some weeks I could read two books. This year I read other single poems, groups of poems, etc., but the books on this list I read “as collections”. It may seems like a small accomplishment, but with two young children on hand, I am happy to have come through on this resolution. Each of these books inspired, illuminated, and guided my own writing and I appreciate their influence. In 2014, I hope to add a note about the books I read; for now, here are the titles and wonderful authors:
Home Burial by Michael McGriff
Cooling Board by Mitchell L. H. Douglas
The Farmer’s Daughter by Lynnell Edwards
Unmentionables by Beth Ann Fennelly
Here, Bullet by Brian Turner
The Captain Asks for a Show of Hands by Nick Flynn
The Narrow Road to the Interior by Kimiko Hahn
/blak/ /al-fe bet/ by Mitchell L. H. Douglas
Boneshepherds by Patrick Rosal
Radio Crackling, Radio Gone by Lisa Olstein
The Big Smoke by Adrian Matejka
Incarnadine by Mary Szybist
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