Best 2008 Poetry Books - Steven Karl

Steven Karl's choices:

Sueyeun Juliette Lee, that gorgeous feeling (Coconut Books) -- Because it's beautiful, heart-wrenching, political, funny, and intelligent.

Jay Wright, Polynomials and Pollen (Dalkey Archive Press) -- Interiors/Exteriors. Rushing Rivers. Music. Inquisitive I's (eyes).

Takashi Hiraide, For The Fighting Spirit Of The Walnut translated by Sawako Nakayasu (New Directions Press) -- I carried this book everywhere. These poems fit any landscape.

Geoffrey Olsen, End Notebook (Petrichord) -- Lovely chapbook with quiet sparse poems that get inside your body and ruminate.

J. Mae Barizo, The Marble Palace (fields press) -- Who doesn't want a limited edition chapbook? This book will make you fall in love with words again.

Prageeta Sharma, Infamous Landscapes (Fence Books) -- I know, technically this came out in 2007, but I don't think it actually made it into stores until 2008 besides it's an awesome book. An intense lyrical examination of humanity where ethics and desire sometimes co-exist and other times collide.

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Steven Karl is the author of the chapbook, State(s) of Flux (forthcoming, Peptic Robot Press, 2009) which is a collaboration with the artist, Joseph Lappie. His poems have been published in, or are forthcoming from Barrow Street, Vanitas, Sawbuck, No Tell Motel, Eleven Eleven and others. His reviews have been published in or are forthcoming from Cold Front Magazine, Sink Review, Octopus Magazine, Galatea Resurrects, and LIT online. He lives in New York City and teaches at a couple of CUNY schools.