Poetry Holiday Guide - Rauan Klassnik

Rauan Klassnik's suggestions:

My holiday book recommendations are for the boatload of contemporary poets mired in obscure and useless wizardry. Please stop patting each other on the back (in person and through the internet) and actually try to say something. In the meantime some meat and potatoes reading might be helpful:

The Essential Haiku (Buson, Basho, Issa) edited by Robert Hass

Dreaming the Miracle (Three French Prose Poets: Follain, Jacob, Ponge) (White Pine Press) I especially recommend the first two. Surreal-yes. Nonsense-no.

Jesus' Son (Harper Perennial) by Denis Johnson"

* * *

Rauan Klassnik tends goats in Chiapas. He also blogs at rauanklassnik.blogspot.com. Sometimes he believes in capital punishment, and he almost always thinks lamb tastes good. His first book, Holy Land, released April 2008 from Black Ocean. Two chapbooks are forthcoming in 2009. In January/February, Ringing from Kitchen Press and, in the summer, Dreaming"from Scantily Clad Press.