This Week at No Tell Motel

Paige Taggart tells fifty-two men that she loves them this week at No Tell Motel.

Featured Poet Rebecca Loudon in the new Galatea Resurrects

Tom Beckett interviews Rebecca Loudon & 3 poems

Poems begin for me from practice. When I am practicing my violin, when I am practicing drawing, when I am practicing writing. I used to write every day in notebooks. Not just poems, but anything I thought of. Then I switched to my blog to continue my daily writing practice. I believe that the mastery of any art comes from mastery of practice. It’s kind of weird. I don’t think many poets think in terms of daily practice. Maybe it’s from spending a lifetime as a musician. But we have these muscles, not even muscles—tissue, tissue memory. Practice strengthens that tissue memory. When I practice Bach every day then it’s my tissue memory that can perform Bach, not my fingers, not my brain. My brain just gets in the way of things, slows me down. It’s the same with writing. I’ve learned to have a notebook by my side pretty much all the time to jot down ideas. This is practice. This and reading.

John Bloomberg-Rissman reviews Loudon's Navigate, Amelia Earhart's Letters Home and Cadaver Dogs

Rebecca Loudon reviews Aase Berg's With Deer

Bestest Poetry Books of 2009

Titles selected more than once by No Tells contributors:

(5) Stars of the Night Commute, by Ana Božičević (Tarpaulin Sky)

(3) The Book of Frank by CA Conrad (Chax Press)

(3) The Dance of No Hard Feelings by Mark Bibbins (Copper Canyon)

(3) The Difficult Farm by Heather Christle (Octopus Books)

(3) Museum of Accidents by Rachel Zucker (Wave Books)

(3) Ohio Violence by Alison Stine (University of North Texas Press)

(2) Areas of Fog by Joseph Massey (Shearsman Books)

(2) Censory Impulse by Erica Kaufman (Factory School)

(2) Dearest Creature by Amy Gerstler (Penguin)

(2) Hecate Lochia by Hoa Nguyen (Hot Whiskey)

(2) A Million in Prizes by Justin Marks (New Issues Press)

(2) No Theater by Chris Tonelli (Brave Men Press)

(2) Saint Nobody by Amy Lemmon (Red Hen Press)

(2) Scary, No Scary by Zachary Schomburg (Black Ocean)

(2) Skirmish by Dobby Gibson (Graywolf Press)

(2) Sunny Wednesday by Noelle Kocot (Wave Books)

(2) Temporary Bunk by Lori Anderson Moseman (Skank Books)

(2) A Toast in the House of Friends by Akilah Oliver (Coffee House)

(2) Tuned Droves by Eric Baus (Octopus Books)

(2) Slamming Open the Door by Kathleen Sheeder Bonanno (Alice James Books)

Best Poetry Books of 2009 - Jenn Koiter

Jenn Koiter's selections:

This Awkward Art by Conrad Hilberry and Jane Hilberry (Mayapple Press)
A father and daughter juxtapose poems that address the subjects they share: his grandson/her nephew, snow, Vermeer, the childhood death of her sister/his daughter. It may sound gimmicky, but, given that they are both darn good poets, it actually works, and works well. Loved this book.

Incident Light by H. L. Hix (Etruscan Press)
In his first published book in well over a month (I jest, of course! Though I am starting to consider Hix the Joyce Carol Oates of poetry publishing), Hix writes about an artist friend who learned when she was 49 that the man who raised her was not her biological father. It's eerie and gorgeous, with language as precise as we've come to expect from Hix. Mythologizing the ordinary. Dig it.

* * *

Jenn Koiter lives in Wyoming, and she is planning to start her own conspiracy theory in which Candy Jones does, too. Probably with the witness protection program, in Lusk.

Best Poetry Books of 2009 - Martha Silano

Martha Silano's selections:

National Anthem by Kevin Prufer (Four Way Books)
So many books released this year with National, Republic, and American in the title, but Prufer’s rises above with its post-apocalyptic gems about America’s darkest hour ; they’re smart, lyrical, and almost always left me going “sheesh, how did he pull that off?”

Speaking of books with American in the title, Kary Wayson’s American Husband (Ohio State University Press) is a long-awaited miracle. Gaaawd, I have loved Ms. Wayson’s work for over ten years and am so, so happy to see she finally has a book we can all have and hold. Even at her dreariest (“My umbrella isn't in case but the cause
of the rain
coming down, and my soul is a shovel buried in the flowers”) all order of lyrical-masterful-rain-spattered-tulip springtime flows from her pen.

Lucia Perillo’s Inseminating the Elephant (Cooper Canyon) because Perillo gives MS the finger and makes us laugh at the same time.

Rachel Zucker’s Museum of Accidents (Wesleyan) because poems like “Lines to Stave Off Suicide” remind us what it felt like to be a country paralyzed with fear and grief.

* * *

Martha Silano's books are Blue Positive (Steel Toe 2006) and What the Truth Tastes Like (Nightshade 1999). New work is just out or forthcoming in The Journal, The American Poetry Review, Prairie Schooner, Puerto del Sol, The Best American Poetry 2009, and Starting Today: Poems for the First 100 Days. Martha teaches at Bellevue College, near her home in Seattle, WA.

This Week at No Tell Motel

Reb Livingston cremates the hemlouts and stresses everyone out this week at No Tell Motel.

Best Books of Poetry of 2009 - Deborah Ager

Deborah Ager's selections:

Saint Nobody by Amy Lemmon (Red Hen Press)

Now You're the Enemy by James Allen Hall (University of Arkansas Press)

0°, 0° by Amit Majmudar (Northwestern University Press)

The Hardship Post by Jehanne Dubrow (Three Candles Press)

Answering the Ruins by Gregory Fraser (Northwestern University Press)

* * *

Deborah Ager is publisher of 32 Poems Magazine. Her poems have appeared in The Georgia Review, New Letters, New England Review, New South and other "new" places. Her book is entitled Midnight Voices.

Best Poetry Books of 2009 - Deborah Poe

Deborah Poe's selections:

The Last 4 Things by Kate Greenstreet (Ahsahta Press)

Temporary Bunk by Lori Anderson Moseman (Skank Books)

Building Codes by Belle Gironda (Stockport Flats Press, Meander Scar Series)

Bone Light by Orlando White (Red Hen Press)

Censory Impulse by Erica Kaufman (Factory School)

Hecate Lochia by Hoa Nguyen (Hot Whiskey)

Chapbooks

The Saint's Notebook by Kate Schapira (Chapbook, Flying Guillotine Press)

Prairies by Natalie Knight (E-chap, Scantily Clad Press)

* * *

Deborah Poe is the author of the poetry collections Elements (Stockport Flats 2010) and Our Parenthetical Ontology (CustomWords 2008). Deborah’s writing is forthcoming or has appeared recently in Colorado Review, Sidebrow, Ploughshares, Filter Literary Journal and Denver Quarterly. For more, visit http://deborahpoe.com.

Best Poetry Books of 2009 - Cati Porter

Cati Porter's selections:

Bling and Fringe (The L.A. Poems), a collaborative book of poems by Molly Bendall & Gail Wronsky (What Books Press)

Under the Quick by Molly Bendall (Parlor Press)

The Heart's Traffic by Ching-In Chen (Red Hen Press)

FAQ by Ben Doller (Ahsahta Press)

Versed by Rae Armantrout (Wesleyan University Press)

* * *

Cati Porter edits the online journal Poemeleon: A Journal of Poetry and is the author of two collections of poetry, Seven Floors Up (Mayapple Press, 2008) and small fruit songs (Pudding House 2008). She lives in Riverside, California, with her husband and two young sons.

This Week at No Tell Motel

Deborah Poe draws back the signs this week at No Tell Motel.

Poetry Shopping Holiday Guide - Erika Meitner

Erika Meitner's suggestions:

For the mother with a Robert Redford crush, or avid People Magazine reader in your family--Kiki Petrosino spends the first half of Fort Red Border detailing her imaginary affair with the aforementioned celebrity:
Fort Red Border by Kiki Petrosino (Sarabande Books)

For the film buff (or catatonic) on your list--Jesse Lee Kercheval's gorgeous ode to silent film:
Cinema Muto by Jesse Lee Kercheval (Southern Illinois University Press)

For fans of Rachel Whiteread sculpture, disintegrating industrial spaces, motels, pawnshops, and empty parking lots--as perfect for your wayward brother who lives in Buffalo and hangs out in front of the 7-11 as it is for your soulful sister-in-law the landscape architect:
Sum of Every Lost Ship by Allison Titus (Cleveland State University Press)

For the vintage aficionados, visual artists, and people you know who like their text arty (think Jenny Holzer meets flea market explosion)--stunning, quirky, super-fun to look at and read:
Lake Antiquity by Brandon Downings (Fence Books)

For the marrieds or breeders in your life--a deadly honest look at the domestic sphere that's so compelling I read the entire thing while sitting in my car in the library parking lot:
Museum of Accidents by Rachel Zucker (Wave Books)

Impress your Jewish friends for Hanukkah by gifting them with Jehanne Dubrow's poems, composed in the voice of Ida, an imaginary Jewish poet living in Always Winter, Poland before World War II:
From the Fever World by Jehanne Dubrow (Washington Writers' Publishing House)

For a Hanukkah gift-pack (there are 8 nights, people), you might buy a nice notebook and some great pens, along with six Jewishly-authored books of poems: Zucker and Dubrow's mentioned above, along with:
Tsim Tsum by Sabrina Orah Mark (Saturnalia Books)

Lost Alphabet by Lisa Olsteins (Copper Canyon Press)

The Book of Seventy by Alicia Ostriker (University of Pittsburgh Press)

Awayward by Jennifer Kronovet (BOA Editions)

* * *

Erika Meitner is the author of Inventory at the All-Night Drugstore (Anhinga Press, 2003), and the forthcoming collections Makeshift Instructions for Vigilant Girls (Anhinga Press, 2011), and Ideal Cities (Harper Perennial, 2010), which was a 2009 National Poetry Series winner. She teaches in the MFA program at Virginia Tech. You can read more about her here.

Best Poetry Books of 2009 - Gary L. McDowell

Gary L. McDowell's selections:

Divination Machine by F. Daniel Rzicznek (Parlor Press/Free Verse Editions)

How to Live on Bread and Music by Jennifer K. Sweeney (Perugia Press)

Museum of Accidents by Rachel Zucker (Wave Books)

Ohio Violence by Alison Stine (UNT Press)

Circus by Michael Robins (Flying Guillotine Press)

Mistaken for Song by Tara Bray (Persea Books)

Light Here, Light There by Alexander Long (C & R Press)

* * *

Gary L. McDowell is the author of They Speak of Fruit (Cooper Dillon Books, 2009) and co-editor, with F. Daniel Rzicznek, of The Rose Metal Press Field Guide to Prose Poetry: Contemporary Poets in Discussion and Practice (Rose Metal Press, 2010). His poems have appeared recently or are forthcoming in Colorado Review, DIAGRAM, Indiana Review, The Laurel Review, New England Review, Ninth Letter, Verse Daily, and Quarterly West. He's pursuing his Ph.D in American Literature at Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo, Michigan where he lives with his wife and young son, Auden.

Best Poetry Books of 2009 - Tiffany Midge

Tiffany Midge's selections:

On the Cusp of a Dangerous Year by Lee Ann Roripaugh (Southern Illinois University Press)

Face by Sherman Alexie (Hanging Loose Press)

Dearest Creature by Amy Gerstler (Penguin)

Dark Thirty by Santee Frazier (University of Arizona Press)

Flood Song by Sherwin Bitsui (Copper Canyon)

* * *

Tiffany Midge is an enrolled member of the Standing Rock Sioux and grew up in the Pacific Northwest. She is the recipient of the Diane Decorah Poetry Award from The Native Writers Circle of the Americas for her collection, Outlaws, Renegades and Saints: Diary of a Mixed-Up Halfbreed published by Greenfield Review Press. The chapbook, Guiding the Stars to Their Campfire, Driving the Salmon to Their Beds, was published in 2005 by Gazoobi Tales.

Best Poetry Books of 2009 - Brandon Shimoda

Brandon Shimoda's selections:

... if by BEST is meant those books of poetry that inflame both conscious and subconscious mind to such a point that not only the poetry, as fluid summons, but I, as fluid respondent, both obese and fall away at once, then these few books have provided such something, for whatever and individual reason (in no particular order):


The Shape is Space by Karena Youtz (Privity Press)
Privity Press is in Boise. This book actually came out towards the end of 2008, though it is STILL one of the best of 2009, not to mention 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013...

INRI by Raul Zurita (Marick Press)
A tremendous fortune that Zurita's works continue to be brought into English. Among the bravest most critically fierce and imaginative RESPONSES and continuing acts of poetic RESISTANCE of the latter 20th 21st or any century.

The Desert by Jen Bervin (Granary Books)
The machine-sewn edition is astoundingly beautiful (and $4000), though the edition I spent time with was a borrowed reading copy -- which, even still, found me within the surprise that erasing the desert would give spring to the most mesmerizing blue-bladed meadow.

Kiss a Bomb Tattoo by Hoa Nguyen (effing press)
Nguyen's new book just came out, though I'm still stuck on this one, still aspiring into its spaces. A continuation of a record of another, though equally necessary, order.

Lake Antiquity by Brandon Downing (Fence Books)
At the time of mentioning, LA was still en route from Singapore. I was able to view (courtesy of Mr. Dark Brandon) a full PDF which, holy fuck, suffered me a stockpile of flashbacks (and forwards). I am sweating to think of the actual object!

Where Shadows Will: Selected Poems 1988-2008 by Norma Cole (City Lights)
A slight Selected, thinner than some of her individual volumes, though still requiring (softly, assuredly) the best of attention. Any invitation of accessing Norma Cole's work must be taken.

New Roman by Phil Cordelli (self-published)
Produced in an edition of 19, which I believe have all been dispersed, and eaten. Phil Cordelli's poems and constructions are quite literally my sustenance, and I hope they remain so long after I'm dead.

Purgatory by Raul Zurita (University of California Press)
See note for INRI above.

* * *

Brandon Shimoda's collaborations, drawings and writings have appeared in The Alps (Flim Forum Press), The Inland Sea (Tarpaulin Sky Press), and elsewhere.

Best Poetry Books of 2009 - Julie Babcock

Julie Babcock's selections:

Dearest Creature by Amy Gerstler (Penguin)
Everything great poetry should be—old and new, hallucinogenic and sane—all at once.

See Jack by Russell Edson (University of Pittsburgh)
This is a link to my Rain Taxi review reposted by Powell’s

Where I Stay by Andrew Zornoza (Tarpaulin Sky)
Zornoza drives a transcendently blurry line between poetry, prose, and art. This book is going to haunt me for a long time.

American Prophet by Robert Fanning (Marick)
Fanning creates an extremely compelling character and follows his struggles for meaning through a Michigan landscape that includes drycleaners, superstores, and Elvisfest.

* * *

Julie Babcock's most recent work appears in Necessary Fiction, The Apple Valley Review, MiPOesias, and Fifth Wednesday Journal. She teaches at University of Michigan.

Poetry Shopping Holiday Guide - Kim Gek Lin Short

Kim Gek Lin Short’s suggestions:

My holiday book recommendations are for (in some cases, by) nonpoets, as poetry is for all poeple. Here's just a few great books to consider.

For the shithole where you met the person you wish you asked their name:
Where I Stay by Andrew Zornoza (Tarpaulin Sky Press 2009)

For the one whose meaning cannot be symbolized:
Humanimal by Bhanu Kapil (Kelsey Street Press 2009)

For the family, it had a leak, we all got drowned in:
Scorch Atlas by Blake Butler (Featherproof Books 2009)

For the wide-open the wind-chapped the nation it did not fit you:
Big American Trip Christian Peet (Shearsman 2009)

For the bewilderment, overhead, we heard them chant it:
Tsim Tsum by Sabrina Orah Mark (Saturnalia 2009)

For the barbed the stung the scream when it left you:
With Deer by Aase Berg (Black Ocean 2009)

For the scars you hid in feathers:
The Book of Frank by CA Conrad (Chax Press 2009)

For the guilt, it changed its name, we cannot forget it:
The Failure Six by Shane Jones (Fugue State Press 2009)

For the map, inside your skin, you return to it:
Rhapsody of the Naked Immigrants by Elena Georgiou (GenPop 2009)

For the fingerprints, you wiped them off, they reappear:
PERSONATIONSKIN by Karl Parker (No Tell Books, 2009)

For the scorch in the sky when it shows you:
Stars of the Night Commute by Ana Božičević (Tarpaulin Sky Press 2009)

For the whitespace:
To After That (Toaf) by Renee Gladman (Atelos Books)

* * *

Kim Gek Lin Short is the author of The Bugging Watch & Other Exhibits (Tarpaulin Sky Press forthcoming), and the chapbooks The Residents (dancing girl press 2008) and Run (Rope-a-Dope Press forthcoming).

Best Poetry Books of 2009 - Sandra Beasley

Sandra Beasley's recommendations:

Book that Made Me Love the Prose Poem Again:
Self-Portrait with Crayon by Alison Benis White (Cleveland State University Press)

Book that Made Me Love Sprawling Free Verse Again:
Mister Skylight by Ed Skoog (Copper Canyon Press)

Book that Got a Lot of Hype in the Mainstream But Earned Said Hype:
Sonata Mulattica by Rita Dove (W. W. Norton)

Book with the Most Intriguing Conceptual Premise:
From the Fever World by Jehanne Dubrow (Washington Writers' Publishing House)

Book I am Most Dying To Read As Soon as I Splurge on the Hardback:
Scary, No Scary by Zachary Schomburg (Black Ocean)

* * *

Sandra Beasley won the 2009 Barnard Women Poets Prize for I Was the Jukebox, selected by Joy Harjo and forthcoming from W. W. Norton. Her first collection, Theories of Falling, won the 2007 New Issues Poetry Prize judged by Marie Howe. She lives in Washington, D.C.

This Week at No Tell Motel

Jeff Downey digs against the squalor this week at No Tell Motel.

Best Poetry Books of 2009 - Charles Jensen

Charles Jensen's selections:

Midnight Voices by Deborah Ager (Cherry Grove)

Sister by Nikole Brown (Red Hen Press)

The Book of the Heart Taken by Love by Jim Elledge (Five Fingers Press)

Pear Slip by Matthew Hittinger (Spire Press)

Breakfast with Thom Gunn by Randall Mann (University of Chicago Press)

The Moon Makes Its Own Plea by Wendy Mnookin (BOA Editions)

Blue House by Christopher Nelson (Poetry Society Chapbook Fellowship)

Chronic by D. A. Powell (Graywolf)

Ohio Violence by Alison Stine (University of North Texas Press)

Sight Map by Brian Teare (University of California Press)

* * *

Charles Jensen is the author of four collections of poetry, most recently The First Risk. He directs The Writer's Center, one of the nation's largest literary centers. He lives in metropolitan Washington, DC.

HTMLGIANT Second Annual Indie Lit Secret Santa

details here.

Check the comment field for special offers from indie presses (No Tell Books included) for those participating in the gift exchange.

Best Poetry Books of 2009 - Peg Duthie

Peg Duthie's selections:

Light, Moving by Carolyn Miller (Sixteen Rivers Press)
Some natterings on why I liked it here. (In a nutshell: poems infused with both heartache and gratitude.)

Quantum Lyrics by A. Van Jordan (Norton; the hardcover came out two years ago, but the paperback only this year).
I can't quote from it at the moment, because I mailed my copy to a friend (one who is, among many things, a civil rights activist with a math-enamored son) with a "YOU HAVE TO READ THIS" note, but this conversation with Anna Clark provides an overview of his interests and range.

The Doors of the Body by Mary Alexandra Agner (Mayapple Press).
Mary's a personal friend, so I'm pleased to see this collection garnering rave reviews (and nominated for a Pushcart, too!). It's beautifully produced, and if my fairy godmother felt like stopping by the North Pole for a while, I'd ask her to sneak a copy of this chapbook in with every Barbie he plans to deliver.

* * *

Peg Duthie's lyrics and stories have appeared at 7x20, qarrtsiluni, and elsewhere, and a quartet of holiday poems went live The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature on December 2.

Best Poetry Books of 2009 - Matthew Thorburn

Matthew Thorburn's selection:

Displacement by Leslie Harrison (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)

Chosen by Eavan Boland for the Bakeless Prize, Leslie Harrison’s first book vividly renders the aftershocks and fallout when love is displaced by betrayal, then anger and regret. “No map for how to live past this,” Harrison writes, but these poems map out the unfolding days and nights of that new life. They are, by turns, bitter and hopeful, angry and funny, sly and wise. Physically as well as emotionally uprooted, the speaker of these poems has gone off into the country, in order to gain the distance needed to see the world again – to gain a deeper perspective and a steadier hold on life, both her own and the capital-L Life of the larger, wilder world. “This is the address of distance,” Harrison writes, “where distance came to live // in the seefar longlight in the shining day.”

* * *

Matthew Thorburn is the author of a book of poems, Subject to Change, and a recently published chapbook, the long poem Disappears in the Rain. He lives in New York City and writes about writing at Elsewhere

Poems Can Stop Bulldozers

Jill Alexander Essbaum reads her poems on the Poetry Magazine Podcast along with Valzhyna Mort and John Kinsella.



Buy Harlot here.

Best Poetry Books of 2009 - Marcela Sulak

Marcela Sulak's selections:

Tongue of War: From Pearl Harbor to Nagasaki by Tony Barnstone (BkMk Press)

Pulleys and Locomotion by Rachel Galvin (Black Lawrence Press)

Museum of Accidents by Rachel Zucker (Wave Books)

Ink for an Odd Cartography by Michelle Battiste (Black Lawrence Press)

* * *

Marcela Sulak is the author of Immigrant (Black Lawrence Press January 2010), the chapbook Of All The Things That Don’t Exist, I Love You Best (Finishing Line Press 2008), and three book-length translations of poetry from the Czech and French. She is currently an assistant professor of literature at American University, but as of March, 2010, she will be the Director of the Shaindy Rudoff Graduate Creative Writing Program at Bar-Ilan University.

Best Poetry Books of 2009 - Leigh Stein

Leigh Stein's selections:

Ohio Violence by Alison Stine (University of North Texas Press)
"Does it matter if it didn't happen?" -p56
Fields, road kill, secrets, best book I've ever read on a plane.

Tsim Tsum by Sabrina Orah Mark (Saturnalia Books)
"A mistake had been made. 'Should we shoot it?' asked Walter B. 'Of course,' sighed Beatrice, 'we should not shoot it.'" -p24
Banquets and debacles, as explained by the last two people on earth.

* * *

Leigh Stein is the author of the chapbooks How to Mend a Broken Heart with Vengeance (Dancing Girl Press) and Least Inhabited Island II (h-ngm-n Combatives). She lives in Brooklyn, where she teaches drama to public schoolchildren and dresses up like a mouse princess at comic book conventions.

Best Poetry Books of 2009 - Anne Gorrick

Anne Gorrick's selections:

Luminous Flux by Lynn Behrendt (Lines Chapbooks)

DARC by Maryrose Larkin (FLASH + CARD)

Cadaver Dogs by Rebecca Loudon (No Tell Books)

Temporary Bunk by Lori Anderson Moseman (Swank Books)

Big American Trip by Christian Peet (Shearsman Books)

Position & Relation by India Radfar (Station Hill Press)

In the Architecture of Bone by Alan Semerdjian (Gen Pop Books)

Manatee/Humanity by Anne Waldman (Penguin)

* * *

Anne Gorrick’s work has been published in many journals including: American Letters and Commentary, Bird Dog, Copper Nickel, the Cortland Review, Fact-Simile, Fence, Filling Station, Glitterpony, Gutcult, No Tell Motel, Otoliths, the Seneca Review, Shearsman, Sous Rature, Sulfur, Wheelhouse and word for/word. Collaborating with artist Cynthia Winika, she produced a limited edition artists’ book called “Swans, the ice,” she said with grants through the Women’s Studio Workshop in Rosendale, NY, and the New York Foundation for the Arts. She also curates the reading series, Cadmium Text, which focuses on innovative writing in and around the New York’s Hudson Valley. Find out more about the readings at: www.cadmiumtextseries.blogspot.com

Her first book, Kyotologic, is available from Shearsman Books (Exeter, UK). I Formation will be out in 2010, also from Shearsman Books.

Best Poetry Books of 2009 - John Findura

John Findura's selections:

Scary, No Scary by Zachary Schomburg (Black Ocean)
It is impossible for Zachary Schomburg to write anything less that an excellent poem. He's so good it scares me.

Book of Whispering In The Projection Booth by Joshua Marie Wilkinson (Tupelo Press)
JMW is currently my favorite living poet. Why? Read his books. All of them.

Something Has To Happen Next by Andrew Michael Roberts (U. of Iowa Press)
The right combination of everything is found in here.

At night by Lisa Ciccarello (Scantily Clad Press) - echap
So intense I nearly bit through my tongue.

Sunny Wednesday by Noelle Kocot (Wave Books)
Sad songs say so much. This book says what those songs can't.

* * *

John Findura holds an MFA from The New School. A Pushcart Prize nominee, he is the author of the chapbook Useful Shrapnel (Scantily Clad Press, 2009) and his poetry and criticism appear in journals such as Mid-American Review, Verse, Fugue, Fourteen Hills, CutBank, No Tell Motel, H_NGM_N, Jacket, and Rain Taxi, among others. Born in Paterson, he lives in Northern New Jersey with his wife and daughter.

Best Poetry Books of 2009 - Nathan Logan

Nathan Logan's selections:

The Difficult Farm by Heather Christle (Octopus Books)

The Drunk Sonnets by Daniel Bailey (Magic Helicopter Press)

Used White Wife by Sandra Simonds (Grey Book Press)

Borrowed House by Brooklyn Copeland (Greying Ghost Press)

* * *

Nathan Logan is the author of the e-book Dick (PANGUR BAN PARTY, 2009) and the chapbook Holly from Muncie (Spooky Girlfriend Press, 2008). His poems have appeared in/are forthcoming from elimae, Event, pax americana, and SIR! among others.

New Titles by No Tell Poets

Destruction Myth by Mathias Svalina (Cleveland State Poetry Center)

Slaves to Do These Things by Amy King (BlazeVox)

rock. paper. scissors. by Scott Glassman (Ahadada Books) (free e-chap)

They Speak of Fruit by Gary L. McDowell (Cooper Dillon)

Your Name Is The Only Freedom by Janaka Stucky (Brave Men Press)

Best Poetry Books of 2009 - Nicole Steinberg

Nicole Steinberg's selections:

Saint Nobody by Amy Lemmon (Red Hen Press)

A Plate of Chicken by Matthew Rohrer (Ugly Ducking Press)

Apocalyptic Swing by Gabrielle Calvocoressi (Persea Books)

The Dance of No Hard Feelings by Mark Bibbins (Copper Canyon)

Advanced Elvis Course by CAConrad (Soft Skull Press)

Ka-Ching! by Denise Duhamel (University of Pittsburgh Press)

* * *

Nicole Steinberg is an editor-at-large of LIT, contributing editor to BOMB, and the founder, curator, and host of Earshot (http://earshotnyc.com), a reading series dedicated to emerging writers. Her work appears in Coconut, BOMB, Barrow Street, Wheelhouse, No Tell Motel and elsewhere, and she’s the author of the forthcoming chapbooks Undressing (Scantily Clad Press) and Gamblers (Taiga Press). She lives in Queens, NY.

Best Poetry Books of 2009 - Justin Marks (part 2)

Justin Marks' selections:

Stars of the Night Commute, by Ana Božičević (Tarpaulin Sky)

No Theater, by Chris Tonelli (Brave Men Press)

Areas of Fog, by Joseph Massey (Shearsman Books)

Sent Forth to Die in a Happy City, by Keith Newton (Cannibal Books)

* * *

Justin Marks' first book is A Million in Prizes (New Issues Press). He is also the author of several chapbooks, the most recent being Voir Dire (Rope-a-Dope Press). He is a co-Editor of Birds, LLC and lives in Woodside, Queens with his wife and their infant son and daughter.

This Week at No Tell Motel

Brenda Sieczkowski lets the bees keep their needles this week at No Tell Motel.

No Tell Motel's Pushcart Nominations

“Papoose” by Deborah Ager

“Tigers” by J.P Dancing Bear

“Pool Cue Ode” by Adam Deutsch

“Craze, Novel, Pink” by Anne Gorrick

“River of Feather & Web” by Carolyn Guinzio

“The Monster’s Bride Questions the Motives of Her Creator” by Tiffany Midge

Best Poetry Books of 2009 - Laynie Brown

Laynie Browne's suggestions:

The Rose Concordance by Angela Carr (Book Thug)

Natural Light by Norma Cole (Libellum)

To After That (Toaf) by Renee Gladman (Atelos Books)

Humananimal: a Project for Future Children by Bhanu Kapil (Kelsey Street Press)

The Names of the Lion by David Larsen (Atticus Finch)

Magenta Soul Whip by Lisa Robertson (Coach House Books)

m-Talá by Chus Pato, translated by Erín Moure (Shearsman Books)

A Toast in the House of Friends by Akilah Oliver (Coffee House)

Hecate Lochia by Hoa Nguyen (Hot Whiskey)

Transcendental Studies by Keith Waldrop (University of California)


* * *

Laynie Browne is the author of seven collections of poetry, most recently The Scented Fox and Daily Sonnets. She has two collections forthcoming; The Desires of Letters (Counterpath 2010) and Roseate, Points of Gold (Dusie, 2010). She teaches at the Poetry Center at the University of Arizona in Tucson.

Poetry Holiday Shopping Guide - Scott Abels

Scott Abels' suggestions:

The Dream Songs by John Berryman, (a used copy of any edition).
For someone healthy in your life. Make sure they´re strong, and healthy, and tell them, read one sonnet a day for 77 days, and then it will be spring.

If, this year, you caught yourself saying you´re "at the age where all your friends are having babies" then give all your friends Macular Hole by Catherine Wagner (Fence, 2004).

Or, alternately, this Christmas send them an e-book they will appreciate.

* * *

Originally from Nebraska, Scott Abels currently lives and teaches on the coast of Oaxaca, Mexico. His poems can be found (or are forthcoming) in Lungfull!, Sixth Finch, No Tell Motel, Past Simple, Action, Yes, Sawbuck, Shampoo, Spooky Boyfriend, BlazeVOX, Word for /Word, and others. He has a little web presence at http://scottabels.blogspot.com/.

Black Friday PERSONATIONSKIN SALE + FREE BOOK

Purchase a copy of Karl Parker's PERSONATIONSKIN at the discount price of $12 (retail $17) and receive a FREE copy of Reb Livingston's Your Ten Favorite Words (Coconut Books). Shipping $3.

Offer valid from Thursday, November 26, 2009 12:01 a.m. thru Sunday, November 29, 2009 11:59 p.m.

To take advantage of this sale, click the BUY NOW button below:

Best Poetry Books of 2009 - Kim Gek Lin Short

Kim Gek Lin Short's suggestion:

The Book of Frank by CAConrad (Chax Press)
For the erudite voyeur crotch-stuffing high-heeled fantasist orphan. This book will put a glistening vaginal beard where your brain was and bite marks in your heart.

* * *

Kim Gek Lin Short is the author of The Bugging Watch & Other Exhibits (Tarpaulin Sky Press forthcoming), and the chapbooks The Residents (dancing girl press 2008) and Run (Rope-a-Dope Press forthcoming).

Best Poetry Books of 2009 - Donald Illich

Donald Illich's suggestions:

Slamming Open the Door by Kathleen Sheeder Bonanno (Alice James Books)
So gripping I read it in one sitting. Tells the story of the author's daughter's murder and its aftermath. The poetry itself is moving and flawless.

Shannon: A Poem of the Lewis and Clark Expedition by Campbell McGrath (Ecco)
Addictive in a different way, this book tells story of a soldier on Lewis and Clark Expedition who gets lost for weeks in the wildnerness. There's plenty of room in the story for beautiful verse on nature and discovery, as well as meditations on God and country.

Dark Things by Novica Tadic (BOA Editions)
Short, sharp poems that are dark as obsidian, but are like popcorn. It's hard to stop with one and not read the whole book.

* * *

Donald Illich has published poetry in LIT, The Iowa Review, No Tell Motel, and other journals.

Best Poetry Books of 2009 - Julie R. Enszer

Julie R. Enszer's selections:

Slamming Open the Door by Kathleen Sheeder Bonanno (Alice James Books)
Bonanno's first collection of poetry is riveting and powerful. I heard about this book not through traditional poetry networks but through Terry Gross's interview with Bonanno on Fresh Air. The book is based on Bonanno's experience of her daughter's murder and the subsequent trial of her murderer. It was gripping to her Bonanno talk about the experience and even more so to read the book. The first poem, "Death Barged In," concludes with these lines

Even as I sit here,
he stands behind me
clamping two
colossal hands on my shoulders
and bends down
and whispers to my neck:
From now on,
you will write about me.

Slamming Open the Door is a stunning debut collection and, for me, one of the best poetry books of 2009.

Heathen by Lesley Wheeler (C&R Press)
Wheeler's first collection of poetry, Heathen, is smart and quirky. Wheeler mines odd images to make them odder, more disturbing or askew and then brings her readers insight and revelation from this vision of the world. For instance in "Neanderthal Love Song," Wheeler imagines a world of Cro-Magnon guys and the one she loves, "a face in the mud,/those prosperous buttocks." As the poem progresses, she wonders,

When you wait below ground and the breath
of the train lifts the hairs on your arms,
can you glimpse me in the crowd,
does the ice still follow you, do you know
that you are meat, and mud, and ghost,
does your body remember me?

As these lines demonstrate, there is an interesting mind at work in these poems and Heathen is a strong debut. My favorite poem is "Virginia is for Heterosexual Lovers" for the way that Wheeler allies herself with the gay and lesbian community in response to the homophobia of young children. This political sensibility, a sensibility I insist on calling feminist, informs the entire book. Wheeler's second collection has just won a prize and been accepted for publication. This is a poet to watch.


Two established poets published stunning collections this year that are among my favorites. Marilyn Hacker's Names (W. W. Norton) demonstrates her command of formalism as a strategy to make poetry even more immediate and relevant to our everyday lives. These are poems of urgency and beauty rendered in forms that delight and dazzle combined with Hacker's exquisite diction and irrepressible wit. I love everything about this book. Alicia Ostriker's The Book of Seventy (University of Pittsburgh Press) is a stunning collection of a mature poet. Ostriker returns to themes that have been central to her work and thought both in her previous poetry and also in her prose and makes them new and compelling. My favorite part of this book is the series of dramatic monologues (Persephone, Gaia, Demeter) that comprise the third section, but the entire collection is profound and deeply satisfying.

There are four books published in 2009 that I want to read and I think might make my list before the year is out. They are Noelle Kocot's Sunny Wednesday (Wave Books), Marie Ponsot's Easy (Knopf), Julie Kane's Jazz Funeral (Story Line Press), and Brenda Hillman's Practical Water (Wesleyan). I've got a lot of reading to do before December 31st!


* * *

Julie R. Enszer is a poet living in Maryland. She has an MFA from the University of Maryland and is currently enrolled in the PhD program in Women’s Studies at Maryland. She has previously been published in Iris: A Journal About Women, Room of One's Own, Long Shot, Feminist Studies, and the Harrington Lesbian Literary Quarterly. You can read more about her work at www.JulieREnszer.com or her blog http://JulieREnszer.blogspot.com.

Poetry Holiday Shopping Guide - Evie Shockley

Evie Shockley's suggestions:

1) Just in time for the giving season, Doug Kearney's The Black Automaton will be released next month (Dec.) by Fence Books. If you (or your gift recipient) like(s) poems that do not sit in well-behaved rows of uniform font on the left margin, there will be plenty in this book to please you.

2) I just got my hands on Will Alexander's newest book, The Sri Lankan Loxodrome (New Directions). You know you want to know what (Will Alexander will say) a loxodrome is. There's only one way to find out.

3) Not quite in time for the holidays, but right on time for belated holiday gift-giving, in January Duke Press will release Fred Moten's new collection, B Jenkins. Theory-heads: get ready -- you will love everything about this book, beginning with the table of contents. Everyone else: if you read poetry out loud, then you will also find a sweet spot in this volume.

4) Another January release to get pumped for is Camille T. Dungy's Suck on the Marrow, which is coming out of Red Hen Press. She will get all elegantly gritty on you and make you homesick for Virginia, even if you've never been there. I thought you knew.

5) This one is probably going to be far too late for the holidays altogether, nonetheless I am excited to note that Barbara Jane Reyes' next book, Diwata, will be coming out of BOA Editions in 2010. Reyes is known for speaking in tongues -- my way of referencing her unabashed multilingualism *and* her (in my opinion) divinely inspired truth-telling. Give yourself Christmas in July (or thereabouts) by making a note in your 2010 calendar now to buy her book as soon as it spins off the presses.

* * *

Evie Shockley is the author of a half-red sea (Carolina Wren Press, 2006) and 31 words * prose poems (Belladonna* Books, 2007). She co-edits jubilat and teaches African American literature and creative writing at Rutgers University, New Brunswick.

Poetry Foundation Launches Poetry Tour of Washington, DC

For Immediate Release
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/foundation/announcements.html


Poetry Foundation Launches Poetry Tour of Washington, DC

Free downloadable audio tour shines a literary light on the nation’s capital

CHICAGO—The Poetry Foundation is pleased to announce the launch of the Washington, DC, Poetry Tour. The interactive tour, freely available at www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrytour, reveals our nation’s capital through the eyes of its great poets, including Walt Whitman, Paul Laurence Dunbar, and Elizabeth Bishop, among many others. From the hallowed halls of the federal buildings to neighborhood side streets, the tour features poems written in and about DC, as well as original photographs by poet Thomas Sayers Ellis.

Narrator and inaugural poet Elizabeth Alexander leads the tour from the stacks of the Library of Congress to Civil War battlefields to the Capitol steps, from the National Zoo to the U Street Corridor to the Busboys & Poets Café. Archival recordings from canonical poets including Langston Hughes, Robert Hayden, Sterling Brown, Randall Jarrell, and Ezra Pound chronicle DC’s rich literary history, while contemporary poets such as Linda Pastan, Quique Avilés, Yusef Komunyakaa, Naomi Ayala, A.B. Spellman, and Jane Shore share their experiences, through both poetry and commentary, of national monuments and monumental poets alike.

The DC Poetry Tour presents the development of the capital’s poetry scene over the last century and a half, from its interplay with musicians Dizzy Gillespie, Duke Ellington, and Ben Webster, to the creation of the office of poet laureate, to the legendary literary salons hosted by Georgia Douglas Johnson, to the multifaceted work of numerous poet-activist groups. Local poets and scholars—including E. Ethelbert Miller, director of the Afro-American Studies Resource Center at Howard University; David Gewanter of Georgetown University; and Kim Roberts, editor of Beltway magazine—provide the framework for understanding the moments and movements that have shaped DC’s literary culture.

Listeners to the tour, which includes 34 stops throughout the National Mall and Northwest DC, learn that Washington is not only our government’s headquarters but an important American literary capital as well. Historical images and artifacts provide a glimpse into DC’s storied past, while photographs by poet Thomas Sayers Ellis, who was born and raised in Washington, give viewers an inside look at DC’s neighborhoods and people. Poem text is presented along with original audio recordings and archival images, as listeners step into the national arenas that continue to inspire poets today.

“Tracing the history of American poetry against the culture and geography of our national capital helps readers develop a better sense of our shared literary heritage,” notes Anne Halsey, media director of the Poetry Foundation. “Poetry lovers visiting Washington can download free audio tours and maps to take guided poetry walking tours of the National Mall or Northwest DC—but you don’t have to be in DC to explore the city’s literary history. The full multimedia tour can also be experienced virtually at poetryfoundation.org/poetrytour.”

Beginning at the Library of Congress—the home of the first Poetry Consultant, Archibald MacLeish—the tour discusses the contributions of such heralded poets as Robert Lowell, Robert Frost, and William Carlos Williams. MacLeish declares, “A poem should not mean / But be.” Later, Williams fashions a modernist American poetry: “Never reverse a phrase that is your language as you speak it . . .Then you’ve started to create a culture in your place as you are.”

Contemporary poets from throughout the Beltway also present poems. Poets such as Brian Gilmore, who relates his personal interest in Paul Laurence Dunbar, and Myra Sklarew, who discusses May Miller, recognize the influence of their predecessors, reflecting upon them as President John F. Kennedy did when he spoke of Robert Frost: “Our national strength matters; but the spirit which informs and controls our strength matters just as much. This was the special significance of Robert Frost.”

The Washington, DC, Poetry Tour, an original production of the Poetry Foundation created in collaboration with Tierra Innovation, was written and produced by Curtis Fox. Special collaborators on the project include Grace Cavalieri, Katie Davis, Patricia Gray, E. Ethelbert Miller, and Beltway magazine editor Kim Roberts.

For more information, go to http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrytour
***

About the Poetry Foundation

The Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry magazine and one of the largest literary organizations in the world, exists to discover and celebrate the best poetry and to place it before the largest possible audience. The Poetry Foundation seeks to be a leader in shaping a receptive climate for poetry by developing new audiences, creating new avenues for delivery, and encouraging new kinds of poetry through innovative literary prizes and programs. For more information, please visit www.poetryfoundation.org.

Best Poetry Books of 2009 - Suzanne Frischkorn

Suzanne Frischkorn's selections:

The First Risk by Charles Jensen (Lethe Press)
"...epic in approach, experimental in intent, and lyric in result," Jim Elledge beat me to it, but let it be known I wholeheartedly agree and I would also add innovative. Jensen's The First Risk is one of my favorite books of 2009 and any year for that matter.

Disappears in the Rain by Matthew Thorburn (Parlor Press)
One of the lines of this long poem set in Japan

I dream that all our conversations / are dubbed -- it's easier /

reminds me of its cinamatic quality, and I'm here to tell you that Thorburn's camera work is amazing. Disappears in the Rain is written in a loose version of the traditional renga form of linked verse and produced as a limited edition chapbook.

* * *

Suzanne Frischkorn is the author of Lit Windowpane, (2008) and Girl On A Bridge forthcoming in 2010, both from Main Street Rag Publishing. In addition she is the author of five chapbooks, most recently American Flamingo, (2008). A 2009 Emerging Writers Fellow of The Writer's Center, her honors also include the Aldrich Poetry Award and an Artist Fellowship from the Connecticut Commission on Culture & Tourism.

Best Poetry Books of 2009 - Mike Young

Mike Young's suggestions:

The Difficult Farm by Heather Christle (Octopus Books)

The Book of Frank by CA Conrad (Chax Press)

A Mouth in California by Graham Foust (Flood Editions)

Skirmish by Dobby Gibson (Graywolf)

Sunny Wednesday by Noelle Kocot (Wave Books)

A Million in Prizes by Justin Marks (New Issues)

Areas of Fog by Joseph Massey (Shearsman Books)

The Front by K Silem Mohammad (Roof Books)

I Am Going to Clone Myself Then Kill the Clone and Eat It by Sam Pink (Paper Hero Press)

Selected Poems by Dara Wier (Wave Books)

* * *

Mike Young is the author of the forthcoming poetry collection We Are All Good If They Try Hard Enough (Publishing Genius 2010) and the chapbook MC Oroville's Answeirng Machine (Transmission Press). He co-edits NOÖ Journal and Magic Helicopter Press. Visit him online at http://mikeayoung.blogspot.com. He lives in Massachusetts and is currently enamored of carrot cake.

"a pretty wild and interesting ride"

Read Jim Carmin's review of PERSONATIONSKIN by Karl Parker



BUY NOW at Lulu
Coming soon to retail outlets

This Week at No Tell Motel

Luisa A. Igloria is intimate as language exchanges in the dark this week at No Tell Motel.

Best Poetry Books of 2009 - Susan Denning

Susan Denning's selections:

Take It by Joshua Beckman (Wave Books)

Archicembalo by G.C. Waldrep (Tupelo Press)

The Bitter Withy by Donald Revell (Alice James Books)

As Is by James Galvin (Copper Canyon Press)

Skirmish by Dobby Gibson (Graywolf Press)

* * *

Susan Denning has had poems recently in New York Quarterly and Shampoo. She edits the online magazine Caffeine Destiny. She lives in Portland, Oregon.

Best Poetry Books of 2009 - Sampson Starkweather

Sampson Starkweather's selections:

Stars of the Night Commute by Ana Božičević (Tarpaulin Sky)
I've been waiting for this book to come out since I first saw Ana close her eyes and read, from memory, the entire sequence from the last section (Document) of her book. "Light is the first animal of the visible" "So. Go be the reaper in the fields." and when Ana finished, the bartender, transfixed like everyone else, said "Holy shit, now that's poetry!" The bartender, like the Stars of the Night Commute, proved to be prophetic.

A Million in Prizes by Justin Marks (New Issues Press)
Another book I feel like I've been waiting for forever, a book that already feels like part of my life. My friend tells me in Iran, instead of the radio, the cab drivers quote you poetry, that when someone dies, when you are sad or happy or in love or heartbroken, that you turn to poetry for --who knows-- whatever it is that we turn to poetry for, a sudden widening of the world I suppose. The poems in A Million in Prizes are like friends that comfort me, I carry these lines around like my own mini-survival kit: "I have this idea, but then I have to make the language." "The day crawls by like a living document, the prettier for having forgotten me." "Trying/ to be oneself// honestly/ finding the words// allowing their arrival/ arriving at them// easily/ a life's worth of work."

The Dance of No Hard Feelings by Mark Bibbins (Copper Canyon)
Question: How can a book be charming, funny, beautiful, angry, while maintain a bristling, eletric, and shape-shifting language, being politicaly gut-wrenching and somehow full of hope all at the same time?
Answer: Read The Dance of No Hard Feelings.


Chapbook:

No Theater by Chris Tonelli (Brave Men Press)
This book reminded me of reading old school poetry, I mean the masters, like when I first read Rilke and Dickenson and Basho and Lorca and felt like I knew what silence and transformation meant for the first time. Poems that are crafted and felt, as if they've been there for a thosand years and will be there for a thousand more.

* * *

Sampson Starkweather lives in the forest. His most recent chapbook is The Heart is Green from So Much Waiting from Immaculate Disciples Press. He is also the author of City of Moths from Rope-a-Dope Press and The Photograph from horse less press. Recent or forthcoming work can be found in Action Yes, Sink Review, SIR!, Open Letters Monthly, Pax Americana, RealPoetik and Ekleksographia.

Best Poetry Books of 2009 - David Wolach

David Wolach's selections:

Disaster Suites by Rob Halpern (Palm Press)

The Shunt by David Buuck (Palm Press)

Censory Impulse by Erica Kaufman (Factory School)

The Port of Los Angeles by Jane Sprague (Chax Press)

Hegemonic Love Potion by Jules Boykoff (Factory School)

Adorno's Noise by Carla Harryman (Essay Press)

NO GENDER: Reflections on the Life & Work of kari edwards by multiple authors, kari edwards (Belladonna Books/Litmus Press)

Eel on Reef by Uche Nduka (Black Goat)

The Book of Frank by CA Conrad (Chax Press)

WIW?3 by CJ Martin (Delete Press)

Terminal Humming by K. Lorraine Graham (Edge Books)

Felonies of Illusion by Mark Wallace (Edge Books)

* * *

"David Wolach" is professor of text arts, poetry, & new media at The Evergreen State College, and visiting professor in Bard College's Workshop In Language & Thinking. "He" is "author" of several books, most recently Occultations (Black Radish Books, forth. 2010), Prefab Eulogies Vol. 1: Nothings Houses (BlazeVOX, forth. 2010), Hospitalogy (Scantily Clad Press, forth. 2009-10), and book alter(ed) (Ungovernable Press, 2009). "His" work has appeared in various journals, most recently No Tell Motel, XPoetics, Dusie, 5_Trope Ekleksographia (Ahadada Books, Amy King ed.), and Little Red Leaves. "Wolach's" work is often site specific and uses multiple media. It's been performed at venues such as Buffalo Poetics Series, The Stain of Poetry Series, The American Cybernetics Conference, and The EconVergence Conference 2009. "Wolach" is a member of Nonsite Collective and founding editor of Wheelhouse Magazine & Press, a tiny press dedicated to radical text arts & politics, which curates the yearly series PRESS in collaboration with The Evergreen State College. For readings, calls for submissions, & other items, visit "David's" blog.

Best Poetry Books of 2009 - Kristi Maxwell

Kristi Maxwell's selections:

Stars of the Night Commute by Ana Božičević (Tarpaulin Sky)
"for people who should also read Claire Hero's Sing, Mongrel (Noemi Press)"

Lisa Robertson's Magenta Soul Whip by Lisa Robertson (Coach House)
"for people who should also read Laura Sim's Stranger (Fence Books)"

In Ways Impossible To Fold by Michael Rerick (Marsh Hawk)
"for people who should also read Don Bogen's An Algebra (U of Chicago)"

I Have To Go Back To 1994 and Kill A Girl by Karyna McGlynn (Sarabande)
"for people who should also read Sachiko Murakami's The Invisibility Exhibit (Talonbooks)"

A Nest This Size by Ann M. Fine (Shearsman)
"for people who should also read Dana Ward's Roseland (Editions Louis Wain)"

* * *

Kristi Maxwell is the author of Realm Sixty-four (Ahsahta Press, 2008), Elsewhere & Wise (Dancing Girl Press, 2008), and Hush Sessions (Saturnalia Books, 2009). She is currently a PhD candidate in English & Comparative Lit at the University of Cincinnati, where she completed a graduate certificate in Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies.

Best Poetry Books of 2009 - Kathleen Rooney

Kathleen Rooney's selections:

Sometimes My Heart Pushes My Ribs by Ellen Kennedy (MuuMuu House) Kathleen's review

Poemland by Chelsea Minnis (Wave Books) Kathleen's review

* * *

Kathleen Rooney is a founding editor of Rose Metal Press and the author, most recently, of Oneiromance (an epithalamion) (Switchback Books, 2008) and Don't ever stay the same; keep changing (Spooky Girlfriend Press, 2009, with Elisa Gabbert). Her essay collection For You, For You I Am Trilling These Songs is forthcoming from Counterpoint in 2010.

This Week at No Tell

Tony Mancus licks everything he can touch this week at No Tell Motel.

Great Books by Women that Publisher’s Weekly Missed in 2009

Hi,

I just wanted to drop you a line and let you know that Guerrilla Girls on Tour was just republishing the WILLA wiki list of Great Books by Women that Publisher’s Weekly Missed in 2009. Folks should feel free to add other great titles to our open edit response!

http://willalist.wikia.com/wiki/The_WILLA_List_Wiki

yours,
Danielle

Danielle Pafunda
Outreach Committee Chair
WILLA Women in Letters and Literary Arts
www.willaweb.org

Best Poetry Books of 2009 - Jessy Randall

Jessy Randall's selection:


Scary, No Scary by Zachary Schomburg (Black Ocean)

A poetry book with an index! The back cover says, borrowing imagery from Schomburg, that this book will crawl inside your chest and pump lava through your blood. But I think, borrowing imagery from Schomburg, that it is more like a hummingbird that will climb inside your heart and beat its little wings upon you.

* * *

Jessy Randall's collection of poems A Day in Boyland (Ghost Road Press, 2007) was a finalist for the Colorado Book Award. Her new young adult novel The Wandora Unit (Ghost Road Press, 2009) is about love and friendship in the high school poetry crowd. Her website is http://personalwebs.coloradocollege.edu/~jrandall.

Best Poetry Books of 2009 - Neil de la Flor

Neil de la Flor's selections:

1. Cave of the Yellow Volkswagen by Maureen Seaton (Carnegie Mellon Press)
"For cave divers, volkswagen lovers, and queens of South Beach."

2. Weapons Grade by Terese Svoboda (The University of Arkansas Press)
"One day groundhogs will rule the world."

* * *

Neil de la Flor earned an MFA in Creative Writing at the University of Miami. His first book of poetry, Almost Dorothy, won the 2009 Marsh Hawk Press Poetry Prize and will be published in 2010. His literary work has been published in Hayden’s Ferry Review, Barrow Street, Sentence, 42opus, Court Green and others. In 2006, Facial Geometry (NeoPepper Press), a collaborative chapbook of triads co-authored with Maureen Seaton and Kristine Snodgrass, was published. He currently lives in Miami and teaches at Miami Dade College and Nova Southeastern University. He can be reached at neildelaflor.com.

Best Poetry Books of 2009 - Steven Karl

Steven Karl's selections:

Hurry Home Honey by Sawako Nakayasu (Burning Deck)

Delivered by Sarah Gambito (Persea Books)

A Toast in the House of Friends by Akilah Oliver (Coffeehouse Press)

Quantum Jitters by Patricia Carlin (Marsh Hawk Press)

Tuned Droves by Eric Baus (Octopus Books)

A Difficult Farm by Heather Christle (Octopus Books)

Stars of the Night Commute by Ana Božičević (Tarpaulin Sky)

The Dance of No Hard Feelings by Mark Bibbins (Copper Canyon)


Chapbooks:

Your Name is the Only Freedom by Janaka Stucky (Bravemen Press)

Play by Mathias Svalina (Cupboard Pamphlet)


* * *

Steven Karl is the author of State(s) of Flux, a collaborative chapbook with the artist, Joseph Lappie (Peptic Robot Press) and author of forthcoming chapbooks, (Ir)Rational Animals (Flying Guillotine Press) and Saturday(s) (Scantily Clad Press). He lives in New York City.

Best Poetry Books of 2009 - Justin Marks

Justin Marks' selection:

Having 9 month old twins, I haven't had much time for reading this year, but I loved loved loved:

The Hot Tub/Glory Hole by Jon Leon and Dan Hoy (MAL-O-MAR)

The speaker in Glory Hole “heart[s] synthetics / of all kinds,” “tell[s] the sky / to suck the fat one“, and “drive[s] like an asshole because it’s the truth.” The Hot Tub is a collection of prose poems about “How we are decaying as we party hard.” Poetry has made the narrator so rich and famous “helicopters buzz above my head and paparazzi disappear among telephone poles” as he rides his bicycle in Versace pajamas, drinks, does copious amounts of drugs and has lots of sex.

* * *

Justin Marks' first book is A Million in Prizes (New Issues Press). He is also the author of several chapbooks, the most recent being Voir Dire (Rope-a-Dope Press). He is a co-Editor of Birds, LLC and lives in Woodside, Queens with his wife and their infant son and daughter.

This Week at No Tell

Jenna Cardinale is herself a mysticism this week at No Tell Motel.

Best Poetry Books of 2009 - Joshua Marie Wilkinson

Joshua Marie Wilkinson's selections:

Tuned Droves by Eric Baus (Octopus Books)

With Deer by Aase Berg (Black Ocean Books)

Free Cell by Anselm Berrigan (City Lights Publishers)

A Mouth in California by Graham Foust (Flood Editions)

The Sound Mirror by Andrew Joron (Flood Editions)

Humanimal: A Project for Future Children by Bhanu Kapil (Kelsey Street Press)

Penury by Myung Mi Kim (Omnidawn Publishing)

Neighbor by Rachel Levitsky (Ugly Duckling Press)

Clampdown by Jennifer Moxley (Flood Editions)

My New Job by Catherine Wagner (Fence Books)

* * *

Joshua Marie Wilkinson is the author, most recently, of The Book of Whispering in the Projection Booth (Tupelo 2009). Two new projects are due out next year: Selenography, a collaboration with the Polaroids of Califone's Tim Rutili (Sidebrow Press) and an anthology of short essays by 101 contemporary poets on teaching poetry (U of Iowa Press). He lives in Chicago and Athens, Georgia.

This Week at No Tell

Miriam Bird Greenberg looks askance with her white eyes like a rabbit shucked of its skin in one fluid motion this week at No Tell Motel.

ROCKPILE COMES TO WASHINGTON

Tuesday, November 3, noon-1:30 pm
Poets in the (Think) Tank: ROCKPILE Symposium
Co-sponsored by Split This Rock (www.SplitThisRock.org) and the Institute for Policy Studies (www.ips-dc.org)
Brown bag lunch
The Institute for Policy Studies
1112 16th Street, NW, Suite 600
Washington, DC
Farragut North or Farragut West Metro
For more info: info@splitthisrock.org, 202-787-5210

In anticipation of what is sure to be a music and poetry extravaganza at Busboys and Poets November 4, ROCKPILE artists David Meltzer and Michael Rothenberg host an open discussion on Art and Activism, Poetry, Music and The Troubadour Tradition, Censorship and The Academy, Community and Collaboration. Panel participants include David Meltzer, Michael Rothenberg, and Fred Joiner (bio below). Moderator: Sarah Browning

Wednesday, November 4 ROCKPILE PERFORMANCE
Host: Busboys and Poets: “Hump Day Groovez” w/ Burnett Thompson and The New Columbia Orchestra
Time: 9pm-11pm
2021 14 St. NW
Washington, DC 20009
202-387-9757
http://www.busboysandpoets.com/
admission—10 dollars at the door

Praxilla - New Online Journal

Poems by David Lehman, Yermiyahu Ahron Taub, Yoko Danno, Jennifer Michael Hecht and others

Potomac Review Issue #46

Order your copy now and join us as they hike the Appalachian Trail, belly dance at Sharm El Sheikh, drink tea in Kazakhstan and dig in an Italian vineyard. They are pleased and proud to offer poetry by Amy Holman, fiction by Myfanway Collins, Irene Keliher, Jeff Fearnside and many others.

No Tell Motel's Nominations for Dzanc Books' Best of the Web

"Eating The Future" by Elizabeth Hildreth

"Ghazal, with Accessories" by Jenn Koiter

"When I Worked for Madonna" by Joanna Ruocco

PERSONATIONSKIN - Now Available at Lulu

BUY NOW at Lulu
Coming soon to retail outlets

PERSONATIONSKIN by Karl Parker
ISBN: 978-0-578-01872-0
Publication Date: November 2009
136 Pages

What People are Saying about PERSONATIONSKIN:

Hilarity in the vault! A man without a face and an ever-shifting position on things: sheer terror and comedy follow where "everywhere, divides."
—Fanny Howe


To read Karl Parker's poems is to revel in the tremendous reach of a mind that, more than any other I've read (more than John Clare, more than Khlebnikov or Kharms or Huerta) can render me awed at the realization that we, each of us, have a person inside our skins with us. Parker enacts this phenomenological remembering with such a wit and lyricism, and such a grief, that I believe him likely one of the smartest, saddest, funniest writers alive. He is without doubt one of my favorite writers. I have been following his work for years. And so will people for years to come.
—Gabriel Gudding


Karl Parker’s PERSONATIONSKIN makes for a strange and auspicious debut. The self in these poems tries on and discards one skin after another while Rome burns in the background—his fiddling indistinguishable from the burning. Joyous and agonized bodies dance through the funhouse, leaving sticky-note poems on distorting mirrors to mark their circular progress: “peel back the skin, back to the everything, the pale tenderest fleshpetal, where we are reeling still.” A broken umbrella in the face of major weather, a map of a landscape in which the difference is spreading: poems to make your flesh creep, to make you feel alive.
—Joshua Corey


Parker's jolting, often baffling assertions keep escorting you to the edge of some political or psychological cliff, where you glimpse an abyss into which a part of you or someone who has stolen your identity may already have jumped—and then yanking you back with a nudge in the ribs. It is funny—the way Samuel Beckett is funny. But wholly original. You don't want PERSONATIONSKIN to end because it keeps getting you to smile at the reasons why you might despair. It is a tender, good-natured, painfully discomfiting, and aesthetically exhilarating book.
—Jim Crenner


There are moments of human interaction that leave one with a sense of cosmic disconnection, as if the earth has stopped spinning, as a record would skip and scratch at a school dance. There is something so delicately transcendent in that shock. It’s like being hung-over and walking out into the twenty-below morning, a gasp. Karl Parker’s poems bring me as closer to that terror and transcendence than any other writer.

I think of Whitman rubbing his hide on tree bark, in both penance and ecstasy. The American elegy is tapered to a wick which burns back on itself. The edges of Parker’s writing shudder, as the skin shudders when it comes in contact with thorns—or caresses. But it is beyond good and evil. Many voices hash this out. There is Beckett reciting Shakespeare, Paul Celan reading Dylan Thomas. Voices plummet from the heavens. They are eloquent and rational, and they hold back tears. The personating fills that void with bodies and consciousness. That brings them even closer to, and makes them the membrane between body and self. They engineer earthly structure to support the weight of regret and hope. Parker’s poems are some of the most delicate and dangerous that exist. In their sublime instants, we are both present and complete.
—William Pettit, Tarano, Italy 3/09

Indie Publishing: Two Questions and Several Answers

Eileen Tabios, Francisco Aragón, Reb Livingston, and Rusty Morrison respond to Barbara Jane Reyes questions on independent poetry publishing at Harriet.

Also, Rauan Klassnik asks Reb Livingston "What’s Right & What’s Wrong (with the small press world)" at HTMLGIANT.

Eileen Tabios on Rebecca Loudon's Navigate, Amelia Earhart's Letters Home

every word in this collection is necessary -- which is amazing because, as a project-oriented collection and given its nature, it stood the risk of containing poems-as-placeholders. The vibrant energy here does not cancel discipline.

This Week at No Tell

Tiffany Midge looks for something implicit this week at No Tell Motel.

New Titles by No Tell Poets

A Model Year by Gina Myers (Coconut Books)

Don't ever stay the same; keep changing Elisa Gabbert and Kathleen Rooney (Spooky Girlfriend Press)

A Nest This Size by Ann Fine (Shearsman)

The Found Titles Project by Mark DuCharme (Ahadada Books, e-book)

Disappears in the Rain by Matthew Thorburn (Parlor City Press)

State(s) of Flux by Steve Karl (Into Copious Unknowns)

Stars of the Night Commute by Ana Božičević (Tarpaulin Sky Press)

RECENTLY CLOUDS by Jess Mynes and Aaron Tieger (Petrichord Books)

Amphisbaena by Ray Succre (Cauliay Publishing)

all the jawing jackdaw by Nava Fader (Blazevox)

This Week at No Tell

Jenn Koiter requests you sharpen your scissors and remove all belt loops this week at No Tell Motel.

Coming Soon

PERSONATIONSKIN by Karl Parker
ISBN: 978-0-578-01872-0
Publication Date: November 2009
136 Pages

What People are Saying about PERSONATIONSKIN:

Hilarity in the vault! A man without a face and an ever-shifting position on things: sheer terror and comedy follow where "everywhere, divides."
—Fanny Howe


To read Karl Parker's poems is to revel in the tremendous reach of a mind that, more than any other I've read (more than John Clare, more than Khlebnikov or Kharms or Huerta) can render me awed at the realization that we, each of us, have a person inside our skins with us. Parker enacts this phenomenological remembering with such a wit and lyricism, and such a grief, that I believe him likely one of the smartest, saddest, funniest writers alive. He is without doubt one of my favorite writers. I have been following his work for years. And so will people for years to come.
—Gabriel Gudding


Karl Parker’s PERSONATIONSKIN makes for a strange and auspicious debut. The self in these poems tries on and discards one skin after another while Rome burns in the background—his fiddling indistinguishable from the burning. Joyous and agonized bodies dance through the funhouse, leaving sticky-note poems on distorting mirrors to mark their circular progress: “peel back the skin, back to the everything, the pale tenderest fleshpetal, where we are reeling still.” A broken umbrella in the face of major weather, a map of a landscape in which the difference is spreading: poems to make your flesh creep, to make you feel alive.
—Joshua Corey


Parker's jolting, often baffling assertions keep escorting you to the edge of some political or psychological cliff, where you glimpse an abyss into which a part of you or someone who has stolen your identity may already have jumped—and then yanking you back with a nudge in the ribs. It is funny—the way Samuel Beckett is funny. But wholly original. You don't want PERSONATIONSKIN to end because it keeps getting you to smile at the reasons why you might despair. It is a tender, good-natured, painfully discomfiting, and aesthetically exhilarating book.
—Jim Crenner


There are moments of human interaction that leave one with a sense of cosmic disconnection, as if the earth has stopped spinning, as a record would skip and scratch at a school dance. There is something so delicately transcendent in that shock. It’s like being hung-over and walking out into the twenty-below morning, a gasp. Karl Parker’s poems bring me as closer to that terror and transcendence than any other writer.

I think of Whitman rubbing his hide on tree bark, in both penance and ecstasy. The American elegy is tapered to a wick which burns back on itself. The edges of Parker’s writing shudder, as the skin shudders when it comes in contact with thorns—or caresses. But it is beyond good and evil. Many voices hash this out. There is Beckett reciting Shakespeare, Paul Celan reading Dylan Thomas. Voices plummet from the heavens. They are eloquent and rational, and they hold back tears. The personating fills that void with bodies and consciousness. That brings them even closer to, and makes them the membrane between body and self. They engineer earthly structure to support the weight of regret and hope. Parker’s poems are some of the most delicate and dangerous that exist. In their sublime instants, we are both present and complete.
—William Pettit, Tarano, Italy 3/09

No Tell Motel's Reading Period Open During October

Submission guidelines are here.

This Week at No Tell Motel

Sampson Starkweather is searching for a real moment of text this week at No Tell Motel.

Jehanne Dubrow interviews Jill Alexander Essbaum

I'll discard, momentarily, the death bit and talk about sex and God. The trope of God as Lover did not begin with me; look to the medieval woman saints, Julian of Norwich, Hildegard, Christina the Astonishing—they have absolutely no reluctance speaking of their desire for God as if he were a physical, imminently present man. Or even the words used to describe the Christian story. We speak of the passion of the Lord. A saint is said to be in ecstasy. The church is called Christ's Bride. And the words of institution: this is my body, given for you. Far earlier than that, we have both the psalms of David and the Song of Solomon-- neither of which flinch at real depictions of human emotion, including sexual emotion. Why the pairing of sexual and religious expression seems wrong to our post-modern American ears, I think, is because we're all (no matter what we believe or don't) direct inheritors of a Puritan heritage that disdains human physicality (full disclosure: when I typed this, I accidentally typed "hymen" instead of human!) in lieu of pursuits of the spirit alone. But look—I'm hardly spiritual. I'm carnal. And, if you are a Christian, you believe that for a time in history, God was too. And we celebrate that. It's hard for me to explain this because it makes such natural sense to me. And yet, I realize that at times, I am both provocative and outre.

Delirious Lapel

In May 2009, Danielle Pafunda curated the first installment of Delirious Hem's This is What a Feminist [Poet] Looks Like. This forum featured women discussing the relationship between their feminism & their poetry, and these contributions elicited thoughtful responses from women & men bloggers alike. Mark Wallace was one of those bloggers. Together, we've curated This is What a (Pro)Feminist [Man Poet] Looks Like. We hope you'll visit, read, comment, & enjoy!

Monday October 5: Brian Teare, Christian Peet, & H.L. Hix
Tuesday October 6: Hugh Behm-Steinberg, Kareem Estefan, & Kevin Simmonds
Wednesday October 7: Mark Wallace, Mike Hauser, & Nate Pritts
Thursday October 8: Philip Jenks, Tim Atkins, & Tony Frazer
Friday October 9: Tony Trigilio, David Lau & Rodrigo Toscano

Upcoming Forums:
November: This is What a Feminist [Poet] Looks Like, 2
December: 2009 Advent Kalendar (check out 2008's!)

Switchback Books Fundraising Subscription Sale

From Switchback Books:

In an effort to boost sales and give our supporters a great deal, we will be adding a subscription option on the Switchback Books Website (www.switchbackbooks.com/catalog). This will give you the opportunity to purchase up to five books at an amazing deal. Details on our blog now (switchbackbooks.blogspot.com)!

In addition, we’ve added donation buttons to our blog and website, allowing you to instantly support Switchback in any increment you can. As we work toward becoming a 501c3 nonprofit organization, we’re relying on others’ help to aid our efforts in supporting women’s poetry, voicing feminist ideals, and building an inspired and inspiring community of writers. No donation is too small, and we appreciate all forms of generosity.

Our goal—$800 by the end of the year for the printing and promotional costs of Marisa Crawford’s The Haunted House—is within reach with the help of even a modest donation.

Thanks to those of you who participated in and contributed to our bartending fundraising event held earlier this summer!