Bestest Poetry Books of 2010

In November, 360 No Tell Motel, Bedside Guide contributors and other poets were invited to send in their lists for "best poetry books of 2010" (however they chose to define such a pronouncement). Of those invited, 36 responded with lists.

Titles included on multiple lists:

(10 lists) Black Life by Dorothea Lasky (Wave Books)

(6 lists) The French Exit by Elisa Gabbert (Birds LLC)

(5 lists) God Damsel by Reb Livingston (No Tell Books)

(5 lists) Wolf Face by Matt Hart (H_ngm_n Books)

(4 lists) Come On All You Ghosts by Matthew Zapruder (Copper Canyon)

(4 lists) Mean Free Path by Ben Lerner (Copper Canyon)

(4 lists) Post Moxie by Julia Story (Sarabande)

(3 lists) Bluets by Maggie Nelson (Wave Books)

(3 lists) Glass Is Really A Liquid by Bruce Covey (No Tell Books)

(3 lists) The Morning News Is Exciting by Don Mee Choi (Action Books)

(3 lists) R’s Boat by Lisa Robertson (University of California Press)

(3 lists) SELF HELP POEMS by Sampson Starkweather (Greying Ghost Press)

(3 lists) The Sore Throat & Other Poems by Aaron Kunin (Fence)

(3 lists) Texture Notes by Sawako Nakayasu (Letter Machine)

(3 lists) Thin Kimono by Michael Earl Craig (Wave Books)

(3 lists) The Trees Around by Chris Tonelli (Birds LLC)

(3 lists) To Anacreon In Heaven by Graham Foust (Minus A Press)

(2 lists) The Redcoats by Ryan Murphy (Krupskaya)

(2 lists) aaaaaaaaaaalice by Jennifer Karmin (Flim Forum Press)

(2 lists) Beautiful in the Mouth by Keetje Kuiper (BOA Editions)

(2 lists) Black-Eyed Heifer by Shelley Taylor (Tarpaulin Sky)

(2 lists) The Bugging Watch by Kim Gek Lin Short (Tarpaulin Sky Press)

(2 lists) The Cloud Corporation by Timothy Donelley (Wave Books)

(2 lists) Collected Poems by Gustaf Sobin (Talisman House)

(2 lists) )((eco(lang)(uage(Reader)) edited by Brenda Iijima (Nightboat Books)

(2 lists) Fancy Beasts by Alex Lemon (Milkweed)

(2 lists) Hank by Abraham Smith (Action Books)

(2 lists) Monkey Bars by Matthew Lippman (Typecast)

(2 lists) The Mystery of the Hidden Driveway by Jennifer L. Knox (Bloof Books)

(2 lists) The Name of This Intersection is Frost by Maryrose Larkin (Shearmans Books)

(2 lists) Neighbor Procedure by Rachel Zolf (Coach House)

(2 lists) Objects of a Fog Death by Julie Doxsee (Black Ocean)

(2 lists) Pleasure by Brian Teare (Ahsahta Press)

(2 lists) Phantom Noise by Brian Turner (Alice James)

(2 lists) Poetry! Poetry! Poetry! by Peter Davis (Bloof Books)

(2 lists) Sasha Sings the Laundry on the Line by Sean Thomas Dougherty (BOA)

(2 lists) Suspend by Nancy Kuhl (Shearmans Books)

(2 lists) Town by Kate Schapira (Factory School, Heretical Texts)

(2 lists) Triggermoon Triggermoon by Julia Cohen (Black Lawrence Press)

(2 lists) Ventrakl by Christian Hawkey (Ugly Duckling Presse)

(2 lists) Wings Without Birds by Brian Henry (Salt)

(2 lists) The Wonderfull Yeare by Nate Pritts (Cooper Dillon Books)

This Week at No Tell Motel

Brian Laidlaw opens cans of hams this week at No Tell Motel.

Best Poetry Books of 2010 - John Findura

John Findura's selections:

Father Dirt by Mihaela Moscaliuc (Alice James Books)

The Mystery of the Hidden Driveway by Jennifer L. Knox (Bloof Books)

Black-Eyed Heifer by Shelley Taylor (Tarpaulin Sky)

Wolf Face by Matt Hart (H_ngm_n Books)

Mr. Worthington's Beautiful Experiments on Splashes by Genine Lentine (New Michigan Press)

Wings Without Birds by Brian Henry (Salt)

Phantom Noise by Brian Turner (Alice James Books)

The Wonderfull Yeare by Nate Pritts (Cooper Dillon Books)

* * *

John Findura holds an MFA from The New School. A Pushcart Prize nominee and a guest blogger for The Best American Poetry blog, his poetry and criticism appear in journals such as Verse, Fugue, Fourteen Hills, Copper Nickel, 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 2010 - Elizabeth Hildreth

Elizabeth Hildreth's selections:

Again, this is not a “best of” list, but more a “a few of the best of” list. I interviewed these authors this year, and I like all of these books (and their authors) a lot.


The Wonderfull Yeare by Nate Pritts (Cooper Dillon Books)
How many exclamation points does it take to say the following? I am the saddest person living. Grab this book out of Nate Pritts’ hands before he jumps off a building.

The French Exit by Elisa Gabbert (Birds, LCC)
If you happen to smash face-first through a French door, will you end up in these poems? Goddamn, I really hope so.

Monkey Bars by Matthew Lippman (Typecast)
What are poets to do who like TV and being told exactly what they need to do to get their shit together? Matthew Lippman is here with his monkey to help you.

Black Life by Dorothea Lasky (Wave Books)
What is the greatest misery that will inform everything you do? Peer down into the blackest life-shaped crevice and Dorothea Lasky may throw some ideas out to you.

The Ravenous Audience by Kate Durbin (Akashic Books)
If you live life as a fashion show, will you end up sexualizing Felt Jesus? The Greater Universe and Marilyn Monroe predict: “Yes, yes, yes!”

Wolf Face by Matt Hart (H_ngm_n Books)
What do you get when you cross a wolf with a face? A beautiful duplicitous mess: I wish a wolf would attack me!/I was attacked by a wolf!

God Damsel by Reb Livingston (No Tell Books)
Why is it that psychic plungers and babies always look like fattest collections of poems? Ask Reb Livingston and God (the one in distress and in a dress).

The Bugging Watch by Kim Gek Lin Short (Tarpaulin Sky Press)
Who loves awesome prose poems about dead girls? I do.


Chapbook:

The Lost Notebooks of Juan Sweeney by Chad Sweeney (Forklift)
Is you Juan? I’m almost entirely sure it doesn’t matter.


* * *

Elizabeth Hildreth is a regular interviewer for Bookslut--for which she interviewed all these authors this year. She lives in Chicago and blogs at theeffectofsmallanimals.blogspot.com

Best Poetry Books of 2010 - Timothy Bradford

Timothy Bradford's selections:

Big Bright Sun by Nate Pritts (BlazeVOX [books])

Texture Notes by Sawako Nakayasu (Letter Machine Editions)

Admission by Jerry Williams (Carnegie Mellon University Press)

The French Exit by Elisa Gabbert (Birds, LCC)

It’s Not You, It’s Me: The Poetry of Breakup edited by Jerry Williams (The Overlook Press)

* * *

Timothy Bradford’s poetry has most recently appeared in No Tell Motel, Upstairs at Duroc, ecopoetics, Drunken Boat and the anthology Ain’t Nobody That Can Sing Like Me (Mongrel Empire Press). His first book of poetry, Nomads with Samsonite, is forthcoming from BlazeVOX [books] in early 2011. From 2007 to 2009, he was an associate foreign researcher with the Institut d’Histoire du Temps Présent in Paris while working on a novel. Currently, he teaches English composition at the University of Central Oklahoma. He lives with his wife and two sons and an ever-changing menagerie just outside of Oklahoma City.

Best Poetry Books of 2010 - Susan Denning

Susan Denning's selections:

The Forest of Sure Things by Megan Snyder Camp (Tupelo)

Come On All You Ghosts by Matthew Zapruder (Copper Canyon)

Sunny Wednesday by Noelle Kocot (Wave)

Thin Kimono by Michael Earl Craig (Wave)

* * *

Susan Denning has had poems published in Shampoo, Perhelion, New York Quarterly and elsewhere. She edited the magazine Caffeine Destiny for 13 years. She blogs at http://caffeinedestiny.blogspot.com, and works at Literary Arts in Portland, Oregon.

Best Poetry Books of 2010 - Megan Kaminski

Megan Kaminski's selections:

Shoulder Season by Ange Mlinko (Coffee House)

O Resplandor by Erín Moure (Anansi)

R's Boat by Lisa Robertson (University of California Press)

Black-Eyed Heifer by Shelley Taylor (Tarpaulin Sky)

Texture Notes by Sawako Nakayasu (Letter Machine)

The Network by Jena Osman (Fence)

Glass Is Really A Liquid by Bruce Covey (No Tell Books)

* * *

Megan Kaminski is the author of four chapbooks, including carry catastrophe, which is available from Grey Book Press. Her poems have been recently published or are forthcoming in CutBank, EOAGH, Horse Less Review, No Tell Motel, Phoebe, and other fine journals. She lives in Lawrence, KS, and teaches creative writing and literature at the University of Kansas. http://megankaminski.com/

Best Poetry Books of 2010 - Lucy Biederman

Lucy Biederman's selections:

Pleasure by Brian Teare (Ahsahta)
"nasturtiums come summer undone verbs, burnt them, burnt tense, the present's past, burnt that..."

Wings Without Birds by Brian Henry (Salt)
"A pinata spilled, pick out / the choicest pieces and chew, as on / a series of fragments arranged alpha- / betically. I crack the a/c despite the bill. Close the blinds / to spite the sun."

Wolf Face by Matt Hart (H_ngm_n)
"The world weird wired as a panic device. The faces / in whiteout, the particulars diminished. / I am joyful. I am joyful. Your sufferance / my oyster."

The Mouths of Grazing Things by Jennifer Boyden (University of Wisconsin Press).
"Whatever is given is best when given all at once, not / over time like time itself / or a tract of days so clear the sky forgets."

Mean Free Path by Ben Lerner (Copper Canyon)
"This is a recording. This living hand / Reached in error. I hold it toward you / Throw it toward you, measuring the time..."

100 Notes on Violence by Julie Carr (Ahsahta). "That night I dreamed I had sex with a cat. In the morning as I was buying my coffee, a real cat ran by my ankles; I almost fainted with desire and fear."

* * *

Lucy Biederman graduated from George Mason University's MFA program in poetry. Her poetry is forthcoming in journals like Open City and The Journal, and currently appears in Issue 1 of the online journal Country Music.

Poetry Shopping Holiday Guide - Timothy Bradford

Timothy Bradford's suggestions:

Big Bright Sun by Nate Pritts (BlazeVOX [books], 2010)
For everyone with a “grey heart” who notices those “isolate flecks everywhere,” for those who “hurt like a smudge of yellow next to a red square,” for your friendly local ornithologists, botanists, astrologers, astrologists, sun, sky and fire worshippers, and for romantic autoconversationalist human beings everywhere.

Texture Notes by Sawako Nakayasu (Letter Machine Editions, 2010)
For people fascinated by eyeballs and the digestive process, for anyone who has nightmares about hamburgers, for friends who desire a scientific cross-section cutter for the universe, for those who muse on “the confluence of texture” and “the pain of seeing something beautiful,” for fighters, contact improvisationalists, pantheists, animists and scientists.

Admission by Jerry Williams (Carnegie Mellon University Press, 2010)
For anyone who’s romanticized the Russian Revolution, worked in a cardboard box factory, or driven cars with no reverse for you; for friends with father issues, a love of contemporary art galleries, and/or a love of Las Vegas; for anyone who suspects dentists, ukulele players, snow and the moon are terrorists; for anyone who’s decided “I will keep this life.”

The French Exit by Elisa Gabbert (Birds, LCC, 2010)
For cunning philosophers, animal lovers, bloggers, tennis players, and defenestrationists; for transcendental sadomasochists; for anyone with scars and scares or cars and cares; for anyone who’s survived the island with a modicum of sanity and sand in the shoes; for friends who wonder why words and the world don’t every really match but keep loving them still.

It’s Not You, It’s Me: The Poetry of Breakup edited by Jerry Williams (The Overlook Press, 2010)
(A cento.) Many are making love. There is always the desire. Let separate cars be our disguise. I want to tell you why husbands stop loving wives. Time will stop here. Annie knew this. Weren’t there other lovers who left no trace? We sit at the kitchen table waiting for some opening. No depth there for dreaming. It’s been six months since we made love. Yes, I meant goodbye when I said it. Wish the lights would go back on, wish it was spring already.

Runoff by Clay Matthews. (BlazeVOX [books], 2009)
For Whitmanesque meteorologist lovers of all four seasons.

The Life and Opinions of DJ Spinoza by Eugene Ostashevsky (Ugly Duckling Press, 2008)
For hip-hoppopotamus manic surreal superhero philosophers.

Body Clock by Eleni Sikelianos (Coffee House Press, 2008)
For the pregnant or soon-to-be pregnant with light and/or time and/or biology and/or child.

Harlot by Jill Alexander Essbaum (No Tell Books, 2007)
For mannered but not mild nymphologomaniacs of either gender.

* * *

Timothy Bradford’s poetry has most recently appeared in No Tell Motel, Upstairs at Duroc, ecopoetics, Drunken Boat and the anthology Ain’t Nobody That Can Sing Like Me (Mongrel Empire Press). His first book of poetry, Nomads with Samsonite, is forthcoming from BlazeVOX [books] in early 2011. From 2007 to 2009, he was an associate foreign researcher with the Institut d’Histoire du Temps Présent in Paris while working on a novel. Currently, he teaches English composition at the University of Central Oklahoma. He lives with his wife and two sons and an ever-changing menagerie just outside of Oklahoma City.

Best Poetry Books of 2010 - Suzanne Frischkorn

Suzanne Frischkorn's selections:

Bloom by Simmons Buntin (Salmon Books)

The Last Lie by Tony Gloeggler (NYQ Books)

The Decadant Lovely by Amy Pence (Main Street Rag)

Ruthless by Jeff Mock (Three Candles Press)

Persons Unknown by Jake Adam York (Crab Orchard Series)

Zephyr by Susan Browne (Steel Toe Books)

Phantom Noise by Brian Turner (Alice James)

Another Place of Rocking by Wendy Wisner (Pudding House)

On the Run with Dick and Jane by Alex Stolis (Pudding House)

Temptation by Water by Diane Lockward (Wind)

Glow of Our Sweat by Francisco Aragon (Scapegoat Press)

God Damsel by Reb Livingston (No Tell Books)

* * *

Suzanne Frischkorn is the author of Girl on a Bridge (2010) and Lit Windowpane (2008) both from Main Street Rag Publishing. In addition she is the author of five chapbooks, most recently American Flamingo (MiPO, 2008), Her poems have recently appeared, or are forthcoming in Barn Owl Review, Copper Nickel, MiPOesias, North American Review, PALABRA, Verse Daily, and the anthology Because I Told You So: Poems on the Happiness and Crappiness of Parenthood (Aortic Books). She serves as an Assistant Editor for Anti-

Best Poetry Books of 2010 - Martha Silano

Martha Silano's selections:

Letters from the Emily Dickinson Room by Kelli Russell Agodon (White Pine Press)

Sasha Sings the Laundry on the Line by Sean Thomas Dougherty (BOA Editions)

On Tact, & the Made Up World by Michele Glazer (U of Iowa Press)

Beautiful in the Mouth by Keetje Kuiper (BOA Editions)

Faulkner's Rosary by Sarah Vap (Saturnalia Books)

* * *

Martha Silano is the author of three books of poetry, What the Truth Tastes Like, Blue Positive, and The Little Office of the Immaculate Conception, forthcoming from Saturnalia Books in February 2011. New work is forthcoming or just out in Drunken Boat, Escape into Life, Poemeleon, Rattle, Cincinnati Review, and American Poetry Review. She teaches at Bellevue College.

This Week at No Tell Motel

J. P. Dancing Bear makes a lifetime of scraps into a comfortable living space this week at No Tell Motel.

Best Poetry Books of 2010 - Ravi Shankar

Ravi Shankar's selections:

Top Ten Ten Poetry Releases of 2010 in No Particular Order (encompassing an array of high and low end invention in the multiple forms of a delicious unexpectedness that rejuvenates the contemporary idiom and initiates a dialogue on the forms and possibilities of modern life and langauge):

Black Life by Dorothea Lasky (Wave Books)

Moving Blanket by Kostas Anagnopoulus (Ugly Duckling Press)

Pharmacopoeia & Early Selected Works by Elisabeth Bletsoe (Shearsman Books)

The Linguistics of Light by Lisa Dart (Salt Publishing)

Poems of the Black Object by Ronaldo V Wilson (FuturePoem Books)

Lighthead by Terrance Hayes (Penguin)

Suspend by Nancy Kuhl (Shearsmen Books)

Bright Felon: Autobiography and Cities by Kazim Ali (Wesleyan University Press)

The Return of Kral Majales edited by Louis Armand (Litteraria Pragensia)

the Dickinson Composites by Jen Bervin (Granary Books)

* * *
Ravi Shankar founded Drunken Boat, teaches at CCSU, in the Fairfield University MFA Program and at the City University of Hong Kong MFA Program. He is the author of four books and chapbooks of poetry, including most recently Seamless Matter (Rain Taxi) and Voluptuous Bristle. His forthcoming book of poems, Truth and Pretense, won the 2010 National Poetry Review Prize. Along with Tina Chang and Nathalie Handal, he's co-editor of W.W. Norton's Language for a New Century: Contemporary Poetry from Asia, the Middle East and Beyond, called "a beautiful achievement for world literature" by Nobel Laureate Nadine Gordimer. During the month of December, he's a cross between an over-exuberant Santa and a grinch; that is to say, when it comes to les bons mots, a cinch.

Best Poetry Books of 2010 - Michael Schiavo

Michael Schiavo's selections:

Succubus Blues by Jim Behrle (Editions Louis Wain)

Lovely, Raspberry by Aaron Belz (Persea)

Mum Halo by John Coletti (Rust Buckle)

Poetry! Poetry! Poetry! by Peter Davis (Bloof)

Pentateuch by Whit Griffin (Skysill)

Wolf Face by Matt Hart (H_NGM_N)

Now Lays the Sunshine By by Andrew Hughes (BookThug)

The Redcoats by Ryan Murphy (Krupskaya)

Ain't Got All Night by Buck Downs (Lulu)

Like A Sea by Samuel Amadon (University of Iowa Press)

* * *

Michael Schiavo is the author of The Mad Song (Shires Press, out-of-print) and editor of The Equalizer. His poetry has appeared in Forklift, Ohio, The Normal School, La Petite Zine, Fourteen Hills, Sixth Finch, Cold-Drill, jubilat, and The Awl. He lives in Vermont.

Best Poetry Books of 2010 - David Wolach

David Wolach's selections:

Armies of Compassion by Eleni Stecopoulos (Palm Press)

revv. you'll--ution by Brenda Iijima (Displaced Press)

Spectre by Mark Lemoureux (Black Radish Books)

Black Life by Dorothea Lasky (Wave Books)

Gaze by Marthe Reed (Black Radish Books)

Neighbor Procedure by Rachel Zolf (Coach House)

Neighbor by Rachel Levitzky (Ugly Duckling Presse)

The Name of This Intersection is Frost by Maryrose Larkin (Shearmans Books)

Green-Wood by Allison Cobb (Factory School)

House Envy of All The World by Simone White (Factory School)

The City Real & Imagined by Frank Sherlock and CA Conrad (Factory School)

Chapbooks
Zine Chapbook by Lara Durback (No No Press)

Meet Me Under the War Angels by David Brazil (OMG! Press)

*As with probably all of us, I don't consider this so much a Best Of list in the normative sense--such valuations make little sense to me--but a list of books I've read this year and that have been published this year that I love and want to share with others. That is, after all, the spirit with which No Tell Motel Motel offers this important public service. Even so, this list could easily be three times as long and include titles such as the new Wave edition of The Book of Frank, a book I would have included had I not done so last year with the Chax version, a different book; or any title from Essay Press; and so forth. What releases me from feeling too badly about it is that many of the writers before me listed books I would have otherwise. Really shows that there's not too much good poetry in the world, like some have grumbled. No, just not enough space-time. Finite universe and alienation, bad combo.

* * *

David Wolach is editor of Wheelhouse Magazine & Press and an active participant in Nonsite Collective. A former union organizer and performing artist, Wolach's new book of poems, Occultations, has just been published through Black Radish Books (2010). Other books include the multi-media transliteration Prefab Eulogies Volume 1: Nothings Houses (BlazeVox, 2010), a chapbook from the full-length Hospitalogy, title of the same name (Scantily Clad Press, forth), and book alter(ed) (Ungovernable Press, 2009). New poetry and essay can be found in or is forthcoming from journals such as Augabe, Jacket Magazine, Try Magazine, and 5_Trope. Wolach is professor of text arts, poetics, and aesthetics at The Evergreen State College, and teaches as visiting faculty in Bard College's Workshop in Language & Thinking. Wolach's current work involves touring with the Evergreen-based Performance Research Group, an experimental composition/performance collective now performing original work alongside Kenneth Gaburo's opus, Maledetto. For reading/performance dates, visit David at http://davidwolach.blogspot.com/

Best Poetry Books of 2010 - Lee Ann Roripaugh

Lee Ann Roripaugh's selections:

Nox by Anne Carson (New Directions)

Glass is Really a Liquid by Bruce Covey (No Tell Books)

Mommy Must Be a Fountain of Feather by Kim Hyesoon, translated by Don Mee Choi (Action Books)

Ideal Cities by Erika Meitner (Harper Perennial)

Requiem for the Orchard by Oliver de la Paz (University of Akron Press)

Forest of Eyes by Tada Chimako, translated by Jeffrey Angles (University of California Press)

Cyborgia by Susan Slaviero (Mayapple Press)

Pleasure by Brian Teare (Ahsahta Press)

* * *

Lee Ann Roripaugh is the author of On the Cusp of a Dangerous Year (Southern Illinois University Press, 2009), Year of the Snake (Southern Illinois University Press, 2004), and Beyond Heart Mountain (Penguin, 1999). She teaches at The University of South Dakota and blogs (sporadically) at http://runningbrush.wordpress.com

Best Poetry Books of 2010 - Marcela Sulak

Marcela Sulak's selections:

Burn Lake by Carrie Fountain (Penguin)
This was a National Poetry Series winner, but I've been a fan of Carrie Fountain's incisive, funny, moving and biting social commentary, her astonishing line breaks (they look so normal) and her astute understanding of human nature, for years. This book masters the long history of class conflict (sections are introduced by 16th century letters of Don Juan de Onate) and the short history of inter-generational conflict (mother and daughter shopping in the mall in New Mexico). My favorite poems include teenagers musing about what a miracle is during a wildfire in a vacant lot the opening night of the local McDonald's, and insights into the logic that leads two girls to lock themselves in the trunk of a car while their parents get drunk during a Superbowl party. Reading this book reveals joints in the world you'd never suspected, as well as the glow of grace that emanates from them.

Tocquiville by Khaled Mattawa (New Issues)
I've rarely, if ever, read anything like this by someone writing in English. Part poetry of witness, part lyric, the collection is global in scope, and as deep as your most secret thoughts and fears. It will take you where you've never imagined there was to go, and it will take you to those places in yourself with which you are so familiar, you don't even notice. The territory is not comfortable, but our guide is one of the most sensitive, compassionate and intelligent people writing today.

Multiverse by Mike Smith (BlazeVOX)
Twenty-four poems that are really incantations or spells: each is mind-bending in its ability to make the familiar seem slightly strange, but strangely moving, as well. You would enjoy them all even without knowing that each of the twenty-four poems in this book are anagrams of one another. No letters have been added or left out.

* * *

Marcela Sulak, poet, translator and scholar, is the author of Immigrant, and the chapbook Of All The Things That Don't Exist, I Love You Best. She directs the Shaindy Rudoff Graduate Program in Creative Writing at Bar-Ilan University, where she is an assistant professor of English.

Poetry Shopping Holiday Guide - Kim Gek Lin Short

Kim Gek Lin Short's suggestions:

For the one who is in charge (in charge—really, really in charge): Adam Robison and Other Poems by Adam Robison (Narrow House, 2010)

For the academic in need of balls: Core Sample by Gordon Massman (Spork Press, 2010)

For the mother for the daughter: Killing Kanoko by Hiromi Ito (Action Books, 2010)

For Andy: Hot White Andy by Keston Sutherland (Barque Press, 2nd Edition, 2009)

For the unhappy minor with whom you’ve traded places: The Sorrows of Young Worthless by Brandon Holmquest (Truck Books, 2010)

For your Thelma or Louise: Les Guerilleres by Monique Wittig (Beacon, 1971)

For the masses: Pluto: Never Forget by Christian Peet (Interbirth, 2010)

For the versions you love of her/him, so close and so far: Pigafetta Is My Wife by Joe Hall (Black Ocean, 2010)

For the uxorious (let this be a lesson to you, or not): I Smile Back by Amy Koppelman (Two Dollar Radio, 2008)

For the hipster/biddy in real life: Man’s Companions by Joanna Ruocco (Tarpaulin Sky Press, 2010)

For the indecisive (and decisive): What Do You Want? by Marina Temkina (Ugly Duckling Presse, 2009)

For the one who is hard to know: The Last 4 Things by Kate Greenstreet (Ahsahta, 2009)

* * *

Kim Gek Lin Short is the author of The Bugging Watch & Other Exhibits, and the chapbooks Run and The Residents. She lives in Philadelphia with her husband and daughter.

Best Poetry Books of 2010 - Brandon Shimoda

Brandon Shimoda's selections:

The Morning News Is Exciting by Don Mee Choi (Action Books)

Book of Numbers / Book of Letters by Phil Cordelli (Agnes Fox)

)((eco(lang)(uage(Reader)) edited by Brenda Iijima (Nightboat Books)

Bird Any Damn Kind by Lucas Farrell (Caketrain)

Poetic Intention by Édouard Glissant, translated by Nathalie Stephens (Nightboat Books)

Killing Kanoko by Hiromi Ito, translated by Jeffrey Angles (Action Books)

Look Back, Look Ahead: The Selected Poems by Srecko Kosovel, translated by Barbara Siegel Carlson and Ana Jelnikar (Ugly Duckling Press)

Reason and Other Women by Alice Notley (Chax Press)

Town by Kate Schapira (Factory School, Heretical Texts)

Collected Poems by Gustaf Sobin (Talisman House)

* * *

Brandon Shimoda has two books forthcoming in 2011: The Girl Without Arms (Black Ocean) and O Bon (Litmus Press). He is currently building a library.

Best Poetry Books of 2010 - Daniela Olszewska

Daniela Olszewska's selections:

aaaaaaaaaaalice by Jennifer Karmin (film forum press)

Iatrogenic: Their Testimonies by Danielle Pafunda (Noemi Press)

Iowa by Travis Nichols (Letter Machine Editions) (these are listed as ‘prose vignettes,’ but that’s just code for ‘prose poem.’)

LA Liminal by Becca Klaver (Kore Press)

The Morning News is Exciting by Don Mee Choi (Action Books)

Nick Demske by Nick Demske (Fence Books)

Objects for a Fog Death by Julie Doxsee (Black Ocean)

The Range of Your Amazing Nothing by Lina Ramona Vitkauskas (Ravenna Press Books)

To Anacreon in Heaven by Graham Foust (Minus A Press)

To Light Out by Karen Weiser (Ugly Duckling Presse)


* * *

Daniela Olszewska is the author of five chapbooks, including The Twelve Wives of Citizen Jane (Spooky Girlfriend Press) and Citizen Jane Trains for Many Different Types of Careers (horse less press, forthcoming). She is currently curating Delirious Hem's 'December 2010 Advent Calendar de Animals, Glittery Trinkets & World Peace!'

Best Poetry Books of 2010 - Rob MacDonald

Rob MacDonald's selections:

The French Exit by Elisa Gabbert (Birds LLC)

Team Sad by Emily Kendal Frey and Zachary Schomburg (Cinematheque)

Black Life by Dorothea Lasky (Wave Books)

Monkey Bars by Matthew Lippman (Typecast)

Mean Free Path by Ben Lerner (Copper Canyon)

SELF HELP POEMS by Sampson Starkweather (Greying Ghost Press)

Post Moxie by Julia Story (Sarabande)

Brushes With by Emily Toder (Tarpaulin Sky)

The Trees Around by Chris Tonelli (Birds, LLC)

Come On All You Ghosts by Matthew Zapruder (Copper Canyon)

* * *


Rob MacDonald lives in Boston and is the editor of the online journal Sixth Finch. His poetry has appeared in Octopus, No Tell Motel, H_NGM_N and other fine journals. Last New Death, a chapbook, is available from Scantily Clad Press.

Best Poetry Books of 2010 - Leigh Stein

Leigh Stein's selections:

From California, On by Jennifer Denrow (Brave Men Press)
"I kept telling myself, I'm in California. I'm in California. And I believed it." Right now I want to leave my life and take this chapbook with me.

Black Life by Dorothea Lasky (Wave Books)
"I am not what I once was, but who would want to be..." A mood ring of a collection, a dreamy dream, a dark basement to be alone in.

* * *

Leigh Stein is the author of the chapbooks How to Mend a Broken Heart with Vengeance (Dancing Girl Press), Least Inhabited Island II (h-ngm-n), and Summer in Paris (Mondo Bummer). She lives in Brooklyn, where she teaches drama to children.

Country Music: An Online Journal of Poetry

with Poems by

Clay Matthews
Lucy Biederman
Matt Hart
Samuel Day Wharton
Peter Davis
Amber Nelson
Jim Goar
Jackie Clark

Special Feature: The Country Music Love and Loss Collective
A Series of Idaho Correspondences Adrian Kien
Karena Youtz
Scott Abels
J. Reuben Appelman


And Tyler McMahon's correspondence with Denis Johnson.

countrymusicpoetry.org

Best Poetry Books of 2010 - Tiffany Midge

Tiffany Midge's selections:

Museum of False Starts by Chip Livingston (Gival Press)

Fried Fish and Flour Biscuits by Molly McGlennen (Salt Publishing)

Drangonfly Dance by Denise Lajimodiere (Birchbark Books)

What Lasts by Jennifer Greene (Foothills Publishing)

Horse Tracks by Henry Real Bird (Lost Horse Press)

Car Stealer by Susan Deer Cloud (Foothills Publishing)

Beautiful in the Mouth by Keetje Kuipers (BOA Editions)

Beautiful Country by Robert Wrigley (Red Room)

Anthologies:

New Poets of the American West edited by Lowell Jaeger

* * *

Tiffany Midge's book, Outlaws, Renegades and Saints: Diary of a Mixed-up Halfbreed won the Diane Decorah Memorial Poetry Prize, and her chapbook Guiding the Stars to Their Campfire, Driving the Salmon to Their Beds was published by Gazoobi Tales. She is a member of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and grew up in the Pacific Northwest. Tiffany holds an MFA from the University of Idaho. She keeps the online blog UGH featuring Indigenous literature reviews and announcements. http://breakfastattiphanys.blogspot.com/

This Week at No Tell Motel

Neil de la Flor & Maureen Seaton think their names are Imelda, Ida, and Lambda this week at No Tell Motel.

Best Poetry Books of 2010 - Paige Taggart

Paige Taggart's selections:

The French Exit by Elisa Gabbert (Birds, LLC)

The Trees Around by Chris Tonelli (Birds, LLC)

People Are Tiny In Paintings of China by Cynthia Arrieu King (Octopus Books)

The Book of Frank by CAConrad (Wave Books)

Triggermoon Triggermoon by Julia Cohen (Black Lawrence Press)

Customer by Elaine Kahn (Glass Eye Books / Ecstatic Peace Library)

Office Work by Jackie Clark (Greying Ghost Press)

SELF HELP POEMS by Sampson Starkweather (Greying Ghost Press)

Les Miseres et les Mal-Heurs de la Guerre by Dan Boehl (Greying Ghost Press)

* * *

Paige Taggart lives in Brooklyn and her chapbook Polaroid Parade is forthcoming with Greying Ghost Press. Lookout for her poems, which will soon appear in: Spinning Jenny, Forklift,Ohio, LIT, Everyday Genius and Sentence. Please explore; mactaggartjewelry.blogspot.

New Titles by No Tell Poets

petals, emblems by Lynn Behrendt (Lunar Chandelier Press)

People are Tiny in Paintings of China by Cynthia Arrieu-King (Octopus Books)

The Apocalypse Anthology by Steven Karl (Flying Guillotine Press)

Conrad by Michael Gushue (Souvenir Spoon Press)

Our Chrome Arms of Gymnasium by Crystal Curry (Slope)

thempark by Michael Farrell (BookThug)

Best Poetry Books of 2010 - Laynie Browne

Laynie Browne's selections:

The Sore Throat & Other Poems by Aaron Kunin (Fence)

Driven to Abstraction by Rosmarie Waldrop (New Directions)

Language Death Night Outside by Peter Waterhouse (Burning Deck)

O Resplandor by Erin Moure (Anansi)

Texture Notes by Sawako Nakayasu (Letter Machine)

Humanimal by Bhanu Kapil (Kelsey Street)

Neighbor Procedure by Rachel Zolf (Coach House)

Transcendental Studies by Keith Waldrop (University of California Press)

Sprawl by Danielle Dutton (Siglio)

Antwerp by Roberto Bolana (New Directions)

* * *

Laynie Browne is the author of eight collections of poetry and one novel. Her most recent books include: The Desires of Letters, The Scented Fox, and Daily Sonnets. Currently she edits for Tarpaulin Sky and Trickhouse and teaches at the Poetry Center at the University of Arizona.

Best Poetry Books of 2010 - Nathan Hoks

Nathan Hoks' selections:

10 Mississippi by Steve Healey (Coffe House Press)

Flowers by Paul Killebrew (Canarium Books)

The Irrationalist by Suzanne Buffam, (Canarium)

Bluets by Maggie Nelson (Wave Books)

Come on All You Ghosts by Matthew Zapruder (Copper Canyon)

* * *

Nathan Hoks' first book, Reveilles, won Salt Publishing's Crashaw Prize. His translation of Arctic Poems, a collection of Vicente Huidobro's poetry, was recently published by Toad Press. A graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, he lives in Somerville, Massachusetts.

Best Poetry Books of 2010 - Julie Babcock

Julie Babcock's selections:

Post Moxie by Julia Story (Sarabande)

Sasha Sings the Laundry on the Line by Sean Thomas Dougherty (BOA)

Milk Dress by Nicole Cooley (Alice James)

Fancy Beasts by Alex Lemon (Milkweed)

* * *

Julie Babcock’s poetry and fiction recently appear in Sou’wester, Waccamaw, Storyglossia, No Tell Motel and elsewhere. She is a lecturer at University of Michigan.

In Memory of Cami Park

Editor's note: Today I learned that Cami Park recently passed away. Cami was a gifted writer and generous reviewer. She will be missed.


Facing God

What do I have to say for myself?
I have neither words, nor the common
sense he gave me. I hold out
my hand and he takes

my palm, scowling at his fractured
script, the hand of a careless doctor.
He releases me, grunts.
Do I have any feedback for him?

my palm is blank
like fields after snowfall
like lies told to children
after death

I tell him well, patriarchy sucked,
so fuck you for that. And evil, did that
have to be so damned banal?

But music, I tell him, music,
that was good. And colors, too.
I liked colors.

Cami Park
First published in No Tell Motel in February 2005

More poems by Cami:
Mourner at Beslan
Sugah Says
Disclaimer
When Good Cholesterol Goes Bad

Best Poetry Books of 2010 - Steven Karl

Steven Karl's selections:

The Bugging Watch by Kim Gek Lin Short (Tarpaulin Sky Press)

Hank by Abraham Smith (Action Books)

Wolf Face by Matt Hart (H_ngm_n Books)


Chapbooks

Revenge Poems by Christie Ann Reynolds Book trailer (Supermachine)

ATM by Chris Salerno (horseless Press)

Red Fortress by Jackie Clark (H_ngm_n portable e-chap)

Office Work by Jackie Clark (Greying Ghost Press)

Try a Little Time Travel by Natalie Lyalin (Ugly Duckling Presse)


Honorary Mention (Books I’m currently reading & in love with)

Glass Is Really A Liquid by Bruce Covey (No Tell Books)

Adam Robison and Other Poems by Adam Robison (Narrow House)

* * *

Steven Karl is the author of State(s) of Flux, a collaboration chap(art)book with Joseph Lappie (Peptic Robot Press, 2009), (Ir)Rational Animals (Flying Guillotine Press, 2010) and forthcoming e-chap, emissions/ of (H_ngm_n, 2011). He has poems in or forthcoming from Vinyl, Jellyfish, and EOAGH. He is the News Editor for Coldfront Magazine and lives in Brooklyn, NY.

God Damsel Reviewed

Like all mothers, God Damsel has eyes in the back of her head and other places as well. This is a woman with power. This is a sexual, strong voice and believe me, you don't want to fuck with her.

—Rebecca Loudon reviews God Damsel in Galatea Resurrects #15

God Damsel can be purchased here.

Galatea Resurrects #15: A Poetry Engagement

Issue No. 15 TABLE OF CONTENTS
Dec. 7, 2010

EDITOR’S INTRODUCTION
By Eileen Tabios


NEW REVIEWS
Camille Martin reviews SALINE by Kimberly Lyons

Patrick James Dunagan reviews DEAR SANDY, HELLO: LETTERS FROM TED TO SANDY BERRIGAN, Edited by Sandy Berrigan and Ron Padgett

Jon Curley reviews AUTOPSY TURVY by Thomas Fink and Maya Diablo Mason

Eileen Tabios engages HAD SLAVES by Catherine Sasanov

John Herbert Cunningham reviews SELECTED POEMS OF GARCILASO DE LA VEGA, Edited and translated by John Dent-Young

Kathryn Stevenson reviews MONEY FOR SUNSETS by Elizabeth J. Colen

T.C. Marshall reviews VANCOUVER: A POEM by George Stanley and IN THE MILLENIUM by Barry McKinnon

Eric Dickey reviews AS IT TURNED OUT by Dmitry Golynko, Edited by Eugene Ostashevsky. Translated by Eugene Ostashevsky and Rebecca Bella with Simona Schneider

Peg Duthie engages THE AMAZING ADVENTURES OF GRAVITY AND GRACE by Ernesto Priego

Patrick James Dunagan reviews UNTAM’D WING: RIFFS ON ROMANTIC POETRY by Jeffrey C. Robinson

Harry Thorne reviews NEIGHBOR by Rachel Levitsky

Michael Pollock engages "El Dorado" by Edgar Allan Poe, Spanish translation by Mario Murgia in EL CURVO Y OTROS POEMAS by Edgar Allan Poe, Edicion bilingue with Traduccion del proyecto Helbardot and Ilustraciones de Gustavo Abascal

Barbara Roether reviews FIRE EXIT by Robert Kelly

Allen Bramhall reviews SITUATIONS by Laura Carter

Eileen Tabios engages 1000 SONNETS by Tim Atkins

Eric Hoffman reviews ESCHATON by Michael Heller

Jon Curley reviews 100 NOTES ON VIOLENCE by Julie Carr

Genevieve Kaplan reviews NETS by Jen Bervin and THE MS OF M Y KIN by Janet Holmes

Aileen Ibardaloza reviews THE CHAINED HAY(NA)KU PROJECT, Curated by Ivy Alvarez, John Bloomberg-Rissman, Ernesto Priego & Eileen Tabios and THE HAY(NA)KU ANTHOLOGY, VOL. II, Edited by Jean Vengua and Mark Young

John Herbert Cunningham reviews COLLECTED POEMS by Dylan Thomas

Eileen Tabios engages 2ND NOTICE OF MODIFICATIONS TO TEXT OF PROPOSED REGULATIONS by John Bloomberg-Rissman

Allen Bramhall reviews NOT BLESSED by Harold Abramowitz

Moira Richards reviews A IS FOR ANNE by Penelope Scambly Schott

Peg Duthie engages "GOTHENBURG" FROM THREE GEOGAOPHIES: A MILKMAID'S GRIMOIRE by Arielle Guy

John Herbert Cunningham reviews DISJUNCTIVE POETICS: FROM GETRUDE STEIN AND LOUIS ZUKOFSKY TO SUSAN HOWE by Peter Quartermain

Rebecca Loudon reviews GOD DAMSEL by Reb Livingston

Eileen Tabios engages REQUIEM FOR THE ORCHARD by Oliver de la Paz

Kristi Castro reviews EDGE BY EDGE, collection of poetry chaps by Gladys Justin Carr, Heidi Hart, Emma Bolden, and Vivian Teter

Allen Bramhall reviews I-FORMATION BOOK 1 by Anne Gorrick

Lynn Behrendt reviews I-FORMATION BOOK 1 by Anne Gorrick

Eileen Tabios engages Lynn Behrendt's review of Anne Gorrick's I-FORMATION BOOK 1

Michael Caylo-Baradi reviews MISSPELL by Lars Palm

John Herbert Cunningham reviews PENURY by Myung Mi Kim

Albert B. Casuga reviews TRAJE DE BODA: POEMS by Aileen Ibardaloza

Richard Lopez reviews SOME SONNETS, Edited by Tim Wright

Eileen Tabios engages APPARITION POEMS by Adam Fieled

L.M. Freer reviews BEATS AT NAROPA: AN ANTHOLOGY, Edited by Anne Waldman and Laura Wright

Moira Richards reviews (MADE) by Cara Benson

Thomas Fink reviews DRUNKER/HOLDING EMBER by Raymond Farr

Edric Mesmer reviews ON SECRETS OF MY PRISON HOUSE by Geoffrey Gatza

Peg Duthie engages EATING HER WEDDING DRESS: A COLLECTION OF CLOTHING POEMS, Edited by Vasiliki Katsarou, Ruth O’Toole, and Ellen Foos

Eileen Tabios engages BEHAVE: CALIFORNIA RANT 66 by Steve Tills

Jim McCrary reviews MR. MAGOO by Steve Tills

Nicholas T. Spatafora reviews AUTOPSY TURVY by Thomas Fink and Maya Diablo Mason

Margaret H. Johnson reviews MANHATTAN MAN (AND OTHER POEMS) by Jack Lynch

Eileen Tabios engages AT TROTSKY'S FUNERAL by Mark Young

Marianne Villanueva reviews ERNESTA, IN THE STYLE OF FLAMENCO by Sandy McIntosh

Hadas Yatom-Schwartz engages “Nathan, in the Ancient Language”, a poem in ERNESTA, IN THE STYLE OF THE FLAMENCO by Sandy McIntosh

Patrick James Dunagan reviews COLLECTED POEMS / GUSTAF SOBIN, Edited by Esther Sobin, Andrew Joron, Andrew Zawacki, and Ed Foster

Jon Curley reviews CLEANING THE MIRROR: SELECTED AND NEW POEMS by Joel Chace

Tom Beckett reviews CLEANING THE MIRROR: SELECTED AND NEW POEMS by Joel Chace

John Bloomberg-Rissman reviews AT THE FAIR by Tom Clark

Peg Duthie engages 32 SNAPSHOTS OF MARSEILLES by Guy Bennett

Jim McCrary reviews THE HAY(NA)KU FOR HAITI SERIES, Edited by Eileen Tabios

Kristina Marie Darling reviews THE FRENCH EXIT by Elisa Gabbert

Anny Ballardini reviews BRAINOGRAPHY by Evelyn Posamentier

Richard Lopez reviews 2ND NOTICE OF MODIFICATIONS TO TEXT OF PROPOSED REGULATIONS by John Bloomberg-Rissman

G.E. Schwartz reviews THE FUTURE IS HAPPY by Sarah Sarai

Kristina Marie Darling reviews TINDERBOX LAWN by Carol Guess

Eileen Tabios engages DIWATA by Barbara Jane Reyes

Peg Duthie engages DUTIES OF AN ENGLISH FOREIGN SECRETARY by Macgregor Card

John Bloomberg-Rissman reviews ADAMANTINE by Shin Yu Pai

Jeff Harrison reviews GRIEF SUITE by Bobbi Lurie

Allen Bramhall reviews OPULENCE by Stephen Ellis

Peg Duthie engages SPRING HAS COME: SPANISH LYRICAL POETRY FROM THE SONGBOOKS OF THE RENAISSANCE by Alvaro Cardona-Hine

Jim McCrary reviews CARRY CATASTROPHE by Megan Kaminski

Moira Richards reviews THEN, SOMETHING by Patricia Fargnoli

Eileen Tabios engages KING OF THE JUNGLE by Zvi A. Sesling

Genevieve Kaplan reviews POETS ON TEACHING: A SOURCEBOOK, Edited by Joshua Marie Wilkinson


THE CRITIC WRITES POEMS
Kristina Marie Darling


FOCUS ON POETS
Tom Beckett interviews ANNE GORRICK

Thomas Fink interviews JOANNA FUHRMAN


FROM OFFLINE TO ONLINE: REPRINTED REVIEW
Lisa Bower reviews SKIRT FULL OF BLACK by Sun Yung Shin

Eric Dickey reviews LIGHT FROM A BULLET HOLE: POEMS NEW AND SELECTED, 1950–2008 by Ralph Salisbury


ADVERTISEMENT
Hay(na)ku for Haiti--a Haiti Relief Fundraiser


BACK COVER
No Deer Were Shot For These Shots!

Best Poetry Books of 2010 - Charles Jensen

Charles Jensen's selections:

I Was the Jukebox by Sandra Beasley (W.W. Norton)
She wears a variety of masks and speaks through voices from the archaic to the mundane, but each one has something unique and interesting to tell us, with beautiful and surprising turns of phrase.

The Dance of No Hard Feelings by Mark Bibbins (Copper Canyon)
A unique collection with a strong, trustworthy voice, Bibbins’s poems ply trauma, surrealism, satire, and love with equal measure.

Almost Dorothy by Neil de la Flor (Marsh Hawk Press)
A wholly original book that blurs fiction, the self, and memoir while trespassing across both genre lines and conventional notions of propriety, de la Flor’s collection is beautiful, sad, and impossible not to read in a single sitting.

God Damsel by Reb Livingston (No Tell Books)
Accumulating language from the realms of law, religion, and gender, this book weaves a lively—but ultimately melancholic and compelling—narrative of faith, love, and trust.

Destruction Myth by Mathias Svalina (Cleveland State University Press)
Svalina retells the greatest story ever told again and again, in ways you’d never imagine. The book ends with a crescendo of destruction that is icing on the cake. See my review here.

Faulkner’s Rosary by Sarah Vap (Saturnalia Books)
This cascading series of poems move intuitively through landscape and time as the speaker negotiates love, childrearing, and pregnancy in this unique and gorgeous collection that builds an intimate relationship between speaker and reader.

* * *

Charles Jensen is the author of The First Risk, which was a finalist for the 2010 Lambda Literary Award. New poems will soon appear in Anti-, 32 Poems, and Barn Owl Review. He serves on the Emerging Leader Council of Americans for the Arts and is the founding editor of LOCUSPOINT, which he hopes will soon come out of its hiatus.

Best Poetry Books of 2010 - Anne Gorrick

Anne Gorrick's selections:

NO Oar, NO Oracle/ Utmost Brevity by Lori Anderson Moseman (Lute & Cleat, limited edition)

petals, emblems by Lynn Behrendt (Lunar Chandelier) http://www.lynnbehrendt.blogspot.com/

(nevertheless enjoyment by Elizabeth Bryant (Quale Press)

Typography by Scott Helmes (privately printed)

7x7 by Crag Hill (Otoliths Books)

NTST by Geof Huth (If P then Q)

Suspend by Nancy Kuhl (Shearmans Books)

The Name of This Intersection is Frost by Maryrose Larkin (Shearmans Books)

Elements by Deborah Poe (Stockport Flats)

Collected Poems by Gustaf Sobin (Talisman House)

God Damsel by Reb Livingston (No Tell Books)

If Not Metamorphic by Brenda Iijima (Ahsahta Press)

* * *


Anne Gorrick is the author of I-Formation (Book One) (Shearman, 2010), the forthcoming I-Formation (Book Two), and Kyotologic (Shearsman, 2008). She also collaborated with artist Cynthia Winika to produce a limited edition artists’ book, “Swans, the ice,” she said, funded with grants from the Women’s Studio Workshop in Rosendale, NY and the New York Foundation for the Arts.

She curates the reading series Cadmium Text, featuring innovative writing from in and around New York’s Hudson Valley. She also co-edits the electronic poetry journal Peep/Show with poet Lynn Behrendt.

Anne Gorrick lives in West Park, New York.

Editor & Author Reb Livingston Interviewed at Bookslut

Elizabeth Hildreth interviews Reb Livingston, author of God Damsel.

As clichéd at it might sound, I was experiencing an ongoing depression and was attempting to write my way through it. I was reading a lot of spiritual texts and prayers, some on the recommendation of my friend and poet, Jill Alexander Essbaum, and honestly, none of them were doing it for me. So I started rewriting them, sort of. Many of these texts, Sumerian scriptures, Christian prophecies, the Egyptian Book of the Dead, etc., were already translations so I translated the translations. I use the term “translated” very loosely, I slowly worked through the texts replacing 99% of the words and keeping, for the most part, the rhythm and structure. This was an intuitive process, I didn’t consciously think much about how I was translating these texts, whatever came out, came out. To be perfectly blunt, I channeled these poems from someplace either completely outside or hidden very deep inside myself. I’m not sure which. Or maybe the answer is both, same thing. The next day or week when I’d go back to a poem to edit, I almost never remembered what I wrote. The editing process was where all the conscious decisions happened. I’m not claiming to have blacked out and I certainly didn’t use alcohol or drugs while writing. I always had a very clear memory of writing, just not of what.

Read entire interview here

All No Tell Titles Now Discounted 15% on Lulu PLUS Save an Additional 10% in December

EVERY No Tell Books title is now discounted 15% off retail at Lulu. These are the BEST prices offered by any online bookstore. Better than Amazon, B&N or anywhere else.

Save an additional 10% during December by using Coupon Code: PEARTREE on ALL poetry titles at Better Homes Through Poems

Best Poetry Books of 2010 - Brian Foley

Brian Foley's selections:

Objects of a Fog Death by Julie Doxsee (Black Ocean)
These poems find signs of life in their controlled dislocations. Everything here is owned by the poet. In her articulation, everything is legal. Verb that noun! Make it pay.

The Smaller Half by Marc Rahe (Rescue Press)
This summer I was looking for a poem like a sad song, a vulnerability that invigorated the neck hairs to salute while also inebriating you with gloom. I found it here and couldnt be happier.

The Trees Around by Chris Tonelli (Birds, LLC)
The sentient carnival ride is cool, but Chris’ mind at its most bare puts me on notice.

Lake Antiquity by Brandon Downing (Fence)
I thank Fence for ponying up to produce this book. It fucks up every coffee table I try it on with its true awesome. But in truth I cant keep it out of my hands for too long.

Bluets by Maggie Nelson (Wave Books)
Gives Gass a kick in the balls with beauty, worship, and some double dare.

The Redcoats by Ryan Murphy (Krupskaya)
A smart that’s hard to handle, often unlocated and intangible, but in every instance is a distinction of remarkable image and rhetoric.

Selenography by Joshua Marie Wilkinson (Sidebrow)
It’s wild noun country in every room and corner of this book. You just want to live in the line breaks of every part of it.

The Cloud Corporation by Timothy Donelley (Wave Books)
A major language-lover, a good case for devastation.

The Sore Throat & Other Poems by Aaron Kunin (Fence)
An intoxicating obsess that makes you worry that you may use too many words.

Post Moxie by Julia Story (Sarabande)
One of the best readers I've seen this year. Accompanied by a book of poems that drive fast and breathless with scenes that sometimes bust your gut with their strange.

Mean Free Path by Ben Lerner (Copper Canyon)
I gave you my concentration, and you gave no opportunity to escape. Thank you.

The Crackpot Poet by Jeremy Sigler (Black Square Edition/Brooklyn Rail)
This guys’ sees through the eye of some older incredible. Maybe its the one Creeley lost. The quiet, weirder one.

Crashdome by Alex Phillips (Factory Hollow Press)
A single minded immersion beamed in a self conscious strut. Regret movements that architect a self raptured and dissolved by the world. It’s a succulent neurosis, hospitable and giving.

To Anacreon In Heaven by Graham Foust (Minus A Press)
Nothing is free, but this was and its magic.

Triggermoon Triggermoon by Julia Cohen (Black Lawrence Press)
All her active language comes immediate and unexpected, working to reaffirm their acute newness that feels internally honest. It makes you want to take whatever logic she’s on and abuse it.

SELF HELP POEMS by Sampson Starkweather (Greying Ghost Press)
Poems putting the better picture in its place. Its so pleasing to be pushed to tangle with what is pedestrian in a poem, and what is unconventional clairvoyance.

From California, On by Jennifer Denrow (Brave Men Press)
I was party to putting this lil book out, but fuck it, I don’t care. Even if my sworn enemy handed me this, I’d later be liable to thank him for it.

* * *

Brian Foley is the author of the chapbooks The Constitution (forthcoming from Horseless Press, 2011) & The Black Eye (Brave Men Press, 2010). His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Columbia Poetry Journal, Fou, LIT, Typo, H_NGM_N, Glitterpony, and elsewhere. He edits SIR! Magazine, curates The Deep Moat Reading Series, and co-runs Brave Men Press.

Poetry Shopping Holiday Guide - Kim Roberts

Kim Roberts' suggestions:

For the holidays, I would like to recommend four books that deserve a wider readership. I'm afraid these books, all from small presses, will get overlooked! But all are worth the extra effort to seek out.

Topping the list is the chapbook Conrad by Michael Gushue (Souvenir Spoon Books, 2010). This gem of a book follows our hero from his office, "fluoresced/by routine," to Barcelona, where he impersonates George Sanders, to visits to consult his guru. He remembers a teenage devotion to heavy metal bands, debates the merits of different kinds of bottled water. In 25 short poems, Conrad considers love, shopping, and drugs. Read this: you, too, will become a follower of Conradism, "a religion of Hope/because Hope is a thing with feathers."

Sounds Like Something I Would Say by Grace Cavalieri (Goss 123: Casa Menendez, 2010) is the author's sixteenth book of poems. In it, she develops a loopy, conversational style that is both intimate and engaged with the world. Some of the best poems remember her immigrant family and her young womanhood, when boys worked on crystal radios, her family sold "tomato pies" to WWII soldiers (a precursor to pizza), and she wore her first white suit with spectator heels.

My third choice is an anthology, Persistent Voices: Poetry by Writers Lost to AIDS, edited by Philip Clark and David Groff (Alyson Books, 2009). The editors include poems about living with AIDS, but also poems about love, fashion, movie idols, and many speak from an outrageous sense of self that is larger than life. Which is the point, of course: the words transcend the author's deaths, and the personalities of these writers, who died in the prime of their literary lives, continues to shine through. I am thrilled to have them together in these pages: Reinaldo Arenas, Joe Brainard, William Dickey, Tim Dlugos, Essex Hemphill, James Merrill, Paul Monette, Reginald Shepherd, and others.

One final book--self-consciously offered--my own little nonfiction chapbook Lip Smack: A History of Spoken Word Poetry in DC (Beltway Books, 2010). This book offers, in timeline form (from 1991 to the present), a look at the evolution of spoken word from an underground phenomena that took place in bars with mosh pits, or places where cops might rush into the bathrooms to find drugs--to its more established acceptance in such mainstream venues as the Smithsonian Folklife Festival and the White House. This little book surveys the major players, the venues, the publications, the major performances. Among major US cities where spoken word has blossomed, DC is notable for being the first to develop a youth slam team, and is still the only city to offer grants to support hip hop arts.

* * *

Kim Roberts is the editor of the acclaimed online journal Beltway Poetry Quarterly and the print anthology Full Moon on K Street: Poems About Washington, DC (Plan B Press, 2010). Her third book of poems, Animal Magnetism, won the Pearl Poetry Prize and will be published by Pearl Editions in January 2011. http://www.kimroberts.org

This Week at No Tell Motel

Qiana Towns calls out to God even when she's fucking angry this week at No Tell Motel.

Poetry Shopping Holiday Guide - Lucy Biederman

Lucy Biederman's suggestions:

(Food Themed)

For anybody who's ever driven through the suburbs or knows anyone who has: Necessary Stranger by Graham Foust Flood Editions, 2007). (My favorite-favorite-favorite; I would eat it like sugar plums.

Music Like Dirt by Frank Bidart (Quarternote Chapbook Series, Sarabande Books, 2002) tastes like dirt in a delicious way.

For that feeling of your mom cooking dinner downstairs during your childhood: It Is Daylight by Arda Collins (Yale, 2009). So amazing I have to quote from it: "God? you say, but not aloud. Since / there is no god, you have to be / both you and god. Yes. god says. You / turn over on the couch / and push your face into the dark. / Remember / when we went swimming? / The lakes, god says...".

For people who prefer sex to food no question: Harlot by Jill Alexander Essbaum (No Tell Books, 2007). Reading most things, you would think that men have a lock on desire; this book is one of the few things in the universe that tells the truth.

For people who like the inside part of the bread, not the crust: Nomina by Karen Volkman (BOA Editions, 2008). Like being lost inside the inside of the inside.

* * *

Lucy Biederman received an MFA from George Mason University. Her poems are forthcoming in Open City, The Apalachee Review, The Journal, and PMSpoemmeoirstory. You can find poems of hers that have appeared online here: http://lucybiederman.blogspot.com/.

Best Poetry Books of 2010 - Deborah Poe

Deborah Poe's selections:

Town by Kate Schapira (Factory School, Heretical Texts)

Pigafetta is My Wife by Joe Hall (Black Ocean)

Money for Sunsets by Elizabeth Colen (Steel Toe Books)

aaaaaaaaaaalice by Jennifer Karmin (Flim Forum Press)

then, we were still living by Michael Klein (GenPop Books)

Flow—Winged Crocodile: A Pair/Actions Are Erased/Appear by Leslie Scalapino (Chax Press)

Chromosomory by Layli Long Soldier (Q Ave Books, Chapbook)

Is This January by Jai Arun Ravine (Corollary Press, Chapbook)

Pluto: Never Forget by Christian Peet (Interbirth Books, Chapbook)

)((eco(lang)(uage(Reader)) edited by Brenda Iijima (Nightboat Books)

* * *

Deborah Poe is the author of the poetry collections Elements (Stockport Flats Press 2010) and Our Parenthetical Ontology (CustomWords 2008). Deborah’s writing is forthcoming or has recently appeared in Fact-Simile Magazine, Peaches & Bats, Jacket, Sidebrow and Colorado Review. Deborah Poe is fiction editor of Drunken Boat and guest curator of Trickhouse’s “Experiment" door 2010/2011. For more information, visit www.deborahpoe.com.