Thursday, December 23, 2010

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.


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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

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