Poetry Reviews

Lilies and Cannonballs Review: Volume 1, Number 2/Fall/Winter 2004-2005
Columbia Poetry Review No. 15 2002
Weight: 1 lb
Method of Disposal: Donating

I always enjoy reading poetry reviews and literary journals.  You never know what you might find in them.  Generally, there are authors I have never heard of and a chance to discover something or someone new.  I am sure I gained these while I was in college, and I have been carrying them ever since.  I have re-read them and will be sharing them now.

The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2019

The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2019 Edited and Introduced by Edan Lepucki

2019

Weight: 7.8 oz

Method of Disposal: Sending Away

At some point in each year, I will find myself in a bookstore narrowing down what I should buy or looking for something new to read and there, magically on the anthology shelf, will be The Best American Nonrequired Reading.  I love reading it and purchase it every time.  It was originally my college Creative Writing professor (whom I adored) that introduced me to it, and I have enjoyed it ever since.  I never think to buy it until I am in a store for some other reason but, ultimately, the realization that it exists once again will hit me.

It is usually a fun combination of short fiction, short non-fiction, poetry, and comics.  It sometimes will also include other fun, off-the wall content, like Chuck Norris jokes.  It is just enjoyable to read, and it exposes you to authors that you maybe do not know about.  The selections are made once a year by high school students in California and in Michigan.  I like that for a lot of reasons.  1.  I am fairly certain my brain is so different than it was in high school by now that I could not even dream of knowing what a high schooler might like.  Therefore, I am reading a selection from someone not in the same space as myself and that is insightful.  2.  It gives me hope to see what the high schoolers choose for us to read.  For example, 2019 had an incredibly diverse sample, and it was delightful.  Could the youth really save us?  I am not someone who thinks that.  I am not someone who expects that.  But, could they?  3.  I, generally, feel like I do not like teenagers.  I hated myself when I was a teenager.  This makes me remember that all teenagers are not the same and that in fact they are at a very exciting, challenging, passionate, wild time of their lives and that there is a lot of value in that for them but also for all of us.  Never stereotype a group of people!  When you do you will always end up proven wrong.

Gwendolyn Brooks Selected Poems

Selected Poems by Gwendolyn Brooks

1999

Weight: 6.1 oz

Method of Disposal: Giving Away

If you have not read Gwendolyn Brooks' poetry then you should go do that right away.  It is fantastic.  If you read this book, don't stop here.  My guess is that most of you know her or have at least read, "We Real Cool," as she is the first black person to win a Pulitzer and that is the poem I have seen the most.  I do find it shocking (though I know that I should not) that, given the number of awards she won, I did not hear about her before I went to college.  Read her, share her, and ensure that never happens to another student.  Brooks is too good and too important.

The Outlaw Bible of American Poetry

The Outlaw Bible of American Poetry Edited by Alan Kaufman and S.A. Griffin
1999
Weight: 2.4 lbs
Method of Disposal: Left in a Lending Library

I purchased this way back when Waldenbooks was a store, and I worked there.  I was young and the rebellion of the poetry spoke to me.  Re-reading it as an adult, I had quite different impressions of so many of the authors.  The editors did a great job getting writing from all sorts or people and compiling it in the way they did.  The authors they chose are well-respected and well-known. 

Here are some of my thoughts:

1.  There are a lot of male authors that are beside themselves with fascination for women who work in sex work and for what it means for them to be sex workers.  These woman are called all sorts of names but rarely are they considered to be women or people outside of their work.

2.  Some people think if you insert sex the shock value will turn something magically into art.  I like sex, and I like writing.  I like kinkiness, honesty, and all the intense details.  I am not taken by sex for shock's sake.

3. Sometimes women seemed to try to write with this same energy and misconception.

4.  It is important to remember the time something was written in and that sometimes that can change the whole value of a poem.

5.  Reading anything in the midst of a pandemic changes your outlook on what you are reading. 

6.  I most enjoyed reading Penny Arcade, Maggie Estep, David L. Ulin's tiny poem, "Mendal's Law."  I liked Abbie Hoffman's "School Project for the 80s."

7.  There are some seriously strange thoughts men have about their moms, their lovers, their sexual partners, their muses.  I did not see a lot about friends.  I saw that all of those blurred together in their writing and, truly, women became objectified.  They generally showed up on the page as a mirror, to say something about the men who were writing the poems.

Love, Death, and the Changing Seasons

Love, Death, and the Changing Seasons by Marilyn Hacker
1995
Weight: 7 ounces
Method of Disposal: Donation

This book would have been even better if I had discovered it in the 90s when there were so few books written by and for lesbians, but it was great now too.  Hacker writes passionately about a woman she meets, falls in love with, and loses.  Many of the poems are erotic and charged with the excitement of finding someone completely irresistible.  The overwhelming and strong feelings behind desire, lust, and loss are feelings I am sure almost all of us can relate to at some point in our lives.  As a married person, it makes me not miss the heartbreak of loss at all, though that magnetism you feel with someone when you first start falling for them is delightful.  The security and depth of lasting love is the best, but I hope I never find out what the loss of that does to a person like me!

Other things I wish:  That I could work from home and write about my life, lesbianism, love, grief, despair, and everything else.  Le sigh.

, said the shotgun to the head.

, said the shotgun to the head. by Saul Williams
2003
Weight: 8.5 oz
Method of Disposal: Donating

The look and design of this book is great.  I love that the poem has become an art form in looks and in words.  I loved this book for a long time, wooed by its good lucks.

Re-reading it now, I am less impressed.  In so many words, the book is about God being a woman and about a man being intimate with God.  I bet it makes a lot of Christians angry, which is no skin off my neck.  I just find it to be so particularly man-centric despite all the talk about SHE.  One reveiwer calls it feminsit babble.  I cannot imagine anything further from it.  As there always has been and seemingly always will be, woman is something to be ejaculated on and in even as a deity.  The penis is a gun, a weapon, a spreader of destruction.

Only a man would think of so many ways to fuck, fill up, and wallow around in God if there were one.  At once God is a woman and then later he is fucking God's wife.  I get it.  You have a powerful penis, an obsessive personality, a tendency to dream and ramble, and you feel important and disappointing all at once.  Women are better than you and pissing on them is the only way you feel like you can get close to their holiness. 

All in all, I still think it is a good poem, and the books design is great.  His subject matter is not my cup of tea, but it may be yours.  

Keeping My Name

Keeping My Name: Poems by Catherine Tufariello
2004
Weight: 9. 6 oz
Method of Disposal: Donating

This was a good one and a powerful one.  The author is clever, talented, and has the perfect balance of despair and quiet amusement.  Someone will be very lucky to stumble across this one.  That might be the most appropriate way for it go.  I believe I found it in a stack of books someone was giving away in college.  It was a very lucky find.

Slam

Slam by Various Authors (Author),‎ Cecily Von Ziegesar (Editor),‎ Tori Amos (Foreword)
2000
Weight: 4.8 oz
Method of Disposal: Donated

This book is full of cliche and over the top advice like this:

Lots of poetry by 15 year olds:

And quotes from famous folks and some really interesting moments from less famous folks:

I had fun reading it.  I would have loved to have been published in it when I was in middle/high school.  The teens in this collection were really talented for their ages.  I really enjoyed these haikus:

The Fire This Time

The Fire This Time: A New Generation Speaks about Race by Jesmyn Ward
2017
Weight: 7.2 oz
Method of Disposal: Giving to Tracy

This collection was recommended to me by my friend Liz, and I am glad she encouraged me to buy it.  It is a collection of essays and poetry about the Black American experience.  Some of the writing is much better than others, but I imagine each piece speaks to different people.  I found this to be a great step up in finding other interesting authors and books.  I went on a book buying spree looking for Wendy S. Walters, Jesmyn Ward, and Garnette Cadogan.  Thinking about Garnette walking the streets of Kingston, New Orleans, and New York was a huge open window for me.  I felt like I was able to peer into the life of a young, black man and truly understand that I cannot truly understand what it feels like for all eyes to be on me, wondering what I am up to, where I am going, whether I am guilty of something.  And not just eyes, often hands, feet, fists.  How awful to live with that weight and constant looking over your shoulder. 

The same happened with Wendy's loneliness.  I felt it deep within me even though I recognized that I have never felt it and will never be able to without living every. single. day. with it.  I suggest you take the time to read this book or, if you are short on time, at least  check out some of the writing inside.  I would start with those 4 authors if you aren't going to read it all.

You Don't Have to Say You Love Me

You Don't Have to Say You Love Me
by Sherman Alexie
2017
Weight:2 lbs
Method of Disposal: Lending Library

Sherman Alexie is another one of those authors that I love and trust enough to just buy anything he publishes whenever I come across it.  I was introduced to him by an Agnes Scott professor named Dr. Guthrie, and I have been fascinated by him ever since.  I was out with my mom and Harriet recently when I found this one on the New Arrivals table at Barnes and Noble.  I did not have the $22.40 + tax to spare, but I could not talk myself out of it.  I am not suppose to be getting more books.  I am suppose to be letting go of all the books.  My wife will tell you that I am not doing a good job and that they are still stacked up high all around the basement.

I am glad I did not talk myself out of buying it.  I am almost reluctant to let it go, but I want someone else to enjoy it, and I know I will not have time to re-read it anytime soon.  It is a beautiful book about grieving, identity, parents, family, Sherman, loss, gains, race, genocide, power, weakness...it is about Sherman and his mother and his sisters and his father and his mother's rapist and his sister's rapist and his wife and his friend...Shall I go on?  It is a mix of fiction interwoven with nonfiction.  Poems with stories with powwow chants.

It is well worth a read.  Enjoy it!

The United States of Poetry

The United States of Poetry
Joshua Blum Bob Holman Mark Pellington
1996
Weight: 2.4 oz
Method of Disposal: Leaving Somewhere

I bought this book in the 90s and just now read it in 2016, but I am glad I saved it all this time.  I also think it is better it is released now rather than later.  It seems like there is less poetry out there.  I do, however, find it amusing that I am now married to someone who had a total mental collapse when she realized I was reading a book of poetry next to her.  She has some deep-seated disdain for poetry we need to overcome, apparently.

I picked up this book and read it last weekend, after we had to euthanize our beloved Chihuahua-Potato, Bayah.  I thought she would live for at least two decades and never imagined we would lose her in the 8-12 year old range.  She was rescued with her baby, Aires, from a puppy mill and brought to PAWS Atlanta around 4.5 years ago.  Harriet and her then boyfriend, Connor, took Bayah in as a foster.  She was seemingly young and feisty.

She was adopted out and about a year later she came back looking terrible.  She was overweight, had hair loss, and her teeth were completely rotten.  Harriet had moved back to England, and there was no room at the shelter.  Having started falling in love with the now single Harriet, I could not let anything happen to her foster pup and so I took Bayah home as my own foster.  I fell in love with her too.  And hard.  I tried to adopt her out, but when she came back a week later (she wasn't housebroken) I was so relieved to scoop her back up.  I finalized her adoption that day--April 18, 2013.  I was able to be her family for a little over three years.  That's it.

She was my little hot potato and my co-pilot. She was the dog I could take with me everywhere.  She was relaxed and loving and not at all worried about adult strangers.  Children were slightly alarming, but she would not hurt them, and I always made sure they were sweet with her too.  She fit perfectly in my arms.  She would not lay down or rest until she found a comfy bed to rest on but, if you put her in a bed, she would not budge again until you made her or until you took out some food.  She loved to eat more than anything else in the world and on her last night we gave her chocolate and chicken jerky, which she scarfed down as ferociously as ever.

She developed a head tilt and was diagnosed with vestibular disease, but three weeks went by, and she did not get better.  We got a third opinion.  We were told she had a brain tumor and our time with her was short and, even with the warning, there was not enough time spent together.  There never could be.  That's the thing about death.  No matter how much life allows you to prepare for it you cannot prepare for it.  It feels sudden or unexpected even when it is not.  If it doesn't feel that way then you have likely suffered terribly and for awhile.

That last night was the first time she flinched when someone went to hold her or when her canine best friend, Savannah, got near her.  She was in pain.  The tumor was putting pressure on her eye.  She had gone blind in that eye just a few weeks before. The only option was surgery, and she was not a candidate for surgery at her age and in her condition.  She left us before we left her, and our hearts broke into a million Bayah-sized pieces as we drove away from that hospital and home to a house that felt empty even though it was full of dogs.  I funnel my affections into her best friend and my other dogs, but nothing touches that place within me where the memory of her lives.  It is heavy and damp, soaked through with my sadness.  I know that as time goes on it will fill with positive memories and funny anecdotes, but right now I just miss my beloved little Chihuahua and the tongue that always hung out of her mouth as she sauntered along.  The low, sweet bark she let out when she got really excited and the warmth of her small body resting next to me.  I will love you forever, Bayah. 

Moments

Moments: Contemporary Verse from Around the World  Eds. Sharon Derderian and Robert Lawrence
1998
Weight: 2 lbs
Method of Disposal: Donating

This is my first published work.  Given, it was a scam.  You could send your writing into a contest and, if you won, you went in the book for free.  If you did not win you could still get in, but you had to pay a substantial amount of money.  Of course, they did not word it this way but it was obvious.  I was lucky enough to have a mom who thought boosting my ego was worth it--just so I would not lose my creative spirit--and I thought it meant something.  So, I got this bound book with my poetry in print.  Even then I knew it was sketchy, but I thought it still gave me bragging rights, though I never really bragged about it.

Please let me tell you now, that my mom was broke.  Like broke, broke.  And she still thought encouraging my creativity was a valid use of her hard earned money.  Plenty of late nights and a lot of stress went into what would become this poor excuse of an anthology.  I have held onto it all this time.  And I will never forget what it did for me.  Thank you, Mom.  I love you so very much.

Now, I am sure you want to see the piece of shit I turned in.  Here it is:

Love by Laura Lynn McKelvey age-12

My love for you is strong, yours is no more than a mere hello.  I want you and need you every minute of the day.

You'll never understand me or even see me.  I'm just a stranger among strangers.  One of the many who lives everyday, but always seems so far away.

I would die for you, you would scream for me.  I would lie for you, you wouldn't say a thing.  I would kill for you, you wouldn't do a thing!

I love you forever and you'll love me.  Never.

There are a few things I need to say now.  One is that this is a terrible poem, even for me at twelve.  I had better.  Why would I choose this one?  Two is that I might have been a touch dramatic and a little creepy.  I would kill for you?  Wtf?  Three, it is amazing I thought I knew what love was at that age.  Awww....what?  It would be embarrassing except that, at some point, you have to recognize that teenagers (and pre-teenagers) have "no idea", and their feelings are still valid and important, even if only to them and their peers.  You should listen and encourage.

P.S.  I was such a lesbian.

The Collected Poems of Emily Dickinson

The Collected Poems of Emily Dickinson
1993
Weight: 1 lb
Method of Disposal: Left in the Oakhurst Public Lending Library Box Thing

I am in desperate need of a new job.  I must be if I am blogging online about it.  That is a professional no no.  I just must say this last bit anyway, job hunting leads me to despair and questioning my life and trajectory, which makes me think of...Emily Dickinson.

This book is one of the first collections of poetry I ever owned.  I got it as a wee middle schooler, and I loved it through high school.  I cannot remember which poems I loved but, interestingly, this is the only poem bookmarked in the whole 300 + pages:

LOVE VI

If you were coming in the fall,
I'd brush the summer by
With half a smile and half a spurn,
as housewives do a fly.

If I could see you in a year,
I'd wind the months in balls,
And put them in separate drawers,
Until their time befalls.

If only centuries delayed,
I'd count them on  my hand,
Subtracting till my fingers dropped
Into Van Diemen's land.

If certain, when this life was out,
That yours and mine should be,
I'd toss it yonder like a rind,
And Taste eternity.

But now, all ignorant of the length
Of time's uncertain wing,
It goads me, like the goblin bee,
That will not state its sting.

 (pg 147)

In other exciting news, it is full of four leaf clovers I found in that same time period!  How cool is that?!

War Dances

War Dances by Sherman Alexie
2010
Weight: 7.2 oz
Method of Disposal: Leaving at Joe's in East Atlanta Village

Alexie never disappoints.  I was so relieved to pick this one off my shelf.  I knew it would be an easy read in that I would be hooked on each word, would chuckle regularly, and would also find activism in the form of short stories and poetry.  It was an easy read in that the voices of the characters were so well done that I never had to come out of the story for air or to think about what I had just read.  I just lived in the book each moment I got to pick it up.  I am not saying it is the best book by the author, but it was another fine collection by him.  I intend to leave it at the coffee shop unless you let me know that you need some of this in your life.

Imagine Being More Afraid of Freedom than Slavery

Imagine Being More Afraid of Freedom than Slavery  by Pamela Sneed

1998

Weight: 4.8 oz

Method of Disposal: Left at a Barnes and Noble in Duluth, GA

I apparently bought this at Books for Less in Duluth for $1.  How long ago did the Books for Less close down in Duluth?  Quite some time ago.  I got a bargain, and I probably had no idea.  O.k. I should give myself some credit.  I probably read the cover and the back, enough to see “lesbian,” “enslavement, sexuality, emotional trauma, and physical abuse,” amongst other things.  They called her a whispering sledgehammer right on the cover.  I am not even sure what that means, but wouldn’t you like it if someone called you that?

I could not help but think that the anger, emotion, power of Sneed would really stand out on stage.  It was not surprising to see “New York-based performance poet” as a part of her book jacket bio.  You could hear it through and through.  Reading this was great, but I would love to hear it in person.

Does Your House Have Lions?

Does Your House Have Lions?  Sonia Sanchez

1998

Weight: 3.8 oz

Method of Disposal: Leaving Somewhere

It seems like in the late nineties I was buying a lot of current literature.  I was buying things and reading them the same year they came out.  I must have been more adventurous then.  Really, I am sure it was just that I had more time, money, and a bookstore employee discount.  If I buy or check out a book now, I usually look for a nonfiction topic I am into or for an author I know.  I am embarrassed to say that I do not give many new writers a chance—unless I read a good short story from them.  I miss the days of grabbing a book off the shelf and taking it home just because of the title, because it spoke to me, or because I happened to like the color in that moment.  

I just re-read Does Your House Have Lions?  There is something about the poetry surrounding illness and death that engulfs me, almost drowns me.  I have not read a lot of poetry in recent years, and I absolutely have learned that I cannot write it.  I respect someone who can, and I did enjoy this book when I first read it in the nineties and still now.

World Poetry Day--2011

W. H. Auden: Selected Poems Selected and edited by Edward Mendelson
1989
Weight: 9.9 oz
Method of Disposal: Donating or leaving somewhere unless you want it



It is World Poetry Day and so I knew I would have to part with one of my few poetry books. I do not read poetry like I use to, but I am still attached to the books I have left. I did not realize how much until I went to find one to give away. I was nowhere near ready to give away Langston Hughes or my No More Masks anthology. I saw a few young adult collections I could have let go easy, but that seemed like cheating. I had to get rid of something good. It is World Poetry Day!

This particular book was purchased for one of my English courses in college. I believe it was Modernist Poetry with Professor Trousdale. We read Yeats, Eliot, Pound, Stein, and many others that are not coming to me right now. Of course, not everything we read fit neatly into “Modernism.” We read around Modernism and within it. It was a great class with a great professor and, while I never really developed the comfort level to talk about poetry, I appreciated every minute of the class. I say developed. Perhaps, I mean that I lost the confidence to do so while in college. I became intimidated way before this class, and I half-turned my back on poetry. Trousdale’s classes always drew me back.

Anyway, as you can tell, I am still not going to discuss Auden with you. Feel free to talk about him to me and, as always, let me know if you want this collection of poetry.


World Poetry Day was first celebrated in 2000.

Queer (not so?) Fabulous

From the Inside Out: Radical Gender Transformation, FTM and Beyond edited by Morty Diamond
2004
Weight: 6.4 oz.
Method of Disposal: Giving away to my friend, Tracy H.



I recently had a conversation about the use of the word queer (amongst other things) with a good friend over cold beer. We had different experiences and feelings surrounding the word. This book does not really define, explain, or defend the word though almost everyone in the book self-identifies as “queer.” It is a book about and by transgendered people, monster trans people, genderqueer people, and so many others. I have re-read it and am passing it on in hopes that it will help in the quest for understanding, community, and revolution that is so desperately sought by so many people struggling with what identity may or may not mean to THE movement.

It is not my favorite book about “radical gender transformation”, but it has its moments. It is one in a list of many that I will be re-reading and then passing on.

In this collection, I particularly like “Father and Son” by Mykkah Herner and was happy that I was inheriting some of my father’s shorts while I was reading about his father-son bonding moment, receiving hand-me-downs in the form of suits, shirts, and pants. I was also a big fan of “Dear Breasts” by Storm Florez and “If I Should Die Before I wake…Don’t Let Me 9/26-11/4/02 For Brotha Bear” by Imani Henry.

If you have read this book or when you read this book—let me know what you think.

"I Want to Be the Girl Your Parents Will Use as a Bad Example of a Lady."

The Other Side of Paradise by Staceyann Chin
2009
Weight: 8 oz
Method of Disposal: Putting aside to give to my mom when she gets back from Taiwan



The first and the last time I saw Staceyann Chin perform her spoken-word was while I was attending Agnes Scott College. I went down to The Hub with my then-girlfriend to see Doria Roberts, and Staceyann was opening for her. She made the night and hung the moon. She was amazing. It was my first year of college, and I have never forgotten her. I have tried to go to other spoken-word shows in hopes that I would find someone that I enjoyed to the same degree but with no luck. I was very excited when I heard she was coming out with a memoir sometime in 2009.

I was not disappointed. She writes about growing up in Jamaica, moving from place to place. Person to person. Her strength twists throughout the book into a tight and even tighter story of courage, struggle, and passion. Beautiful. Really. I cannot say enough positive about it. I remember when I finished reading the last page. I fell back onto my bed and let it all sink in. Soon, I thought about my mom in Taiwan and immediately wanted to ship it to her. I still haven’t. So this one is for her. This one will stand in your mind with Dorothy Allison. I miss you!