I've been trying to read more poetry lately, so here are some of the favorites I've gotten to recently and some that I'm excited to get to this month to celebrate!
Wound from the mouth of a wound : poems
Greathouse, Torrin A., author.
811.6 /Greathouse
"Wound from the Mouth of the Wound was selected by Aimee Nezhukumatathil as the winner of the 2020 Ballard Spahr Prize for Poetry"--
War of the foxes
Siken, Richard, 1967- author.
811.6 /Siken
I loved reading Crush by Richard Siken, and so while we don't have that in this collection, I can say without a doubt War of the Foxes will be amazing as well.
- Zach
Falling back in love with being human : letters to lost souls
Thom, Kai Cheng, author.
811.6 /Thom
"Kai Cheng Thom grew up a Chinese Canadian transgender girl in a hostile world. As an activist, psychotherapist, conflict mediator, spiritual healer, and celebrated writer, she's always pursued the same deeply personal mission: to embrace the revolutionary belief that every human being, no matter how hateful or horrible, is intrinsically sacred. But then Kai Cheng found herself in a crisis of faith, overwhelmed by the viciousness with which people treated each other, and barely clinging on to the values and ideals she'd built her life around: justice, hope, love, and healing. Rather than succumb to despair and cynicism, she gathered all her rage and grief and took one last leap of faith. Kai Cheng began writing letters to everyone she has trouble holding in her heart-those seemingly beyond saving. She wrote to dead people, exes, prositutes, johns, monsters, transphobes, and racists; to the fantasy man she still longs for, to the ones who hurt her, and to the ones who watched. In writing these love letters, Kai Cheng found herself not only rediscovering and deepening her faith in humanity, but falling back in love with being human"--
I got VERY philosophical reading this book. Truly, I found this to be an interesting and introspective piece. I had myself questioning different aspects of my personal philosophy, the contradictions of my own and of the authors. I think human ideology is inherently contradictory, in regards to violence versus peaceful protest etc. A good read for me and may be for you too!
- Zach
Content warning : everything
Emezi, Akwaeke, author.
821.92 /Emezi
"Collection of poems by Akwaeke Emezi"--
I love Akwaeke Emezi's writing beyond belief, I highly recommend all of their writing, not solely their poetry.
- Zach
Devotions : the selected poems of Mary Oliver
Oliver, Mary, 1935- author.
811.54 /Oliver
"Throughout her celebrated career, Mary Oliver has touched countless readers with her brilliantly crafted verse, expounding on her love for the physical world and the powerful bonds between all living things. Identified as "far and away, this country's best selling poet" by Dwight Garner, she now returns with a stunning and definitive collection of her writing from the last fifty years. Carefully curated, these 200 plus poems feature Oliver's work from her very first book of poetry, No Voyage and Other Poems, published in 1963 at the age of 28, through her most recent collection, Felicity, published in 2015."--
If you've never read "Wild Geese" by Mary Oliver, that may be a great place to begin your journey with her, and then come here and appreciate some great poetry from one of the most recognizable names in her field.
- Zach
If not, winter : fragments of Sappho
Sappho.
884 /Sappho
This collection is impossible to judge, but fascinating to read. It's sad for me to think how much history has been lost. I found some beautiful writings in here, and some inspiration.
- Zach
Soft science
Choi, Franny, author.
811.6 /Choi
"Soft Science explores queer, Asian American femininity. A series of Turing Test-inspired poems grounds its exploration of questions not just of identity, but of consciousness -- how to be tender and feeling and still survive a violent world filled with artificial intelligence and automation. We are dropped straight into the tangled intersections of technology, violence, erasure, agency, gender, and loneliness." -- Amazon.com.
I liked quite a few of these poems--some great lines that I wrote down, especially in the second part of the book. Other poems I thought were mediocre which comes in collections of all kinds, but I generally found this to be lovely in it's queerness and speculative nature.
- Zach
The selected works of Audre Lorde
Lorde, Audre, author.
814.54 /Lorde
"A definitive selection of prose and poetry from the self-described "black, lesbian, mother, warrior, poet," for a new generation of readers. Audre Lorde is an unforgettable voice in twentieth-century literature, one of the first to center the experiences of black, queer women. Her incisive essays and passionate poetry-alive with sensuality, vulnerability, and rage-remain indelible contributions to intersectional feminism, queer theory, and critical race studies. This essential reader showcases twelve landmark essays and more than sixty poems, selected and introduced by one of our most powerful contemporary voices on race and gender, Roxane Gay. The essays include "The Master's Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master's House," "I Am Your Sister," and excerpts from the National Book Award-winning A Burst of Light. The poems are drawn from Lorde's nine volumes, including National Book Award nominee The Land Where Other People Live. As Gay writes in her astute introduction, The Selected Works of Audre Lorde celebrates "an exemplar of public intellectualism who is as relevant in this century as she was in the last.""--
From what I've read of Audre Lorde in the past, I again must recommend a book I have not read myself. Her essays can be life changing, the story she tells of her life in Zami is incredibly written, and there was some poetry to her words there.
- Zach
Heart of a Shapeshifter
Coyote Park
"Heart of a Shapeshifter: 2Spirit Love Medicine" is a collection of poems, short essays, and prose by Coyote Park. It explores transformation, non-linear transitions, ancestor worship, diaspora, T4T romance, non-monogamy, queer awakenings, and various intersections of Park's lived experiences. Woven throughout the collection are 8 Vessels, taking shape as themed chapters and representing lifetimes. Throughout these vessels, Coyote reflects on extensions of themself, their lovers, and what love medicine means to them. "Heart of a Shapeshifter" is born out of the passion of Brown leather dykes, Trans Deities, and the fierce and overflowing protection of Spirit. A collection of writing to all of those yearning to love and shapeshift freely.
Despite this book not being in the ICPL collection, I wish to recognize it here. I found the relationship descriptions to really hit me hard--the idea of loving outside gender and being able to explore oneself without feeling the weight of what is expected was ever present and beautiful. This is a great example piece of why I love queer and genderqueer people. This book's perspectives on all relationship types including non-monogamous ones gives me a new perspective on friendships and relationships in general. Love comes in many forms and I love that.
- Zach
Nature poem
Pico, Tommy, author.
811.6 /Pico
"Nature Poem follows Teebs--a young, queer, American Indian (or NDN) poet--who can't bring himself to write a nature poem. For the reservation-born, urban-dwelling hipster, the exercise feels stereotypical, reductive, and boring. He hates nature. He prefers city lights to the night sky. He'd slap a tree across the face. He'd rather write a mountain of hashtag punchlines about death and give head in a pizza-parlor bathroom; he'd rather write odes to Aretha Franklin and Hole. While he's adamant--bratty, even--about his distaste for the word "natural," over the course of the book we see him confronting the assimilationist, historical, colonial-white ideas that collude NDN people with nature. The closer his people were identified with the "natural world," he figures, the easier it was to mow them down like the underbrush. But Teebs gradually learns how to interpret constellations through his own lens, along with human nature, sexuality, language, music, and Twitter. Even while he reckons with manifest destiny and genocide and centuries of disenfranchisement, he learns how to have faith in his own voice."--Amazon.com.
Another book where I found I loved some, even breathed out in adoration at times, but other times where I was simply reading. I do wish I could own this book so I could go back and annotate it!
- Zach
Geography III
Bishop, Elizabeth, 1911-1979
811.54 /Bishop
I started this one and never finished it, but it may be for you!
- Zach
Night sky with exit wounds
Vuong, Ocean, 1988- author.
811.6 /Vuong
A haunting debut that is simultaneously dreamlike and visceral, vulnerable and redemptive, and risks the painful rewards of emotional honesty.
I think Ocean Vuong's work speaks for itself. Perhaps my favorite book on this list.
- Zach
Time is a mother
Vuong, Ocean, 1988- author.
811.6 /Vuong
"Ocean Vuong's second collection of poetry looks inward, on the aftershocks of his mother's death, and the struggle - and rewards - of staying present in the world. Time Is a Mother moves outward and onward, in concert with the themes of On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous, as Vuong continues, through his work, his profound exploration of personal trauma, of what it means to be the product of an American war in America, and how to circle these fragmented tragedies to find not a restoration, but the epicenter of the break"--
And while I haven't read this book yet, I want to honor my favorite writer on this list with two recommendations.
- Zach
Making love with the land : essays
Whitehead, Joshua (Writer), author.
814.6 /Whitehead
"In prose that is evocative and sensual, unabashedly queer and visceral, raw and autobiographical, Joshua Whitehead writes of an Indigenous body in pain, coping with trauma. Intellectually audacious and emotionally compelling, Whitehead shares his devotion to the world in which we live and brilliantly-even joyfully-maps his experience on the land that has shaped stories, histories, and bodies from time immemorial"--
This isn't a poetry collection, but I do wish to not that Joshua Whitehead DOES have a poetry collection, not in ICPL's collection, and I wish to read it badly! It's called Full-Metal Indigiqueer. Whitehead has also edited multiple QT short story collections which I have loved.
- Zach
If they come for us : poems
Asghar, Fatimah, author.
811.6 /Asghar
I have not read this one, but I plan to this month!
- Zach
Homie : poems
Smith, Danez, author.
811.6 /Smith
"Homie is Danez Smith's magnificent anthem about the saving grace of friendship. Rooted in the loss of one of Smith's close friends, this book comes out of the search for joy and intimacy within a nation where both can seem scarce and getting scarcer. In poems of rare power and generosity, Smith acknowledges that in a country overrun by violence, xenophobia, and disparity, and in a body defined by race, queerness, and diagnosis, it can be hard to survive, even harder to remember reasons for living. But then the phone lights up, or a shout comes up to the window, and family--blood and chosen--arrives with just the right food and some redemption. Part friendship diary, part bright elegy, part war cry, Homie is the exuberant new book written for Danez and for Danez's friends and for you and for yours."--
Another one I have not read to finish this great list off! Thanks for reading
- Zach
I gave this collection a five out of five because the story of these poems is complex and deserving of the love it took to write them. I want to own this collection so I can take my pen to the page and study the continuity of Greathouse's words. I didn't need to find myself in these pages, I only needed to open my ears to listen. I'm feeling poetic if you can't tell, and I love a book that affects the way I write a sentence.
- Zach