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Wednesday, December 28, 2011

Books for the Holidays

Did you get any poetry books for Christmas? If so, which are you most looking forward to reading?

I got a nice stack of poetry books from my husband and from my parents (yay and thank you!). Among them, a few that I am particularly excited to read are:

A Point Is That Which Has No Part by Liz Waldner. This won the Iowa Poetry Prize and the James McLaughlin Prize about a decade ago, and I've been wanting it ever since. It's title refers to a definition from Euclid's Geometry, which is what immediately drew my attention. I bought another book by Waldner in the meantime, but somehow I had never gotten this one. So excited to have it, I started reading it on Christmas afternoon. The University of Iowa actually offers the entire text online here.

Paul Guest's My Index of Slightly Horrifying Knowledge is also a book I've been wanting to read, and now can.  Guest writes about his paralysis since a bicycle accident at age 12. As our family copes with devastating health issues, I find myself drawn more and more to Guest's poetry about struggles with the physical, written with poignancy, wit, and a realistic edge.

the true keeps calm biding its story by Rusty Morrison is probably the book I was coveting most this Christmas season, as I am in the throes of a poetry crush on Morrison, but didn't have this volume. But I've blogged about Morrison before...

So how about you? Did you get any particularly coveted books this holiday season?

4 comments:

Mari said...

You got some good ones, Jessica! I got Tomas Transtromer's _The Sorrow Gondola_ and _The Great Enigma_, as well as Yusef Komunyakaa's _The Chameleon Couch_. I hope you and your family enjoy your Oshogatsu -- there's so much to be grateful for this coming new year.

Jessica Goodfellow said...

Mari, you hit the jackpot too. I've heard such good things about the new Komunyakaa, and Transtromer has been a perennial favorite. Yay for a good year in reading.

Chris said...

Murakami's three-volumed 1Q84. Too big to take on the train, so I haven't started it yet. Maybe after we are done celebrating Zen's birthday today. . .

Jessica Goodfellow said...

Chris, I'm eagerly awaiting your impressions of the Murakami. As big a fan as I am, the sheer lenghth of this one is daunting.

Happy birthday to Zen!