TONIGHT NO POETRY WILL SERVE

There’s this possibly-futile geeky dream that I’ve had for a while….it’s one of compiling a list of all of the poetry books (particularly those by individual American poets not published by P.O.D. or vanity presses) put out each month. I haven’t been able to find an easily readable list like this on the web so far, and I think one is needed–esp. so that those who judge contests for the best poetry books of the year (like the Poet’s Prize) can easily see what’s been published and what they might have missed. I put up most of the October poets in this blog, for example, and I’ve put up others on Choriamb–the blog I had before NPB. It’s very difficult to keep up with all of the books, though–I haven’t yet found a workable schedule and method for maintaining the project…..My new attempt will be to work ahead of schedule–starting now, in December 2010 with the poetry books published in 2011.

Today’s excerpt is by Adrienne Rich. It’s coming out on January 17.

Tonight No Poetry Will Serve: Poems 2007-2010 W. W. Norton & Company

Fracture

When on that transatlantic call into the unseen
ear of a hack through whiskey film you blabbed
your misanthrope’s
misremembered remnant of a story
given years back in trust

Read rest of poem @ /One/: The Journal of Literature, Art and Ideas.

New Poetry Books: November 1, 2010

Walking Papers: Poems
Thomas Lynch – W. W. Norton & Company

Calling

We Catholic boys all listened for The Call.
The Voice of God, exquisite in our ears—
Come follow me, or, as it was with Paul,
Thunder, enlightening, the bang and whisper
By which God makes His will known to us all.
Be Fruitful. But not apples. Is that clear?

Read rest of poem @ Poetry Daily.

A Walk in Victoria’s Secret: Poems
Kate Daniels – Louisiana State University Press

The Pedicure

It was a birthday gift from my husband who remembered,
I suspect, those luscious, toe-sucking days of our early lust.
Now, a hard decade into parenting and home ownership,
those tentacular extensions of our mutual pleasure
had surrendered their erotic glow, and grown mundane
as garden stones displaced beneath the blankets of our bed.

Read rest of poem @  Chapter 16.

Second Nature: Poems

Margaret Gibson – Louisiana State University Press

Poetry is the Spirit of the Dead, Watching

I.

Unpacking books, shelving them
in the library of this old house,
I come across The Duel, a chapbook
Louis Rubin made of poems I wrote
before I left school. The book—

Read rest of poem @ Image.

The Volcano
Norman Dubie – Copper Canyon Press

The Volcano

The filling station is a blue can
of sardines edged with rose granite,
rope and wooden ore buckets
at the high-water nest of burning grass
in the baking mud of the paloverde.

Read rest of poem @ Copper Canyon Press.

New Poetry Books: October 30, 2010

Like Happiness

Michael Hettich – Anhinga Press

The Funeral

Today I am walking around our town,
down to the waterfront, up the hill to the small church
that looks out across the harbor, and into the chapel
with its wonderful stained glass windows
and its one clear window with the stunning view

Read rest of poem @ Anhinga Press.

Honeycomb: Poems
Carol Frost – Triquarterly

Apiary viii (For the ones

who line the corridors and sit
silent in wheelchairs
before the television with the volume off,
whose cares
are small and gray and infinite,
time as ever to be faced    …

Read rest of poem @ The Poetry Foundation.

Bathsheba Transatlantic
Sarah Wetzel – Anhinga Press

Holy Site

She tells the boy it’s a water tower.
Concrete gray and green, it rises forty feet
on iron legs; egg-shaped lank and warped, the body
curves like a turned bell. The roof rusted through

Read rest of poem @ Ahinga Press

New Poetry Books: October 28, 2010

The Animals All Are Gathering
Bradley Paul – University of Pittsburgh Press

Anybody Can Write a Poem

I am arguing with an idiot online.
He says anybody can write a poem.
I say some people are afraid to speak.
I say some people are ashamed to speak.
If they said the pronoun “I”
they would find themselves floating
in the black Atlantic

Read rest of poem @ Poets.org

New Poetry Books: October 26, 2010

Here
Wislawa Szymborska (Author), Clare Cavanagh (Translator), Stanislaw Baranczak (Translator) – Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Consolation

Darwin.
They say he read novels to relax,
But only certain kinds:
nothing that ended unhappily.
If anything like that turned up,
enraged, he flung the book into the fire.

Read rest of poem @ The Poetry Foundation.

Missing You, Metropolis: Poems
Gary Jackson – Graywolf Press

Autumn In Chestnut Falls

Sure, some of us felt sorry
when the Franklins moved.
But once their oldest boy
grew tentacles for arms
we couldn’t help but keep away.

Read rest of poem @ Duke City Fix.

Heart With A Dirty Windshield
Howie Good – Bewrite Books

Mice in a Fish Tank

Old students remember me saying things
I don’t remember saying. They say I said,

“Never write a boring sen tence – never.”
They say I said, “Work your life around your art,

Read rest of poem @ Writers’ Bloc

New Poetry Books: October 25, 2010

Continuum: Poems
Nina Cassian – W. W. Norton & Company

Epilogue

Between the sun and me
there is a veil of quietude
which protects my eyes
from the scratch of light

Read rest of poem @ Poems Out Loud.

New Poetry Books, October 22, 2010

Heart Turned Back
Bertha Rogers – Salmon Poetry

County Meath, Ireland

I had to get up early
before he came
out from the house;
I had to move quietly
so I wouldn’t wake the watchdog.

Read rest of poem @ Poetry Daily.