Sunday, December 28, 2014

Alright, then, I'll be born

Before I assault you with my 2014 book list, here’s a list of some of the poems I enjoyed online in the second half of this year, with links. I've omitted my short list from July of poems I think worth checking out.

1. I doubt that a guy named Alan Shapiro is going to end up a “Country Western Singer,” but I loved this funny ditty anyway, which you can find here

2. “Peace Before Cigarette Butt Storm” by Shahram Shahidi in RHINO. I loved how the butts of the title are immediately identified with the bullet of the first line, and the ironic laugh this short poem provides. It’s a PDF, so you could be two clicks away

3. Dana Weir’s “What Matters To You Matters To Me” in B O D Y, which is a longish prose-ish poem full of kickers, including: 

Let’s just say you have a choice.
You have a choice whether to be born or not to be born?
Who wouldn’t say, all right, then, I’ll be born.

4. Kristy Bowen’s “Apocalypse Theory,” an online chapbook that you can find here. Most of the prose poems begin with “My apocalypse theory (DOES SOMETHING),” and turn fun and imaginative. 

5. Matthew Lippman’s narrative “Marriage Pants” in American Poetry Review is sad and entertaining and has a great ending. 

6. Dave Bonta does a generous series of poems at his Via Negativa site, where he makes the effort of erasure poems seem effortless. His series is based on the Diary of Samuel Pepys. Some of my favorites include Messenger, Downsizers, and Stripper, with its “barn-dark oyster.” 

7. I also enjoyed Dillon J. Welch’s “Jewel Erasure Poems,” which are here at keyhole. 

8. And while we’re on the subject, Jenni Baker’s marvelous erasure poems in Boaat, from the Boy Scout Handbook, complete with nostalgic illustrations. 

9. The outtakes from Caryn Lazzuri’s “The Encyclopedia of Love” in apt are wonderful, especially “A is for April,” in which a person on a train falls in love with a stranger. It’s good to recognize the feeling. 

10. “Please, Space” by Suzanne Wise in Quaint Magazine is an acrobatic prose poem that I much enjoyed. 

11. I loved the list poem “Ways to Dance” by Mark Leidner, which I would like to try to live. 

12. I loved Jessy Randall’s short fables in The Bakery, which she reads herself. 

13. Both of Andrew Grace’s poems in Pleiades appealed to me strongly: “Say Hello to My Little Friend Sorrow” and “Warning to My Mortician.”

3 comments:

Jessy Randall said...

Hey thanks for the link to the Bakery poems!

SarahJane said...

You did so many good things this year, Jessy.

Dave Bonta said...

Thanks for the inclusion in the list! That's a real honor—I look up to you both as a writer and as a reader.

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