Comments on: Listmania

By: Sean Casey

Sean Casey — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 15:04:42 +0000

One Book of Poetry Published in 2007 That You Might Love And Could Probably Get For Free Since You Share A Publisher:
Edward Field, After the Fall: Poems Old and New (Pitt)
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By: Reginald Shepherd

Reginald Shepherd — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 20:15:51 +0000

Dear John and Henry,
Thanks for your complementary and contrasting lists. One thing John’s list highlights is just how fractured the poetry worlds are (clearly there’s not only one, as I’ve discussed on my blog in my post “The Mirage That We Call ‘Poetry’”). Of the authors he mentions, the only one I know is Stanley Plumly (I haven’t read much of his work, but I’ve liked what I’ve read), whom I didn’t know had a new book. I’ve heard of The McSweeney’s Book of Poets Picking Poets, but all I know of it is that I’m not in it. (I’m no self-abnegating saint.)
Perhaps because of the fractured, not to say balkanized, state of the poetry worlds, it took me a little to realize that Henry’s list is a joke, and a good one, especially since the degree of exaggeration and distortion is not as great as one would want it to be. I can imagine some of these books actually existing.
Speaking of imagining books, Alan Michael Parker’s 2006 Tupelo Press anthology The Imaginary Poets, which I have also not read, features twenty-two poets “translating” and writing about poets whom they have made up. It’s a fascinating idea, but I find it hard enough being one poet, let alone more than one. The Portuguese poet Fernando Pessoa, besides publishing poems under his own name in English and in Portuguese, also published under the names of three poetic alter-egos: Alvaro de Campos, Alberto Caeiro, and Ricardo Reis, each with his own distinctive style and separate career.
The idea of a list of real books that one wanted to like or felt one should like is a good one, but I don’t plan to compile one. I have enough trouble in my life as it is.
Thanks for reading and commenting, and take good care.
peace and poetry,
Reginald
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By: Henry Gould

Henry Gould — Sun, 20 Jan 2008 03:38:12 +0000

Some Books of Poetry I Wish I Could Like But Have to List Anyway :
Paul Fretherbie, The Bugs in My Toll Booth
Jean Franchet, Spare Me Your Laundry
Inigo Chesswit, The Western Chronicles : a Saga
Myrth Trepidation, Leeches Ate My Trope
Tellworth V. Budgie, My Father, My Feather ; Selected Long Poems and Some Shorter Verse
Rob Gurney, Fry This Book : A Sonnet Sequence
Sandra Night O”Dell, Smelling the Amaranth
Dirk McKendrie, Smelting Tang Dynasty in My Sleep
Jennifer Longworthy, Poem for My Trust Fund Advisor
Mimi E. LaPrunt, Bliss Is
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By: John A. Blackard

John A. Blackard — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 17:41:09 +0000

Some Books of Poetry Published in 2007 That You Might Love But Might Not Have Heard About:
1. “The McSweeney’s Book of Poets Picking Poets”, edited by Dominic Luxford
2. Stanley Plumly. “Old Heart”. (ok, you probably have)
3. Valentina Gnup. “Winter Octaves”.
4. John Blackard. “October Queen”.
Thanks for your list, Reginald, and the opportunity to share mine.
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