Harriet: The Blog » Best Sellers

August 28-September 4, 2011

Harriet Staff — Fri, 09 Sep 2011 14:41:21 +0000

Christine Deavel’s first full-length collection of poems, Woodnote, debuts on this week’s contemporary best seller list at number 26. Deavel, who co-owns the poetry-only bookstore Open Books in Seattle, often writes a spare, Niedecker-esque line that explores the natural world— “It is possible to / believe in the chrysanthemum / To follow its will / for it has none”—but she also ventures here into meditative prose poems that explore the natural and social history of Indiana, Deavel’s home state. Also debuting on this week’s list—and also featuring meditative prose poetry—is Ed Pavlic’s collection Winners Have Yet to be Announced, at number 19. The 2008 collection explores the life and work of soul singer Donny Hathaway, best known for his duet with Roberta Flack (pictured), “Where is the Love.”

Mary, Mary, where ya goin’? Mary, Mary, why ya buggin’?

Harriet Staff — Thu, 30 Jun 2011 17:15:54 +0000

Of Lamb, Matthea Harvey’s re-telling of the nursery rhyme “Mary Had a Little Lamb,” with illustrations by Amy Jean Porter, debuts on the contemporary best seller list this week at #3. Joyce Carol Oates said the book is “a work of such subtle, haunting, spellbinding beauty it is virtually impossible to describe it.” So we won’t even try, except to say that it was published by McSweeney’s and is more of an adult’s children’s book than a children’s children’s book. Though that’s not to say it’s all Alan Moore. Anyways. Also debuting this week is Dhaka Dust, the debut collection of poems by Dilruba Ahmed (number 24). Billy Collins, Kay Ryan, and Mary Oliver take this week’s gold, silver, and bronze, respectively.

The new new thinking

Harriet Staff — Fri, 24 Jun 2011 18:21:48 +0000

Fall Higher, the latest collection of poems from Dean Young, rises to number 3 on this week’s contemporary best seller list (the cherry on the top of which is, as ever, Billy Collins). The New York Times (fancy!) called Fall Higher “a thicket of irresistible first lines.” The Los Angeles Times (schmancy!) uncovered the connection between one of Young’s irresistible first lines (“All the new thinking was about collision”) with Robert Hass’s famous 1979 first line “All the new thinking is about loss” from his poem “Meditation at Lagunitus.” 32 years later, Hass has moved onto the new new thinking (about some other category of insurance, no doubt) in his latest collection, The Apple Trees at Olema (number 14).

Spiderwasp or the mascara snake

Harriet Staff — Sat, 18 Jun 2011 14:00:16 +0000

A squid eating dough in a polyethylene bag is fast and bulbous. This you know. But did you know that Terry Van Vliet, cousin of the musician/painter Captain Beefheart, is a poet, who according to one Holly Prado, “merges the personal and the mythic with seamless grace.” Well, now you know. Also, Van Vliet’s book, Black Lines on Terracotta, debuts at number 17 on this week’s contemporary best seller list. Juliana Spahr’s Black Sparrow debut, Well Then There Now, also debuts this week (at number 21). It’s Spahr’s fourth book, and continues her “politically engaged, passionately interrogatory, and decidedly different” project that isn’t quite found poetry and isn’t quite confessional poetry but something (mesmerizingly) in between.

Classic board games and Laura Kasischke

Harriet Staff — Fri, 10 Jun 2011 14:00:03 +0000

After a week’s hiatus, Laura Kasischke’s newest collection, Space, In Chains, returns to the contemporary best seller list at number 2, just behind Kay Ryan’s greatest hits, The Best of It. (Note: Does Kasischke’s book sound to anyone else like a lost Milton Bradley classic? Space ‘N’ Chains? No? Then, it’s just us? Fine). Kasischke’s also got the number 22 spot wrapped up with her 2007 collection, Lilies Without (game = Lil’ Ease Without? No? Still? Nothing? Sheesh). This week’s lists also include the Small Press Distribution best sellers for May, where the Celtic Thunder accordionist and singer Terrance Winch is tops with the collection Falling Out of Bed in a Room with No Floor.

Wisconsin week!

Harriet Staff — Sat, 04 Jun 2011 14:00:58 +0000

It’s Wisconsin week on the contemporary best seller list, with the Badger state poet Nick Lantz’s two 2010 collections—We Don’t Know We Don’t Know and The Lightning That Strikes the Neighbor’s House—at numbers 2 and 13 (respectively), and Notherners, by Madison’s Seth Abramson, debuting at number 25. Also debuting (though having nothing really to do with Wisconsin) is A Fast Life, the collected poems of Tim Dlugos, a poet who Barry Schwabsky of the Nation calls, “the great poet of the AIDS epidemic.” This collection, edited by David Trinidad, is at number 29.

Life on Mars beats the Here and Now

Harriet Staff — Fri, 27 May 2011 14:00:12 +0000

Tracy K. Smith’s newest book, Life on Mars, jumps 23 spots to number 3 on this week’s contemporary best seller list, just behind Billy Collins’ Horoscopes for the Dead (number 1), and Kay Ryan’s Best of It (number 2). Life on Mars, Smith’s third collection, goes deep into David Bowie and dark matter, imagining a sci-fi future where “sex, / having outlived every threat, will gratify / only the mind, which is where it will exist.” And then there’s Stephen Dunn’s Here and Now, his latest from Norton, debuting on the list at number 15, just behind Robert Bly’s latest, Talking into the Ear of a Donkey. You can explore all of the best sellers on Google Books through our best sellers page here.

Baron Wormser and the Papago Indians

Harriet Staff — Fri, 20 May 2011 21:00:27 +0000

Former Maine poet laureate Baron Wormser has his 10th collection, Impenitent Notes, on the contemporary best seller list this week at number 5, having wormed its way (get it?) between Mary Oliver’s Thirst and Swan. Also debuting on the list this week is Native American poet Ofelia Zepeda’s 2008 collection from University of Arizona press, Where Clouds Are Formed (number 14). Sepeda is also the author of the first grammar textbook of Tahono Oadham, the language of the Papago Indians whose lands run from Southern Arizona to Northern Mexico. Caroline Kennedy’s She Walks in Beauty is tops on the anthology list.

Billy Collins’ Horoscopes for the Dead top seller for April 24-May 1, 2011

Harriet Staff — Mon, 09 May 2011 15:00:48 +0000

Michael Dickman’s second collection of poems Flies, just out from Copper Canyon Press, debuts at number 14 on this week’s contemporary best seller list. An auspicious start for the poet whose first book, The End of the West, is Copper Canyon’s best-selling debut ever. Dickman, who had a cameo roll opposite his twin brother in Minority Report, won the 2011 Laughlin Award for this collection. He teaches at Princeton. Also debuting on this week’s list is Pluriverse, the 2009 selected poems of Nicaraguan poet Ernesto Cardenal, put out by New Directions. This week also features a new Small Press Distribution list, where Roger Bonair Agard’s Gully is the top seller.

Poetry best sellers, March 13-21, 2011

Harriet Staff — Fri, 25 Mar 2011 18:07:19 +0000

After months in migratory flight away from the contemporary best seller list, Derek Walcott’s White Egrets has returned. It sits atop the list, ahead of four Mary Oliver books (four!). Then rounding out the top ten are two debuts: Anita Skeen’s Never the Whole Story, and Les Murray’s Taller When Prone. The Observer noted on the occasion of this book (Murray’s 30th) that the poet “has earned his reputation not only as one of Australia’s finest writers but as one of the most engaging poets writing in English today. And if this means he is occasionally mistaken for a celebrity chef, it must be a price worth paying.” Which seems obvious. Would you accept being one of the best English language poets if it meant people sometimes asked you for Paula Deen’s autograph? Yes. You would. Don’t even front.

Poetry best sellers, March 6-13, 2011

Harriet Staff — Fri, 18 Mar 2011 14:00:17 +0000

Whitethorn, Utah poet Jacqueline Osheron’s sixth collection of poetry, debuts on this week’s contemporary best seller list at number 8, just ahead of Charles Bukowski’s Pleasures of the Damned and just behind Billy Collins’s The Trouble with Poetry. Also debuting on this week’s list is Khaled Mattawa’s Tocqueville (number 16), which David Wojahn calls “part personal lyric, part jeremiad, part shooting script, and part troubled homage to the great wry chronicler of American society evoked in the book’s title.”

Poetry best sellers, February 27-March 2, 2011

Harriet Staff — Mon, 14 Mar 2011 19:30:43 +0000

This week Mary Oliver once again claims the top two spots on the contemporary best seller list with Swan and Evidence, while her Thirst advances to fifth place, up from number 8. Nikky Finney jumps into the top ten at number 3 with Head Off & Split, and Charles Bukowski’s Pleasures of the Damned tailspins to number 10 (from fourth place). Of notable mention is Susan Howe’s This That, moving up eleven slots to 18 after she was awarded Yale University’s Bollingen Prize in American Poetry earlier this month. According to the judging committee, This That “makes manifest the raw edges of elegy through the collision of verse and prose, visionary lyricism and mundane incident, ekphrasis, visual patterning, and the reclamation of historical documents.” And over at SPD’s best sellers list for February, Noah Eli Gordon claims the top spot with The Source.

Poetry best sellers February 20-27, 2011

Harriet Staff — Thu, 03 Mar 2011 21:02:58 +0000

Nick Flynn’s newest collection, The Captain Asks for a Show of Hands, jumps fifteen spots to number 3 on this week’s contemporary best seller list. Now it resides in between Mary Oliver’s Evidence and Charles Bukowski’s Pleasures of the Damned, which is actually quite fitting. Returning to the list after a brief hiatus is Matthew Zapruder’s Come On All You Ghosts (number 20), which was just named a Believer Magazine Poetry Award finalist. At number 20, It’s just behind Head Off & Split by Nikky Finney, a collection which, according to Publisher’s Weekly, “sustain(s) a sensitive and intense dialogue with emblematic figures and events in African American life.”

Contemporary poetry best sellers: February 13-20, 2010

Harriet Staff — Thu, 24 Feb 2011 22:00:47 +0000

Major Jackson, who is currently in the middle of a book tour promoting his latest collection, has two books in the top ten of this week’s contemporary best seller list, notably Hoops, which is at number 1. Also in the top ten this week is Dorraine Laux, who’s latest, The Book of Men, debuts at number 7. After causing a stir at this year’s AWP in Washington DC, Tony Hoagland’s latest returns to the list this week at number 17.

Poetry best sellers February 6-13, 2011

Harriet Staff — Thu, 17 Feb 2011 22:00:05 +0000

Alice Gregory explores the Mary Oliver best seller phenomenon in this week’s online feature, and here on this week’s contemporary best seller list Oliver continues to reign with nature-esque sublimity. Her Swan is at the top spot, followed by Nikki Giovanni’s Bicycles and Major Jackson’s Holding Company. Publishers Weekly called Jackson’s third collection a “powerful book (that) represents a painful but inspired journey.” Also on this week’s list after a lengthy hiatus is Steve Zultanski’s first book Pad, which is a book-length catalog of what the speaker can and cannot lift with his penis. (Disclosure: Zultanski is a current Harriet contributor). Vanessa Place said of the book: “The trauma of the masculine discourse in Pad is underscored by the incantatory properties of ‘my dick can’ and ‘my dick can’t,’ which ring as Echo to every Narcissus.”

Poetry best sellers, January 9-16, 2011

Harriet Staff — Thu, 20 Jan 2011 18:30:35 +0000

New on this week’s contemporary best seller list are two long titles: Quilting the Black Eyed Pea: Poems and Not Quite Poems by Nikki Giovanni (number 26), and Seven Controlled Vocabularies and Obituary 2004. The Joy of Cooking by Tan Lin (number 21). The former came out in 2002, but Giovanni has been in the news and on the road recently, promoting her anthology The 100 Best African-American Poems (number 3 on the anthology list). The latter is the third collection of poems from Tan Lin (brother of Vietnam Memorial artist Maya Lin). It also contains the subtitle [AIRPORT NOVEL MUSICAL POEM PAINTING FILM PHOTO HALLUCINATION LANDSCAPE]. Publishers Weekly says, “Its high-concept fun and its serious provocations should get much attention from the proponents of conceptualism and the wider audience for pranks, provocations, and challenges of any artful sort.”

Poetry best sellers December 26, 2010-January 2, 2011

Harriet Staff — Thu, 06 Jan 2011 21:15:17 +0000

Over the holidays, C.D. Wright’s book One with Others got the Dan Chiasson treatment in the New Yorker. The review has helped put Wright’s book, at number 15 on the contemporary best seller list, a few spots ahead of Timothy Donnelly’s Cloud Corporation (number 17), the last book to be similarly Chiassoned. One with Others documents the journey of a white woman in Arkansas who joined a group of black men on a “march against fear” from Memphis to Little Rock in 1969. “It turns out that the literary genre least likely to get in the way of this story,” Chiasson writes, “is poetry, which, despite its reputation for gilt and taffeta, comfortably veers close to “documentary” conventions. It comes especially close in Wright’s angular strain of postmodern poetry, which draws on refractive techniques now a hundred years old: collage, extensive quotation, multiplicity of voice and tone, found material, and, often, a non-authorial, disinterested stance.”

Poetry best sellers, December 5-12, 2010

Harriet Staff — Wed, 15 Dec 2010 23:00:49 +0000

Walking Papers, the most recent collection from poet and undertaker Thomas Lynch, jumped up the contemporary best seller list this week to number 3, just behind Human Chain by Seamus Heaney and Swan by Mary Oliver, rounding out this week’s gold, silver, and bronze. At number 19 is Auguries of Innocence by Patti Smith, the punk poet who just won the National Book Award for her memoir Just Kids. Lighthead by Terrance Hayes (number 4) won the NBA this year for poetry. The Small Press Distribution list is new this week, with Cole Swenson’s Ugly Duckling Presse dossier Greensward in the top spot.

Poetry best sellers November 28-December 4, 2010

Harriet Staff — Wed, 08 Dec 2010 21:00:34 +0000

Not much has changed at the top of the contemporary best seller list this week. The game of musical chairs between Mary Oliver, Seamus Heaney, Kay Ryan, and Terrance Hayes continues, with Oliver’s Swan perched in the number 1 spot. Further down the list, James Richardson’s new collection, By the Numbers, makes its first appearance at number 29, and Frederick Seidel’s Poems 1959-2009 returns at number 23. On the anthology list, the 2010 Best American Poetry, edited by Amy Gerstler, remains at the top, and the New Directions collection of Christmas Poems holds steady at number 6.

Poetry best sellers November 21-28, 2010

Harriet Staff — Fri, 03 Dec 2010 20:00:33 +0000

Over the Thanksgiving holiday, Terrance Hayes’s National Book Award-winning Lighthead re-appeared on the contemporary best seller list at number 2, where it remains this week. Just outside the top ten, at number 13, is Fort Red Border by former @harriet_poetry writer Kiki Petrosino. Her debut collection traces an imaginary love affair with Robert Redford, and, according to Publishers Weekly, “rings some of the same bells as Frederick Seidel.” Mary Oliver remains on top of the list with her latest, Swan.

William Morris and the Kelmscott Press in Buffalo

Poetry News — Thu, 02 Dec 2010 19:30:05 +0000

The 19th century arts-and-craftsman William Morris is best remembered for his textiles and decorative arts, but it’s his books that will be on display in an exhibition at Buffalo’s Central Library through the end of January. Besides his furniture and design business, Morris was also behind the influential Kelmscott Press, where he carried over his devotion to handcrafting.

The books on display at the Central Library convey some of the stunning artwork that was created during the printing process. One of the most famous examples of Morris’ efforts, the Kelmscott Chaucer printed in 1896, will be on display at the exhibit. This edition is considered to be the greatest publication issued by a modern private press.

The exhibition will also feature the Doves Press English Bible, An Endeavor Towards the Teaching of John Ruskin, and William Morris and Spenser’s Faerie Queene. Morris was first exposed to Ruskin while attending Oxford and his writings would play a major role in Morris’s development as an artisan and a writer. He also began writing poetry during his time at Oxford and published throughout his life, though it would be 35 years before he would print his own work through The Kelmscott Press alongside Chaucer, Shakespeare, and his Pre-Raphaelite friend and frequent collaborator, Dante Gabriel Rossetti.

Poetry best sellers, November 7-14, 2010

Harriet Staff — Thu, 18 Nov 2010 23:00:08 +0000

After making their debuts in late August, the newest titles from Mary Oliver and Seamus Heaney have remained at or near the top of the contemporary best seller list, and this week is no different, with Swan at number 1 and Human Chain at number 2. National Book Award nominee One with Others by CD Wright jumps twelve spots to number 13, just behind Poetry magazine editor Christian Wiman’s latest collection, Every Riven Thing, which makes its debut at number 12 this week. Also making its debut is Melissa Kwansy’s Reading Novalis in Montana, which was one of the Huffington Post’s best books of 2009 and is currently tied at number 30 on the list.

Poetry best sellers October 31-November 6, 2010

Harriet Staff — Thu, 11 Nov 2010 22:03:25 +0000

Erica Miriam Fabri opens her debut collection, Dialect of a Skirt, with the lines: “I will be frank: I want to become a poet / while I am still young and rare. / I want to be a foxy poet.” Who knows if being on the contemporary best seller list is part of being a foxy poet (Sure it is! Right?), but Fabri is in at number 29 this week, just behind Philip Levine and just ahead of Rae Armantrout. Not bad company. The top of the list is less young and rare, though no less special, populated as it is by Mary Oliver, whose Swan, Evidence, Red Bird, and New and Selected Poems Volume 2 take up four of the top ten spots.

Poetry best sellers, October 24-31, 2010

Harriet Staff — Fri, 05 Nov 2010 18:00:28 +0000

The top end of this week’s contemporary best seller list looks about the same as last week’s (Mary Oliver’s Swan is still on top), but down around number 23 things start to get interesting. There, you’ll find a three-way tie between Frederick Seidel, W.S. Merwin, and Jennifer Richter. Seidel and Merwin you might already know, but Richter is a relative newcomer to the best selling scene. Her book Threshold is part of the Crab Orchard Series published by Southern Illinois University Press, and Yusef Komunyakaa says it “sparkles with a shaped brilliance.” It’s her first book. At number 24 is another debut, A Cold Wind From Idaho by Lawrence Matsuda. Matsuda’s poems explore the internment camps inside the U.S. During World War II, specifically Minidoka in Idaho.

Poetry best sellers, October 17-24

Harriet Staff — Wed, 27 Oct 2010 20:39:07 +0000

Brian Turner’s two collections—Here, Bullet and Phantom Noise—both return to the contemporary best seller list this week in a big way. Turner’s books leapfrog the majority of the list to splash down at numbers 5 and 6, respectively. Turner recently returned from Belgrade, Serbia where ten years ago he had served as a NATO peacekeeper. He documented the experience for Harriet’s “Open Door” feature with great audio clips and photos. Debuting on the list this week is Heart’s Migration by Linda Rodriguez, a Kansas City poet and a member of the Latino Writers Collective. Mary Oliver’s Swan remains at the top of the list.

Poetry best sellers, October 10-17

Harriet Staff — Fri, 22 Oct 2010 21:31:32 +0000

Not much has changed at the top of this week’s contemporary best seller list, but down in the wild and wooly double digits there are some notable additions. The National Book Awards announced this year’s finalists last week, including Kathleen Graber‘s The Eternal City, which debuts at number 20 on this week’s list, tied with Heavenly Questions, the newest collection from Gjertrud Schnackenberg. And what about Texas? Well, the new and selected poems from Karla K. Morton, the 2010 Texas Poet Laureate, comes in at number 29, followed shortly thereafter by Redefining Beauty, Morton’s 2009 collection. And there’s Unincorporated Persons in the Late Honda Dynasty by Houston resident Tony Hoagland at number 26. So there you go, Texas! Congratulations!

Poetry best sellers for October 3-10, 2010

Harriet Staff — Thu, 14 Oct 2010 20:00:13 +0000

Timothy Donnelly’s second book, The Cloud Corporation, jumps five spots to number 22 on the contemporary best seller list this week, but look for it to leap even higher in the next few days. In the current issue of the New Yorker, poet and critic Dan Chiasson gives the collection a two page treatment in which he calls Donnelly a poet for our recessionary, credit default swapping times: “In Donnelly’s hands, we feel again that we live in a universe with a god. The god is money . . . “ Chiasson himself reappears on the list this week as well with his collection Where’s the Moon, There’s the Moon at number 10. And Seamus Heaney remains in a Mary Oliver sandwich at the top of the list.

New on the anthology list this week, Islamic Mystical Poetry: Sufi Verse from the Early Mystics to Rumi, edited by Mahmood Jamal, comes in tied at number 10.

Poetry best sellers September 26-October 3, 2010

Harriet Staff — Wed, 06 Oct 2010 19:00:48 +0000

The contemporary best seller list has a rather shocking newness about it this week, like an old dead pile of dirt sprouting bright orange chanterelles. While Mary Oliver and Seamus Heaney maintain their hold on the first three positions, Alice Walker and Robert Wrigley have emerged in the top 10. There are six other books making their first appearances in the top 30 this week, including Here Be Monsters, the National Poetry Series winner from Colin Cheney, and Crave Radiance, the new and selected poems by Obama’s inaugural bard Elizabeth Alexander. Also this week, there’s a new Small Press Distribution list where Up Jump the Boogie by John Murillo is number 1.

Poetry best sellers, September 19-27, 2010

Harriet Staff — Thu, 30 Sep 2010 15:00:21 +0000

This week’s contemporary best seller list marks the return of some familiar names: Maxine Kumin’s selected poems, Where I Live, returns at number 9, Brian Turner’s second collection, Phantom Noise, ties with Anne Carson’s Nox at number 18, and Terrance Hayes’s Lighthead rounds out the list at number 30. Debuting on the list this week is Shahid Reads His Own Palm, a first book from Cave Canem fellow Reginald Dwayne Betts that begins and ends with a ghazal, the ancient Arabic form made popular again by the late Agha Shahid Ali. Mary Oliver remains on top for the second week in a row.

Poetry best sellers, September 12-19

Harriet Staff — Fri, 24 Sep 2010 17:00:58 +0000

Mary Oliver has taken over the top spot on this week’s contemporary best seller list, surging past Seamus Heaney, W.S. Merwin, Paul Muldoon, and Billy Collins with her latest, Swan. It’s her twentieth full length collection, this one made up of prose poems and regular old poems. Also a mix of poems and prose is Sarah—Lines and Fragments, the fourth collection of poems from Julie Carr. At number 13 this week, and making its first appearance on the list, the book explores states of consciousness in a women who is mother, daughter, and writer in what Publishers Weekly called “spare songlike pages.”