Poetry best sellers, October 24-31, 2010

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.