Entropy Lists 60 Favorite Poetry Books of 2016

Entropy lists its favorite poetry this week! Included in 2016's "Best Poetry Books & Collections" are books that have had much buzz this year, like Hardly War by Don Mee Choi (Wave Books), Look by Solmaz Sharif (Graywolf), Blackacre by Monica Youn (Graywolf), and National Book Award–winner The Performance of Becoming Human by Daniel Borzutzky (Brooklyn Arts Press); as well as books not yet famous, like Black Lavender Milk by Angel Dominguez (Timeless, Infinite Light), Exit Theater by Mike Lala (Center for Literary Publishing), and Songs from a Mountain by Amanda Nadelberg (Coffee House Press). There are also the critical darlings, like Antígona González by Sara Uribe (trans. by John Pluecker) (Les Figues Press) ("a masterpiece of documentary poetry") and Registration Caspar by J. Gordon Faylor (Ugly Duckling Presse) (a "Bay Area Beckett"). Some of what they say/quote:

Buck Studies by Douglas Kearney (Fence Books)

“[Douglas Kearney] is at the other end of the century, using a multicultural voice inflected with the concerns of what it means to be a young black man at this time and at this place.”—The Los Angeles Times

Remembering Animals by Brenda Iijima (Nightboat Books)

“Iijima weaves biology, taxonomy, and eugenics with news reports, philosophy, and satire in a powerfully dissonant text that is concerned with inter- and intra-species barbarity. . . . This is meant to be a visceral, even unpleasant read, and Iijima delivers a stirring and uncomfortable truth: “we once were animals and now we are animals.””—Publishers Weekly

Take This Stallion by Anaïs Duplan (Brooklyn Arts Press)

“I have never before read a book like Anais Duplan’s Take This Stallion. Her major talent is recognizing the self in the other, making for poems that flow forward in a tone of oneness-is oneness a tone?-poems that make evident an ever-expanding world by opening themselves up into that world. This debut does what poets in their fifth or sixth collections are still trying to figure: it balances the intellect, image, music, and emotion in ways so unfamiliar that a blurb couldn’t possible characterize the work.”—Jericho Brown

Find all 60 titles here. At top: Brenda Iijima's Remembering Animals.