Books with a Spine for Your Holiday Shopping Pleasure

We all know that the economy is bad, bad, bad--or at least, the unemployment rate and the news from the housing market is enough to frighten my inner Apocalypse Gal. And now, the holidays approach. In one week, some of us might be lined up outside of stores to get the best deals. Some of us can hardly afford that (or tolerate the crowds at Christmas). What should we do?

You might adopt the approach of my family. We all own more stuff than we can use, and we really don't desire more (I'm speaking of the grown ups here). Each year at Thanksgiving, one of us chooses a charity, and we donate to that charity instead of giving gifts to each other.

If you really want your charity dollars to go far, give to the developing world. If you want to read more about that idea, see my post here.

One year, before my family adopted the charitable giving idea, we made the rule that no gift could cost over $10. That was interesting. We've also had fun with the homemade gift idea.

But in this time of struggle, particularly for non-profits and arts organizations, why not support poetry with your holiday gift giving dollars?

Today, I offer a list of books of poems for everyone on your list (this idea is not original to me, of course. I first saw Jeannine make a similar list here, which inspired me to start thinking in this direction, once I started blogging). I've tried to choose books that I've held in my hands during the past year, but I didn't limit myself to books that have been published in the past year. I tried to choose books from small presses and/or books from poets who aren't as famous nationally as other poets. In other words, Billy Collins is probably doing just fine, so why not support others? I also tried to choose poets that non-poetry readers were likely to enjoy.

I thought about including a quote from each book, but that would have made this post impossibly long. Many websites, either author websites or publisher websites, will offer a sample of the work.


What Feeds Us by Diane Lockward

Luscious poems about food and all the other things which nourish us. I devoured this volume in one big gulp, and came back for seconds. (Wind 2006)

Small Knots by Kelli Russell Agodon

A great series of poems about breast cancer makes up the last third of this book. The profound poems in the first part of the book explore other aspects modern life. (WordTech, Cherry Grove imprint 2004)

National Anthem by Kevin Prufer

This apocalyptic collection is full of haunting images, dark and strange. I returned to this volume again and again this past year. (Four Way Books 2008)

The Freedom Business by Marilyn Nelson (poems) and Deborah Dancy (art)

What an interesting artifact! This book contains the slave narrative written by Venture Smith in 1795, poems by Marilyn Nelson that were inspired by the narrative, and Deborah Dancy’s art that responds to the poems. (Wordsong 2008)

Geometry of Dreams by Barbra Nightingale

This is the book for the mathematicians and physicists on your list. The sonnet cycle that concerns the death of the ex-husband should have wide appeal for all of us who have lost loved ones. (WordTech 2009)

Ka-Ching! by Denise Duhamel

Poems about money and economics—just the right note (often a funny note) for these hard times. (University of Pittsburgh Press 2009)

Kinky by Denise Duhamel

For every reader who has ever loved a Barbie doll. (Orchises 1997)

Becoming the Villainess by Jeannine Hall Gailey

Gailey explores all sorts of female icons in all sorts of pop culture: fairy tales, mythology, comic books, video games, and film. What a treat! (Steel Toe Books 2006)

Blue Positive by Martha Silano

A wonderful look at modern motherhood and what it means to be female now. (Steel Toe Books 2006)

Our Post-Soviet History Unfolds by Eleanor Lerman

Great poems about surviving the cold war, as well as surviving the horrors of mid-life and old age. (Sarabande 2005)

Theories of Falling by Sandra Beasley

The Allergy Girl series of poems changed the way I see the world and reminded me to be grateful of the smallest thing, like the ability to take a breath. (Western Michigan University Press 2008)

Native Guard by Natasha Trethaway

For the reader who loves Civil War history. Or for those of us who miss our moms. (Mariner 2006)

Figure Studies by Claudia Emerson

Another book for those who love history entwined with their poems. An intriguing exploration of gender runs throughout the book, but I won’t soon forget her technique of using an imaginary boarding school for girls. (Louisiana State University Press 2008)

No Sweeter Fat by Nancy Pagh

For every woman who struggles with body image issues (that would be almost all of us, right?), especially those of us who tend towards heaviness. (Autumn House 2007)

Cadaver Dogs by Rebecca Loudon

Poems of strange surrealness and beauty. (No Tell Books 2008)

Harlot by Jill Alexander Essbaum

For the reader who likes the sacred and the profane mixed in one poem. (No Tell Books 2007)

Modern Life by Matthea Harvey

For those who love wordplay. These 2 series will change the way you view the abecedarian: The Future of Terror/Terror of the Future. (Graywolf 2007)

Torched Verse Ends by Steven D. Schroeder

Another book for readers who like an acerbic look at modern existence: robots and personality tests and life in the office. Also the book for those who love wordplay. (BlazeVOX 2009)

The Meager Life and Modest Times of Pop Thorndale by W. T. Pfefferle

Men hit midlife too. An interesting experiment in telling a longer narrative in linked poem format. (NFSPS Press 2006)

The Narrow Road to the Interior by Kimiko Hahn

A book for the reader who loves all things Asian. Also great for those who want to explore the zuihitsu form. Or for those of us who deal with the juxtaposition of being a daughter and a mother. (W. W. Norton 2006)

Prairie Fever by Mary Biddinger

Stunning Images and zinging language. (Steel Toe Press 2007)

Saving Daylight by Jim Harrison

Strong, savage poems full of wilderness. (Copper Canyon 2007)


Tomorrow: Chapbooks make good stocking stuffers!

Lists, Links, and Literary Inspirations

One last thought about my Tuesday night reading: one of my friends was there, and as I finished reading a poem, she made that happy gasp that she makes when she's especially pleased with something. It was only later that I thought, I've heard her make that noise when we've been to a Shakespeare production and when she heard the lines of Keats during Bright Star. And she just made that same sound and did that same hand gesture over my poem. My poem!!

I know that those of you who are non-poets might not understand the thrill. But poets get so little in the way of rewards. Our books of poems won't be made into movies, and we aren't likely to get a multi-million dollar book contract. The general population tends to think that poets are moody and strange, unlike other writers. I'll hang on to the thrill of seeing my poem inspire the same happy gasp that Shakespeare and Keats get from my friend.

Today, during my day of long meetings (you know the kind--if they're merely boring, you feel like you've gotten off lucky), I'll remember that moment. I'll also daydream about being named Poet Laureate (I'd rather be a Supreme Court Justice, but they must endure much on-job boredom too, I imagine). I'll wish fervently that I could be a National Book Award winner, once I have a book with a spine.

I won't daydream about being on the Publisher's Weekly Top 10 or Top 100 list, since I'm female, and their recent lists didn't include one female. I know that many people are creating their own lists, and I thought I might do that too. I've bought a lot of volumes of poetry in the past year, after all. But when I looked at them, I was astonished at how few of them were published in the past year. I shouldn't be surprised. I'm always a year or two or three behind on my reading, my CD listening, movies . . . and don't even talk to me about clothes fashion.

So, here's what I've decided to do. Over the next few days, I'll post recommendations to add to your holiday shopping list. What do you get for the person who has everything? Poetry, of course.

I've noticed lots of good blog posts out there this week, so for your immediate reading pleasure, here are some links:

Sandy writes a post about those lists and closes with a wonderful Emily Dickinson poem--short enough to memorize. Maybe that's what I'll do during boring meetings: memorize poems. I used to think I would write sonnets, but I can't always do that unobtrusively.

Kelli writes a post about getting a speeding ticket and finding gratitude--and about being reminded to slow down and to stay in the current moment. I've been working towards a similar experience as I open bills for insuring my property and paying property taxes and figuring out how to afford a new roof--I'm trying to focus on staying grateful for the fact that I have a roof, when so many people have no home at all.

If you enjoy interviews with poets, Serena Agusto-Cox interviews Temple Cone both here and here. Temple Cone says that when he's asked what he does, he answers simply, "I'm a poet." He doesn't qualify by talking about his work as a professor. When people ask how he lives on that, he says, "Prize money." He lets them think they've just met a very important poet, and he says, "And who knows, maybe they’ll look me up." The whole interview is full of wonderful nuggets like that one.

Reb Livingston writes a post about a virtual walking poetry tour (neat idea!) and remembers a fascinating, funny encounter with an all night palm reader.

Mary writes a post about eating Halloween candy to keep from losing 5 pounds every 2 weeks.

Now, there's a fantasy for people like me. I've always had the opposite problem. I could easily gain 5 pounds every 2 weeks, if I wasn't careful.

So, it's off to work, where I'll sit through meetings and daydream about being the Poet Laureate who can eat as many sweets as she likes and never gain weight--all the while making readers gasp in happiness as they read my poems.

Reading Report

Last night's reading was a fabulous experience. Before the reading, I met the organizer, Barbra Nightingale, and one of the other poets, Mia Leonin, for dinner. I decided to steer clear of wine and heavy food, since I didn't want to risk feeling sleepy later, so I had a big salad (and spent the rest of the night worrying that I'd have a speck of greenery in my teeth and not realize it, even though I checked and doublechecked). We had great conversation about poetry and balancing one's life as a poet, a teacher, and a family member.

Then we headed over to Broward College, where poet Michael Cleary was waiting for us. The Hannah Kahn Poetry people really know how to put on a reading: great refreshments, great publicity, great mood.

We attracted a good crowd, which was a pleasant surprise. Down here, the last two weeks have left us saturated with reading events, because of the Miami Book Fair, so I worried that people might be too exhausted to attend. A lot of my work colleagues made the trek to a different campus, but the biggest surprise was the amount of students. Granted, I suspect that most of them attended because they got extra credit, but they were attentive and took notes (again, I suspect they didn't get extra credit without some kind of write up, but I appreciated their attention).

Afterwards, we mingled and signed books and chatted. One young student came up and asked if she could have her picture made with me because she had enjoyed my poems--wow! No one has ever asked for that before. We also had a student selling the books, which was unusual for me. Usually, my dear, sweet husband takes care of that.

Last night was another one of those satisfying nights when I said to myself, "Wow, this evening matches the vision I had for myself when I thought of being a poet."

I tend to think of being a poet as akin to being an opera singer: my art is an acquired taste that I don't expect most people to have or want to acquire. So I'm doubly pleased when I see a room of people new to poetry who might have a taste of poems they would like. Having a reading with 3 poets seems a perfect set up to me: we had a variety of poetry and a variety of reading styles.

Even within our individual readings, we had variety. Poet Mia Leonin read both poems and a piece of her memoir. I read from my modern work life series and also from my chapbook. I think I planned that right. The work life poems can be dark, and I worried about reading them with so many of my work colleagues there, who might assume I'm deeply unhappy. Plus, there were lots of students, and I don't want to be the one who discourages them. Then I read from my chapbook, where the poems are more hopeful, and I read some of the more whimsical ones. I ended with "Rainy Redemption," one of the more hopeful poems, and I'm posting it below, in case you need a shot of hope into your November day:

Rainy Redemption


She told us the X-ray showed a black
spot on her lung. We assumed the cancer harbored
in her breast had set on an odyssey
for new land, and when we didn’t see her
again, we assumed the worst.

Three years later, the flowers bloomed in their annual
tribute to spring, and I saw
her in a parking lot. At first, I thought I saw a ghost, but I held her fleshly
form, still sapling-thin, and knew she had returned,
Lazarus-like, to live among us again.

Our culture focuses on the lost, the missing
in action, but we forget the world commits
to resurrection and reunion. The twig of a tree
sends sap to its tips, the crispy lawn returns
to a life filled with chlorophyll, muscles
wait for the mind to remember what they never forgot,
each generation resurrects the music of its elders,
babies look towards the sky for the familiar
face of the missing parent, history holds
us in its hands and offers rainy redemption.

I'm Reading Poems Tonight--Come Join Me!

Just a reminder that if you're in the South Florida area and need a Tuesday night outing, I'll be one of three poets reading their poems tonight. The reading starts at 7:30 in the Southern Breezes Cafe of Broward College (the South campus, 7200 Pines Boulevard in Pembroke Pines). The Southern Breezes Cafe is on the east side of the campus (the public library branch is on the west side of the campus). The reading is free, of course, but books will be available for sale.

I've decided to take a risk and read some of the poems from my Office Life in America series; my poem, "Missing," is part of that series (go here to read it). But I worry that an entire reading from that series might be too relentlessly grim, so I'll close with some of the more uplifting poems from my chapbook.

One of my chapbook length manuscripts that I created during my Mepkin Abbey retreat consists primarily of the Office Life in America series of poems. I worried a bit that the collection would be too grim (although thematically, that could work, depending on your view of modern office life), so I tried to mix in some whimsical poems and some poems that have some humor, even if it's dark humor. I tried to stick to that approach when preparing for the reading tonight.

I have so many chapbook manuscripts that it becomes hard to know which to submit. I've always delighted in assembling the chapbook manuscript. I've noticed that several of those chapbook manuscripts seem to be chapters in a series--which makes book-length assembly that much more easy.

But before there are manuscripts there are individual poems and the joys of a poem reading. I hope to see you tonight!

What Kathleen Norris Teaches Writers

Going to Mepkin Abbey always makes me ponder the long, strange, winding ways that brought me there. One of the main motivators was the books of Kathleen Norris, particularly The Cloister Walk. At my theological blog, I wrote a post about her books from the point of view of how they contributed to my spiritual life. But she also helped me think about what it means to be a writer.

I hadn't ever thought much about the emerging genre of creative nonfiction before I read her books. I hadn't ever read much in the field of the modern essay before I read her work. Her work included journal entries and meditations on the weather report. Her work explored her writing and her return to church and her return to small town life on the prairie. Some of her essays were long and structured. Some seemed more like snippets. I read her books and said, "You mean I can do this?"

Her works also made it clear that the modern writer did a variety of things, some for pay, and some for love. She traveled to be a poet in the public schools. She filled in as a preacher for one of her churches when the circuit rider preacher couldn't get there. Her husband, also a poet, served as a bartender, among other jobs. She helped mobilize her Plains community to deal with the fallout of the farm crisis of the 80's.

Her life and writing made it clear that a writer should be out in the world, to be part of the world--so unlike the model offered by an older generation of writers, who somehow managed to support themselves from their writing alone. I also liked the model of the author as magpie writer, exploring the topics which held current interest to the author. I liked the variety of forms that she embraced: poetry, memoir, journalism. These days, I like the fact that I can dip in and out of her books. There's an essay of any length for whatever amount of time I have.

I know I'm not the only frazzled reader who copes with having varying amounts of time (most of it much too short!) to read. I use Kathleen Norris as a model as I blog. On days when I can only muster a paragraph or two, I think of those readers who only have a gasp of time. I know that days will come when I can write more--and hopefully, when we all can read more.

More Ways to Promote Our Work

I've been reading a great interview: Maud Newton interviews the writer Stephen Elliot here (and thanks to Leslie for the original link, here on her blog). I'm always on the lookout for ways both old and new to promote poetry, and Elliot has some good ones.

He had a great idea for getting his work into the hands of readers who would then get his work into the hands of other readers: "Prior to the book coming out I did this thing called the “Lending Library,” where I allowed anyone who wanted to read an advance copy of the book to get one. The deal was they had to agree to forward the book within a week to the next reader. 400 people signed up for the lending library."

What a great idea for those of us (which is most of us) who don't get many free copies to give away.

This idea led to his next great idea, a variation of the book promotion tour: "So when I decided to go on tour I contacted them [the people who signed up for the Lending Library] and asked if anyone wanted to host a reading or an event in their home. I said they had to promise to get at least 20 people to attend. A bunch of people signed up, and more people are signing up all the time."

He talks about how effective this process has been, in terms of attendance at his readings: "In every town I read there is someone who is responsible for the reading, someone who will be embarrassed if nobody shows up. Also, if there’s demand, I can do two or three home events in the same town. I could never do that if I was reading in a local bookstore. I’m not a famous author; for me to get 25 to 40 people out in Lincoln, Nebraska or Las Vegas or New Orleans, places where I don’t know anyone, is a really good turnout. The people hosting the events also often convince the local media to do coverage of the event. Also, the readings go much longer, the discussions often go past midnight, so there’s a much deeper connection."

Does this attendance lead to book sales? It depends: "I find book sales are more class based. The readings are a reflection of whoever’s home I’m in. If the person is more affluent than many of their friends will be more affluent and I’ll sell more books. I had an event where I sold more books than people in attendance. People with money will come to a reading and buy extra books to give as presents. In other places, where the average income is much lower, I sell a lot fewer books."

The whole interview is worth reading, but I always love interviews with writers. I especially love hearing about different approaches to writing, and about different approaches to promoting writing and reading. I've long thought that promoting one's writing, particularly one's poetry, is becoming more like being an indie music artist: the poet has to be the one to arrange the tour, figure out how to keep the van running, find a couch to sleep on, think in terms of connections across the country.

It wouldn't hurt to start thinking about these logistics before the book comes out. Many small presses have a very long turn-around time between acceptance and publication, but even those of us still waiting for a press to accept our book-length works might benefit from some thinking about this question: If you had a book length collection of your poems in your hand, what would you do to make sure that the world knew about your book?

Blog Anniversaries and Book Sales

Yesterday at work, I helped a friend and colleague get a blogsite set up--an appropriate activity as I approach the one year anniversary of starting my blogs (Nov. 12 for my Theology blog and Nov. 17 for this blog). It was also about one year ago that I created a website.

I'd been meaning to create a website for years, and I'd been longing to create a blog for almost that long. I had all the regular worries: being the victim of some strange cyberstalker, posting things that would embarrass me later, never being able to get a job again. So far, none of my fears have come to pass. On the contrary, it's been an overwhelmingly positive experience: I've written more than I ever would have thought possible, I've trained myself (again) to observe the fine textures of daily life, I've made connections with poets and other writers I admire.

Plus, I've learned new skills: how to work a digital camera and how to use blog/website creation tools.

Before creating my own blogs and websites, I thought about websites and blogs primarily as a tool to promote writing that I had already done. I wanted to create a website so that when I have a book-length collection of poems published, I have some promotion architecture already in place.

I didn't think about how much blogging would prompt me to write anew. There's not only the blog post itself, but the ideas that I capture and sometimes return to, as I write poems. There are the goals that I post, and the entries where I assess how I'm doing.

I have promotion on the brain, as I prepare my book-length manuscript to send to WordTech Communications. I really like their books, and their reading period is now open. They expect to sell 250 copies of a book within the first year, and they expect writers to promote their books.

I have no problem with that. When Pudding House published my chapbook, I did everything I could to promote that book, and I sold almost 100 copies through my efforts that first year. That was before I had a blog or a website. My secret weapon? My mother's Christmas card list. The same people who sent me graduation presents and wedding presents were willing to buy my book!

I think that blogsites can work similarly. I've bought many books of poetry because I like the blog of the writer. The blog can introduce poems, and the same themes that run through poems are likely to run through a blogsite. A website is a good spot to collect all the relevant information, but I don't find an artist's voice shines through in a website, the way it does in a blog.

I love being a poet because I have all sorts of ways of getting my poetry out into the world, and reaching new potential readers. A few weeks ago, a harpist that I met at an artist's retreat at Lutheridge (the Create in Me retreat) called to ask if she could use one of my poems as her Christmas card. I happily agreed, as long as she provided my contact information so that her Christmas card list could be in touch with me, if they were interested in knowing more about my work.

The monks at Mepkin Abbey have notecards for sale. I wonder how much it would cost to create some sort of artwork that featured my poem and have a notecard created. Hmmm. Something else to sell at poetry readings. I've read about visual artists who have much, much cheaper prints and cards to sell, since most of us can't afford the original painting.

Happily, most people can still afford a book of poems. But there are so many other ways to reach readers. Some cost only time, like blogging. Others require more of a financial investment. I wonder what else is out there that I haven't thought about or tried yet.