At the beginning of 2018, I vowed to become more well-read in poetry books, both classic and contemporary. Probably I did better in contemporary, if only because it is more fluid with free verse than the more form-conscious classics.
For those interested in similar vows for 2019, here’s a list of my 2018 poetry book reviews on Goodreads, listed chronologically from January (total: 36 plus one constantly-critical reread). If interested in possibly reading any on the list, give it a click and you’ll be down that good rabbit hole:
- Stag’s Leap (Sharon Olds)
- Zen Master Poems (Dick Allen)
- Priest Turned Therapist Treats Fear of God: Poems (Tony Hoagland)
- The Night Parade (Edward Hirsch)
- What Work Is (Philip Levine)
- Letters to a Young Poet (Rainier Maria Rilke)
- What About This: Collected Poems of Frank Stanford
- Falling Awake (Alice Oswald)
- Magdalene (Marie Howe)
- What the Living Do: Poems (Marie Howe)
- The Good Thief (Marie Howe)
- Blood Pages (George Bilgere)
- The Narrow Road to the Deep North and Other Travel Sketches (Matsuo Basho)
- Death of a Naturalist (Seamus Heaney)
- Best American Poetry 2017 (Natasha Trethewey, Ed.)
- Wade in the Water (Tracy K. Smith)
- Brown: Poems (Kevin Young)
- Burn Lake (Carrie Fountain)
- Plainwater: Essays and Poetry (Anne Carson)
- More (Barbara Crooker)
- Life on Mars (Tracy K. Smith)
- Like a Beggar (Ellen Bass)
- Blind Huber (Nick Flynn)
- Sinners Welcome (Mary Karr)
- Praise (Robert Haas)
- Still Life with Two Dead Peacocks and a Girl (Diane Seuss)
- The Selected Poems of Donald Hall
- The Carrying: Poems (Ada Limon)
- Not Here (Hieu Minh Nguyen)
- The Complete Cold Mountain: Poems of the Legendary Hermit Hanshan
- Tremulous Hinge (Adam Giannelli)
- Don’t Call Us Dead (Danez Smith)
- Portrait of the Alcoholic (Kaveh Akbar)
- He Held Radical Light (Christian Wiman)
- Made Flesh (Craig Arnold)
- Poetry as Survival (Gregory Orr)
- Lost Sherpa of Happiness (Ken Craft)