When I was a kid, I knew summer vacation had truly begun when my mom piled us into the fake-wood-paneled station wagon and drove us to the local library. I’d come home with a stack of books so high I could barely see over them. Such tingly joy! The whole summer spread before me and nothing to do but delve into my stack of novels.
Now, my mom’s an elementary school principles and enmeshed in end-of-the-year work ??? plus she’s on the other side of the country and our station wagon’s long gone. So no library trip for us.
But it’s OK. I’ve got a huge stack of books that I’ve collected over the past year and haven’t had a chance to start reading. And, like in years past, I have a whole summer shimmering before me. While my responsibilities now are much greater than when I was twelve, I’m still planning on devoting a good chunk of reading time in the coming months.
Here’s a selection from my summer reading stack (in alphabetical order by title ???cause I’m a nerd like that) with a few somewhat randomly selected excerpts.
)((ECO(LANG) (UAGE (READER)): the eco language reader, edited by Brenda Iijima. My friend has been raving about this reader, so I bought it from Iijima at a book fair last week in Chelsea. It’s pretty exciting to know there’s at least of handful of poets thinking about how innovative language/poetry can engage with environmental concerns.
American Hybrid: A Norton Anthology of New American Poetry, edited by Cole Swenson and David St. John. I kept meaning to get myself a copy all last year, but I got to pick it up for $10 at the AWP book fair this, so you know, it worked out.
From Lyn Hejinian’s “The Composition of the Cell”:
4.2 Exactly!
5.8 The sky pours shape into intervals
5.9 Those between seeing and believing
5.10 An individual requires an individualism which disbelieves
6.12 And commiserating sunlight.
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American Women Poets in the 21st Century: where Lyric Meets Language, edited by Claudia Rankine and Juliana Spahr. I’ve skimmed and pecked through this all year, but I really want to dive into some of the essays.
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Ida, by Gertrude Stein. I bought this a Vintage Books, 1968 paperback edition at Mercer Street Books and am highly amused by the cover. Doesn’t it look like it’s supposed to be a heartfelt, coming-of-age novel?
Though, I have to say that I’ve read a bit of it and I do find it oddly (odd because it is Stein) moving.
When she got home her dog Love met her and she began to sing about her twin and this is the way she sang.
Oh dear oh dear Love (that was her dog), if I had a twin well nobody would know which one I was and which one she was and so if anything happened nobody could tell anything and lots of things are going to happen and oh Love I feel it yes I know I have a twin.
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Ing Grish, poems by John Yau, artwork by Thomas Nozkowski. Yau’s one of my favorite poets and I love collaborations. Another AWP book fair steal of a book I’ve been wanting for a while.
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Elements, by Deborah Poe. Poe’s poetry is luminous and so filled with energy I want to dance after I read her work.
From “Calcium (Ca)”:
the baby is eating stars. the stars are yellow like lemons.
they taste like lemonade and move down cold.when the night cool blows in [at the cave’s mouth where we emerge],
the baby soars.
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Poems of the Black Object, by Ronaldo V. Wilson. I devoured (!) Wilson’s first book, Narrative of the Life of the Brown Boy and the White Man, in one sitting and it’s haunted me since. Flipping through, the book, I can tell this one will work on me similarly. Here’s the beginning of the first poem, “On the C Train the Black Object Ponders Amuzati’s Family Eaten in the Congo”:
Cut the adults. Huck-um dun the chest,
the deceased lumps.In the story of edible blacks, hacked and splayed on lattice,
how am I to finish the disheswith all this dining
in the fields of my instance?
See what I mean?
Regarding the Pain of Others, by Susan Sontag. I started this in the fall and never finished because school got in the way. It was recommended by a friend when we were discussing the responsibilities of political poets, and it’s typical Sontag ??? brilliant and lucid.
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Zong!, by M. NourbeSe Philip. I came across her work this year on her website, and was astounded. She deconstructs/explodes/reclaims/haunts language to “tell stor[ies] that cannot be told yet must be told.” Like this one: how, in 1781 on the slave ship Zong, 150 Africans were thrown overboard so the ship owners could collect an insurance payment.
Zong! #26
was the cause was the remedy was the record was the argument
was the delay was the evidence was overboard was the not was the
cause was the was was the need was the case was the perils was the
want was the particular circumstance was the seas was the costs
was the could was the would was the policy was the loss was the
vessel was the rains was the order was the that that was the this was the
result was justified was the voyage was the water was the maps
was the weeks was the winds was the calms was the captain was
the seas was the rains was uncommon was the declaration was the
apprehension was the voyage was destroyed was thrown was the
question was the therefore was the this was the that was the
negroes was the cause
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What are you looking forward to reading this summer?