The Poetry Books of 2007

The Poetry Books of 2007

Well, the books of 2007 that I came across, anyway. Even with that, what can I say? It’s been such a BIG year for books of poetry. Looking to the huge stack next to my desk I see all the books I purchased this year, copyright 2007, in no particular order:

John Ashbery, A Worldly Country (ecco)
John Ashbery, Notes from the Air: Selected Later Poems (ecco)
Mary Jo Bang, Elegy (Graywolf)
Paige Ackerson-Kiely, In No One’s Land (Ahsahta)
Bin Ramke, tendril (Omnidawn)
G.C. Waldrep, Disclamor (BOA)
Michael Dumanis, My Soviet Union (Massachusetts)
Martha Ronk, VERTIGO (Coffee House)
Charles Wright, Littlefoot (FSG)
Cate Marvin, Fragment of the Head of a Queen (Sarabande)
Reginald Shepherd, Fata Morgana (Pittsburgh)
Rae Armantrout, Next Life (Wesleyan)
Zachary Schomburg, The Man Suit (Black Ocean)
Sarah Vap, American Spikenard (Iowa)
Sarah Vap, Dummy Fire (Saturnalia Books)
Graham Foust, Necessary Stranger (Flood Editions)
Rebecca Aronson, Creature, Creature (Main-Traveled Roads)
Joshua Kryah, Glean (Nightboat)
Donald Revell, A Thief of Strings (Alice James)
Hadara Bar-Nadav, A Glass of Milk to Kiss Goodnight (MARGIE)
Debra Di Blasi, The Jiri Chronicles (FC2) [it's not poetry, but close enough!]
Cole Swensen, The Glass Age (Alice James)
Ethan Paquin, My Thieves (SALT)
Albert Goldbarth, The Kitchen Sink: New & Selected Poems (Graywolf)
Henri Cole, Blackbird & Wolf (FSG)
Robert Hass, Time and Materials (ecco)
Mary Biddinger, Prairie Fever (Steel Toe Books)
Oliver De La Paz, Furious Lullaby (Southern Illinois)
Forrest Hamer, Rift (Four Way Books)
Nancy Kuhl, The Wife of the Left Hand (Shearsman Books)
C. Dale Young, The Second Person (Four Way Books)
Paul Guest, Notes for My Body Double (New Michigan)
Christian Hawkey, Citizen Of (Wave)
Dorothea Lasky, AWE. (Wave)
Christopher Arigo, In the Archives (Omnidawn)
Steve Fellner, Blind Date with Cavafy (Marsh Hawk)
Sam Witt, Sunflower Brother (Cleveland State)
Ellen Dudley, The Geographic Cure (Four Way Books)
Henrietta Goodman, Take What You Want (Alice James)
Linda Gregerson, Magnetic North (Houghton Mifflin)
Laure-Anne Bosselaar, A New Hunger (Ausable )
Terri Ford, Hams beneath the Firmament (Four Way Books)
Peter Gizzi, The Outernationale (Wesleyan)
Tony Tost, Complex Sleep (Iowa)
J. Allyn Rosser, Foiled Again (Ivan R. Dee)
Julie Carr, Equivocal (Alice James)
Max Winter, The Pictures (Tarpaulin Sky)
Lee Upton, Undid in the Land of Undone (New Issues)
Matthew Rohrer, Rise Up (Wave)
Heidi Lynn Staples, Dog Girl (Ahsahta)
David Mutschlecner, SIGN (Ahsahta)
Walter Bargen, West of West (Timberline)
&
Heather McHugh & David Lehman, eds, The Best American Poetry, 2007 . . .

This is by far the most books I’ve ever purchased from a single year. (Not to mention the books from pervious years that I just discovered, such as Mark Bibbins’ Sky Lounge and Paula Cisewski’s Upon Arrival.) Was I just paying closer attention, as a book of mine came out this year as well? Who knows. Needless to say, this is a BIG stack of books, and one that I’ll be working on, and thinking along with, for some time.

Anyway, this is just to say thank you to the writers and publishers who brought these books out. It really has been an amazing year of reading. Some of these books are so good it just makes me get all jealous and shivery. Which is a good way to be. So keep it up, everybody. Let’s do it again next year.