TOP TEN LIST

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Top 10 List of Top Ten Lists On Poetry

These lists that have been coming out recently of “poets who make me care about poetry” or “advocates for poetry”, I’m sure you’ve seen them (or some of them – I’ve seen four so far [links below]).  I’m not adverse to lists.  And lists, by and large, don’t hurt anything (unless someone takes them seriously, of course).  They are made to impress, to be consumed, to give some props. 

I remember, when I was young, how much I enjoyed The Book of Lists.  And there’s SPIN magazine that’s always having a list of something or other.  And there’s Buzzfeed, and their cotton candy lists of pop ephemera.  I make some lists myself, mostly lists of albums (I’ll make another at the end of the year).  I tried for several years to make lists of books of poetry, but I found I very quickly couldn’t keep up. 

And that’s what each of these lists (below) reveals, as well.  No one can keep up.  The secret number ONE of all of these lists is the narrowness of the vision of the person or persons making the list, and how little anyone can know of “what’s going on,” so Seth Abramson’s list of Top Advocates of for American Poetry (2013) swells to 200, and still feels incomplete.  Bill Knott makes the list but D.A. Powell doesn’t, that sort of thing.  And then there’s the now and then Scarriet lists.  And what is an advocate, anyway?  Is Anne Carson one?  Is President Obama?  And the word TOP makes the rest of us feel like failures, you know?  We'd better get moving.  Start advocating.  So, here goes:

Three Books Of Poetry I've Read This Week That You Should Read (Or You're Missing Out On What Makes Me Believe In Poetry This Week) In Alphabetical Order By Title:

 

The Fabulous Bilocation of B. Lee (chapbook) - Jen Tynes

How We Light - Nick Sturm

IMAGO (for the fallen world) - Matthew Cooperman / Marius Lehene

 

These lists, in the end, are possibly helpful (if they get someone to go check something out and find something new and good, as I hope you go check out the three new and good books I listed above) and fairly useless when they attempt anything larger, but even so, useless isn’t the worst thing that could happen.  At the very least, as these lists proliferate (containing names of people I've never heard of), I’m reminded of how little I know of a lot of what’s going on . . . and that’s interesting, because it means a WHOLE LOT of things are going on.  And that IS a good thing.  (Including a list I'm compiling of all the people who are annoyed by poetry lists.)

The Top 200 Advocates for American Poetry (2013)

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/seth-abramson/the-top-200-advocates-for_b_3750440.html

The Ten Most Influential People in Poetry Today

http://commercialpoetry.blogspot.com/2013/08/the-ten-most-influential-people-in.html

A List of Things to Ask Yourself When You’re Making a List of Poets

http://flavorwire.com/408365/a-list-of-things-to-ask-yourself-when-youre-making-a-list-of-poets

23 People Who Will Make You Care About Poetry in 2013

http://flavorwire.com/406950/23-people-that-make-you-pay-attention-poetry

The only way out is through.