The current issue of Poets & Writers features 18 poets and their first books published in 2005, and while the article isn't available online it's worth a look if you don't mind feeling voyeuristic (and just a little bit dirty), if only to see what P&W perceives as important information to disclose. Each poet receives a profile write-up that reads just like a personals ad: age, residence, graduate degree, job, a single "representative" line from the book, names of poets who wrote blurbs as well as names of those who were influential, time spent writing the book, time spent finding a publisher, future plans ("in the works"), and ideology ("a bit of advice"). It's a sad showcase with a dark premise, reiterating the many anxieties of (forgive the term) emerging poets and the insignificant significance of first collections. How old and how long and who and how many and where before It happened?
Ah, pathology.
Put P&W's red carpet on view here so you can advise me. What to read? I've read some of the books on the list, a few rather than most, but good ones.
1. Andrea Baker, Like Wind Loves a Window, Slope Editions
2. Christian Barter, The Singers I Prefer, CavanKerry Press
3. Geoff Bouvier, Living Room, American Poetry Review (Honickman First Book Prize)
4. Leslie Bumstead, Cipher/Civilian, Edge Books
5. Victoria Chang, Circle, Southern Illinois University Press (Crab Orchard Series)
6. Geri Doran, Resin, Louisiana State University Press (Walt Whitman Award)
7. K.E. Duffin, King Vulture, University of Arkansas Press
8. Thomas Sayers Ellis, The Maverick Room, Graywolf Press
9. Dana Goodyear, Honey and Junk, W.W. Norton
10. Sarah Gridley, Weather Eye Open, University of California Press
11. Tyehimba Jess, Leadbelly, Verse Press (National Poetry Series)
12. Corinne Lee, Pyx, Penguin (National Poetry Series)
13. Sheryl Luna, Pity the Drowned Horses, University of Notre Dame (Andres Montoya Prize)
14. Rusty Morrison, Whethering, Center for Literary Publishing (Colorado Prize)
15. Matthew Shenoda, Somewhere Else, Coffee House Press
16. Laura Sims, Practice, Restraint, Fence Books (Alberta Prize)
17. Mark Sullivan, Slag, Texas Tech University Press
18. Catherine Wing, Enter Invisible, Sarabande Books
