National Poetry Month is only a few weeks away! This year I’m planning on tackling the Poem-a-Day beast with my best friend and poet Victoria Lynne McCoy. I won’t be posting any new drafts online, but I will be collecting inspiration, prompts, and ephemera from around the internet (and IRL) to share whenever possible. V and I have come up with a reading list for ourselves for April. Right now it looks like this:

READING TOGETHER:

Salvinia Molesta by Victoria Chang (VQR Poetry Series 2008)

The New Testament by Jericho Brown (Copper Canyon 2014)

READING TO COMPARE:

He Do the Gay Man in Different Voices / A History of the Unmarried  by Stephen S. Mills  (Sibling Rivalry  2012/2014)

READING & SWITCHING:

The Body Thesaurus by Jennifer Militello (Tupelo 2013)

Natural History Rape Museum by Danielle Pafunda (Bloof 2013)

Milk and Filth by Carmen Giménez Smith (U of Arizona Press 2013)

My Love is a Dead Arctic Explorer by Paige Ackerson-Kiely (Ahsahta 2012)

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Recently, I read How to Survive a Hotel Fire by Angela Veronica Wong (Coconut Books 2012). Several poems in the book inspired writing prompts that I hope to complete next month. I’m sorry to say that HTSAHF sat on my bookshelf for far too long before I read it. I’m trying to make sure this doesn’t happen to my poor books anymore (by reading 100 poetry books in 2015). So if you haven’t read HTSAHF yet definitely pick it up! It pairs nicely with anything written by Rebecca Lindenberg…whose second book came out last winter (very quietly). If you read The Logan Notebooks and HTSAHF in March you should be primed and ready for poetic awesomeness is April. At least, that’s what I’ve done and hopes are high. 

 

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I love how during National Poetry Month err’ybody starts to get in on the poetry action. People who definitely don’t much care about poetry start blogging about what books to read or what cool literary swag you should wear. Today on Pinterest I found this article from last year on Bookish. I was drawn by the photo of Anne Carson’s The Albertine Workout, which OF COURSE I OWN, but haven’t heard much buzz about. I think it’s rad that I have a chapbook by Anne Carson. AND (double lucky) I heard her read from this as a work-in-progress in Chicago at AWP13! Anyway, the other books on this list are also worth peeking into. I’m waiting for my copy of Patricia Lockwood’s Motherland, Fatherland, Homelandsexuals to arrive in the mail as we speak. 

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