World Poetry Day book recommendations
by Pramila Venkateswaran
Commotion of the Birds by John Ashbery (Harper Collins, 2016) is a pastiche of everyday speech, news fragments, pop culture. Beneath the wonderful frivolity lies deep feeling in the deftly crafted poems in this volume.
A Small Porch by Wendell Berry (Counterpoint, 2016) is a beautifully crafted book capturing our willful destruction of nature. Berry tries to answer the question: What can cause humans to destroy the places where they live?
Prodigal by Linda Greggerson (Houghton Mifflin, 2015) woos us with its metrics. She writes like a novelist, drawing us into the lives of her characters, while keeping us wondering with the mystery of poetry.
Alice Notley’s Certain Magical Acts (Penguin, 2016) is a dense work that needs careful reading. Her poems are urgent, calling us to be alert to all that we can humanly experience.
Final Cut by Saleem Peeradina (Valley Press, 2016) explores the world of small things—fruits, birds, objects of daily use, all of which opens up the poet’s larger vision of human, animal and plant life.
Heart’s Beast by Saleem Peeradina with its clever articulation of the title contains selected poems from his previous books as well as newer work.
Releasing the Porcelain Birds by Carmen Bugan (Shearsman, 2016) draws us into the reality of life under surveillance in 1980s Romania in which the poet’s father was held prisoner as a political dissident. Bugan, upon receiving the files on her father from the Secret Police, translates the surveillance files into poetry.
Small Ripening by Pramila Venkateswaran (Local Gems, 2016) captures the different meanings of ripening, from aging to the germination of evil.
The Laurels (Local Gems, 2017) is an anthology of poems by the poets laureate of Nassau and Suffolk counties of Long Island, New York. The poets include: Mario Susko, George Wallace, Lorraine Conlin, Gayl Teller, Ed Stever, Robert Savino, David Axelrod, Pramila Venkateswaran and Linda Opyr.
Andal: The Autobiography of a Goddess, translated and edited by Ravi Shankar and Priya Sarukkai Chabria (Zubaan, 2015), is a contemporary translation of this prolific Tamil poet, whose poems have been set to classical and folk music. Shankar and Chabria reveal their expertise in bringing a modern idiom to the stylized verses of Andal.
The Crafty Poet 2, edited by Diane Lockward (Terrapin 2016), is a boon to practicing poets. It pleases the reader with its choices of poems and the poetry exercises that are arranged according to the editor’s specific questions about poetic craft.
Commotion of the Birds by John Ashbery (Harper Collins, 2016) is a pastiche of everyday speech, news fragments, pop culture. Beneath the wonderful frivolity lies deep feeling in the deftly crafted poems in this volume.
A Small Porch by Wendell Berry (Counterpoint, 2016) is a beautifully crafted book capturing our willful destruction of nature. Berry tries to answer the question: What can cause humans to destroy the places where they live?
Prodigal by Linda Greggerson (Houghton Mifflin, 2015) woos us with its metrics. She writes like a novelist, drawing us into the lives of her characters, while keeping us wondering with the mystery of poetry.
Alice Notley’s Certain Magical Acts (Penguin, 2016) is a dense work that needs careful reading. Her poems are urgent, calling us to be alert to all that we can humanly experience.
Final Cut by Saleem Peeradina (Valley Press, 2016) explores the world of small things—fruits, birds, objects of daily use, all of which opens up the poet’s larger vision of human, animal and plant life.
Heart’s Beast by Saleem Peeradina with its clever articulation of the title contains selected poems from his previous books as well as newer work.
Releasing the Porcelain Birds by Carmen Bugan (Shearsman, 2016) draws us into the reality of life under surveillance in 1980s Romania in which the poet’s father was held prisoner as a political dissident. Bugan, upon receiving the files on her father from the Secret Police, translates the surveillance files into poetry.
Small Ripening by Pramila Venkateswaran (Local Gems, 2016) captures the different meanings of ripening, from aging to the germination of evil.
The Laurels (Local Gems, 2017) is an anthology of poems by the poets laureate of Nassau and Suffolk counties of Long Island, New York. The poets include: Mario Susko, George Wallace, Lorraine Conlin, Gayl Teller, Ed Stever, Robert Savino, David Axelrod, Pramila Venkateswaran and Linda Opyr.
Andal: The Autobiography of a Goddess, translated and edited by Ravi Shankar and Priya Sarukkai Chabria (Zubaan, 2015), is a contemporary translation of this prolific Tamil poet, whose poems have been set to classical and folk music. Shankar and Chabria reveal their expertise in bringing a modern idiom to the stylized verses of Andal.
The Crafty Poet 2, edited by Diane Lockward (Terrapin 2016), is a boon to practicing poets. It pleases the reader with its choices of poems and the poetry exercises that are arranged according to the editor’s specific questions about poetic craft.
