November 6: Natalie Diaz Postcolonial Love Poem 2020 (www.graywolfpress.org)
With a multifaceted respect for indigenous peoples, Diaz traverses the fierce resistance and resilience of her complex identity in relation to queer, Mohave, Latinx landscapes. What it means to break down boundaries and reclaim the right to partake in every aspect of one’s self and one’s world that which is seen and unseen.
December 4: Ada Limon The Carrying 2018 (www.milkweed.org)
“In these poems, joy and longing and grief sing with a music that — regardless of what I am burdened or blessed to carry — makes me want to live passionately and fully in the difficult world.” – Natasha Trethewey
January 15 and February 5: Tyehimba Jess Olio 2015 (www.wavepoetry.com)
“Fix your eyes on the flex of these first-generation-freed voices:
They coalesce in counterpoint, name nemeses, summon tongues to witness. Weave your own chosen way between these voices.” – Tyehimba Jess
March 4: Mei-mei Berssenbrugge A Treatise On Stars 2020 (http://www.ndbooks.com)
Long lyrical lines map a geography of interconnected, interdimensional intelligence that exists in all places and sentient beings. These are poems of deep listening and patient waiting, open to the cosmic loom, the channeling of daily experience and conversation,… “Few living poets are as able to enter headlong into the spiritual state of our environment and its endangerment.” – Major Jackson
April 1: Raymond Antrobus The Perseverance 2021 (www.tinhouse.com)
This book is about communication and connection, about identity in a hearing world that takes everything for granted. “This book is a gift, for how it repurposes my understanding of treacherous feelings, and shapes them into something worth sticking around for.” – Hanif Abdurraqib
May 6: Victoria Chang Obit 2020 (www.coppercanyonpress.org)
After her mother died Victoria Chang meets her grief and creates a powerful testament for the living. These poems reinvent the form of newspaper obituary to name what has died ( “civility”, “language “, “Mother’s blue dress”) and the cultural impact of death on the living. – Copper Canyon Press
June 30: Ocean Vuong Time is a Mother 2022 (www.penguinrandomhouse.com)
A companion piece to Victoria Chang’s Obit.
“There’s something about Vuong’s writing that demands all of your lungs…These ghost poems are about the cavernous corners of loss, grief,abandonment,trauma and war, but that doesn’t result in nihilism or apathy for life; in fact Vuong approaches death like an entrance rather than an ending.” – The Guardian
Bio:
A believer in the collective voice, I hope to gather a chorus of poetry lovers who love to read and reflect on contemporary poetry. As a family doctor, I delivered hundreds of babies, sutured lots of wounds and listened to many hearts literally and figuratively. I am quiet by nature and love getting transported by books and music. Favorite musicians are Jenny Hval, Zoe Keating, Phoebe Bridges and Arthur Russell. My current pile of poetry books include Jenny Xie, Simone White and Maggie Nelson. My leavening agents are my two sons and two year old grandson.