Catch-up and moving forward in 2025

Recently Read (and reviewed on Goodreads):

Selfwolf by Mark Halliday

A Far Rockaway of the Heart by Lawrence Ferlinghetti

Lighthead by Terrance Hayes

The Re-echo Club by Carolyn Wells

Recent DNFs:

Thresherphobe by Mark Halliday

Jab by Mark Halliday

Phantom Pain Wings by Kim Hyesoon

What I'm reading now:

Selected Poems by Kenneth Fearing

Sing Doun the Mune by Helen Adam (on Everand)

What is on the docket for reading the rest of the year (books I own waiting to be read):

Finish Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman

Collected Theodore Roethke

Collected Howard Nemerov

Collected Frank O'hara

Half Light by Frank Bidart

New European Poets

And if there's any time left:

Collected Thomas Hardy

Collected Robert Penn Warren

Other intended reading:

Once a month a book from the local library.

Regularly reading from books I've saved on Everand (at least 2 per month). (Everand is a great way to explore books and poets without having to buy a bunch of books.)

Netgalley selectively.

Eventually I'd like to start re-reading some books I've had for years and want to see if they're still worth keeping, but I think I won't start that until the second half of the year and it may be more of a focus next year.

Where will I be on the internet and what will I be doing where?

Youtube: 
I tried recording in my car but it's about to get too hot for that here in Tennessee. My brain and voice also are not very in sync these days requiring a lot of editing. So it's likely I'll only be doing monthly or occasional updates (like this one) on youtube until my elderly cat, who is prone to bouts of yowling, passes. I'm about to try using pheromones. We'll see if that helps. But for now I'm assuming Youtube videos will be rare. I may yet do the Snob-o-meter tag since I've been thinking about that already.

Goodreads:
This is where I'll be posting my book reviews. I may also be creating poetry-related lists. I've already started a poetry summer reading list and have ideas for others. It's also a good place to keep track of how much I've read (17 books of poetry finished and reviewed and 13 partially read and partially reviewed).

Reddit:
I may start a group (aka subreddit) for sharing poems I've enjoyed and why I particularly like them. It will be a public group so that others can also share poems they enjoy--but they must include a reason that they liked the poem. There's a group on reddit that is people just posting poems without saying anything about them at all. I've discovered that non-poetry-readers who are wanting to get into poetry need help understanding what people like about poems, why they read them and like them. My hope would be that a group like this would help them see the different way people enjoy poems.

Blog:
My blog will mainly be these kinds of reflections or roundups of my poetry reading practice. I may return to sharing poems of others along with highlighting 1-3 elements of them or using the poetry survey technique I was using on Youtube, but my blog is a drop in the ocean so I doubt anyone would see them so it's not really satisfying the spirit of sharing. I don't get anything out of that sort of analysis for its own sake, so I wouldn't be doing it for me.

Whyp:
On Whyp I can share simple recordings of poetry without any analysis (as Youtube requires). The idea behind Whyp is that it doesn't get cataloged by search engines. I currently only use it for what I call my sleep poetry recordings, which are recorded at stage whisper or whisper level to be played during the night to help me get to sleep and stay asleep. I would really like to add to these recordings but there's the same yowling cat issue that prevents me from recording for Youtube.

The other personal poetry project:

While I'm forced to give up time-consuming social media activities, I can return to memorizing poems, which is very difficult for me--and so I tend to avoid it. But I do enjoy it and creates a different relationship with each poem memorized.

Black Mestiza by Yael Valencia Aldana ~ Thinking About Accessibility

People who enjoy the poetry of Sandra Cisneros and Maya Angelou will enjoy this book by Yael Valencia Aldana because of its accessibility and its celebration of heritage.

Most of the poems were an expression of the long lines of heritage we contain and not allowing anyone (including ourselves) to deny them. As the title indicates, sometimes we’re quite a complicated mix. This book is about relationships, especially ties to women, although there are a couple of poems to men and a couple about her son. There are tributes to Angela Davis, Zora Neal Hurston, and Margaret Atwood, acknowledgement of literary ancestors as well as genetic ones.

This is highly accessible poetry that invites one to think about one’s own connections and influences: relations, mentors, icons. This would make a great summer reading book. There is some experimentation but it remains very readable throughout. While it deals with some difficult topics, it doesn’t dwell on them. There is loss but it is expressed more as remembrance and spiritual connection than as grief. Overall, I found this an enjoyable, interesting, and quick read. It was a bit of summer for me reading it in winter.

Poetry Hierarchies

As I mentioned at the start, people who enjoy the poetry of Sandra Cisneros and Maya Angelou will likely enjoy this. This association with Cisneros and Angelou, and being asked to give this book a star rating on a couple of platforms, forced me to mull poetry hierarchies and snobbery. 

I am a poetry snob of a middling sort--but definitely a snob. I think anyone who spends a lot of time sorting through lots of anything they enjoy and thinking about what works for them, what they consider quality and what others consider quality and how that differs, especially as a result of training and experience, locate themselves on a spectrum for that interest. No one wants to be on the bottom for any length of time unless it's something you don't really care about.

Categorizing Black Mestiza challenges the borders of my snobbery and makes me question, not for the first time, why there are boundaries that are hierarchical instead of a matter of kind, each kind having its own form of excellence. But, like anything else, especially regarding art, poetry doesn't fit nicely into categories, regardless of how one frames the category.

So when I say the poetry of Aldana is similar to Cisneros and Angelou, I mean that it is accessible and has a similar focus on racial and cultural identity and empowerment. There's nothing wrong with that. It also implies the possibility of widespread interest. But that's false. From a cursory look at Angelou's poetry books currently on Amazon, only one was published by a small press, that being Virago. The others were published by Ballantine, Random House, and Bantam (x2). Cisneros's books have all been published by Vintage. Those are mainstream publishers--because Angelou and Cisneros made their names in prose writing. Aldana's book is published by the University of Kentucky, which is to say it has been given an academic stamp of approval and thus has a reputation to uphold in that regard and also that its chances of reaching a wide audience are virtually nil. It's a matter of economics. Mainstream publishers have more money to put into their books and author promotion.

There's also a way in which comparing Aldana to Cisneros and Angelou isn't complimentary. Neither Angelou nor Cisneros were embraced academically, Cisneros more than Angelou, but neither for their poetry. Does that mean their poetry is "bad"? What does it mean that scholars ignore your poetry and think it of no interest? It means that it lacks subtlety, intellectual depth, beauty and sophistication of diction, novelty or innovation of form, original thought. But there's a lot of respected, canonical poetry and non-canonical poetry by canonical poets that lacks those things and pander instead to delight. "Whenas in silks my Julia goes...." 

I think Cisneros and Angelou are less trying to impress than they are to connect. They're not playing with an artistic medium so much as using it to hold what they want to express, not just to express but to broadcast. That is its own skill and should be valued. Angelou in particular strikes me as someone who broadcasts. And thank heavens she did. She made the world a richer place. Her poems "And Still I Rise" and "Phenomenal Woman" are justly iconic.

The truth is nothing in Black Mestiza is going to become a wildly famous poem, either academically or within the larger populace. She shows more formal experimentation than either Cisneros or Angelou and yet I don't think the experimentation would put off a novice to reading poetry. So Aldana's poetry simultaneously shows more stylistic sophistication than the other two women's while having less punch.

So I have to accept the discomfort of saying what I believe to be true, that readers of Cisneros and Angelou will enjoy Black Mestiza. It's the best way I can target readers who would enjoy this book. Yet I'm aware of the ways it's a compliment and not a compliment.

Rating Black Mestiza

How do I rate a book which dangles between more academic poetry and poetry just wanting to present an experience and connect? Angelou and Cisneros for me have been 3 start poets (I have yet to read Cisneros's latest book). Black Mestiza lacks the beauty of language or the depth of many of my 4 star ratings. In the end, I gave her marks for a pleasant and interesting read and gave her the 4 star rating. Did I "lower my standards" by giving her a 4 star rating? If I can give a book of Gwendolyn Brooks' poetry 4 stars and Black Mestiza 4 stars, it certainly proves that I'm conflicted about my 4 star ratings. And perhaps I expect too much of 5 star ratings. 

For years I avoided the rating of poetry books for just this reason. I'm a middling poetry snob, which means there are things all over the spectrum that I like. And yet now that I am forcing myself to rate books I see how lazy I've been about defining for myself what I consider good. And I'm having to face the difference between what I consider good and what is recommendable. Book ratings on platforms is less as an indicator of high quality than a indicator of whether I think others will enjoy a book--whether I would recommend it. These two things are frequently at odds. I was engrossed in To 2040 by Jorie Graham. I gave it 5 stars. Would I recommend it to most people? No. With some books, there is no conflict between what I consider the consider high quality and high recommendability. 

Maybe I need to create a rubric for myself for books I find difficult to rate. What would it include?

How broadly relatable is the book?

How accessible is the book?

What is the quality of the writing (according to me)? <<what does this even mean to me?

What is the level of my affinity with either the poetics or the topics?

Did the book keep me engaged from beginning to end?

I'll have to give it more thought. Are there more qualities to consider? Should some of these have possible negative values? Certainly I should weight some of these categories according to how important they are to me. 

Does it ultimately matter whether I give a book an "accurate" (according to me) star rating? No. Not at all. But thinking about it, and perhaps coming up with a rubric, will hopefully result in less teeth-grinding.

And why do I want to participate in this stifling star rating stuff anyway? Because it's a way to indicate to the world that poetry is being read and some people like it. As I've been going through the prize-nominated books, I've been shocked sometimes with how little interest there is in them on Amazon, which is still one of the most accessible places to find lots of poetry. You can be long or short listed for a poetry prize and still be ignored. What chance does Black Mestiza have? I want people to know someone saw it, someone read it, and it was an enjoyable book

Thoughts on The Gathering of Bastards by Romeo Oriogun

This is largely a book of northwest Africa. Oriogun is from Nigeria and this book is a reckoning with his country and that region's history and his place in it--and outside of it since he chose to leave. But it is also a book of longing for resolution so that he can feel at home again in the first place he thought of as home, as well as a self-examination of why he continues to choose living elsewhere despite the toll it takes on his sense of belonging and acceptance, both of which are basic human needs. People who have a love-hate relationship with their homeland will be able to relate to the recurring attraction and retraction expressed within this book.

In the first part of the book, we start from the west coast of North Africa and travel into the Sahara. This is a fascinating journey through a part of Africa through the eyes of an African. But it is not a tour. Oriogun is thinking his way through this territory and what it means to him, its history and its present. As someone who lives in the U.S. and has never traveled to Africa, Africa equals animal life to me. I have a National Geographic view of it. The view Oriogun provides largely omits animals. His themes are water and earth, that which moves through and that which stays. Water, especially, is a strong theme throughout the book. 

Oriogun writes beautifully and that is what kept me reading. 

Here are a few examples of poems in this book that were available on the internet. They're not my favorites but they give you a feel for his writing.

https://theaccountmagazine.com/article/oriogun-20/

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/157939/flyway

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/157938/walking-along-harvard-square

The book is in three parts: Departure, Remembrance, and Wanderer. I would recommend reading Departure as a whole in sequence because it does have a traveling narrative arc. However, Remembrance and Wanderer can be dipped into and out of. Remembrance looks at the political history of the area as well as Oriogun's personal history. Wanderer is about trying to make a home elsewhere. Oriogun doesn't always center himself in his poems. Many are for or about or in relation to others.

I am made aware of how lucky I am to have been raised in an English speaking country, which, because of its economic power, encourages others to learn English. I get to read the poetry of people with very different experiences from around the world expressed in non-translated English. This book is part of a project of Kwame Dawes and the University of Nebraska Press. It publishes the poetry of African poets, some in translation but many of them in English. What a rich treasure (over 30 books) for stepping into the lived experience of Africans and African immigrants.

Though knowledge of some of the African words in this book is not necessary to enjoy it, having a notes section or a simple glossary would have been nice for those who do get stuck on words they're unfamiliar with. Though it's extremely unusual in books of poetry, it also would have been cool to have a map.

Though this book is very centered in the experience of a Nigerian native who has left home and hasn't truly settled, I feel that many people born in and still living in the U.S. can relate to this feeling of being alienated from where we've grown up and trying to find a sense of belonging in a new place since we are such a mobile society. Even without the added challenges of language and skill barriers, a sense of rootlessness and a lack of belonging can become a nagging undercurrent in our lives.