The Top 3 Poets of 2014 & 11 Favorite Books of 2014
Top 3 Poets of 2014 Whose Poetry Is Burned Into My Brain, Which Is Saying A Lot, Because Watching A Toddler All Day Is Sometimes Like Being Lobotomized
1. JP Grasser
I moved to Iowa from Southern California when I was twenty one years old and although I now live in Wisconsin, I have been experiencing culture shock for the last fifteen years. JP Grasser’s poetry is steeped in Midwestern pastoral and every.single.thing I read by him speaks to my inner prairie-loving Cheese head. That’s an under-sell. The deftness of language in his work is what makes it memorable for me – like the consonance of the line “three grackles hunker down for anthracite” in the poem “Grayscale”. Have you ever watched someone blow molten hot lead into some delicate, cold little glass unicorn? Grasser is a master glass smith. Someone hurry up and give this guy a book deal so I can hunker down with an actual physical book instead of reading these amazing poems on this tiny iPad that is ruining my aging eyes and probably giving me groin cancer.
Three poems by JP Grasser at West Branch Wired.
http://jpgrasser.com/
2. Meg Day
Meg Day is one of those poets whom, after I read her work, leaves me shouting “Come on. Come on! COME ON.” Yeah, it is that good. Like, I get outraged it is so good. The series of “On Nights When I am ____” poems are just kick-a-wall good. We should all be concerned that her incredible poetry is moving me to violence and incredulity. In the poem “On Nights When I Am Always Almost a Mother”, the alliteration and rhyme and line breaks set a pacing that is soft and frantic at the same time: “That body,/it quivers—/& as a hair/unsettles/in a mare’s/tidal mane”. Tidal mane?! I mean COME ON. It’s quicksilver beautiful. Meg Day is one of those poets who I seem to read while holding my breath.
"On Nights When I Am Almost a Mother" by Meg Day at Vinyl Poetry.
http://www.megday.com
3. Francesca Bell
If JP Grasser is the glass smith and Meg Day makes me need to use my inhaler, Francesca Bell is the poet whose work makes my stomach hurt. Her series of poems on child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church that appeared in an issue of PANK this year are phenomenal and horrific. They are the stuff of stomach aches and nausea and they are really fucking important. She combines persona and narrative and doesn’t hold back and the effect is startling. The reaction I have to these poems is so physical and visceral, and that so rarely happens to me when I read poetry. I can’t tell you how many poems I read in a day that leave me thinking, “so what?” These poems are not “so what” poems and Francesca Bell is a necessary poet with a dire voice.
5 Poems from Francesca Bell at PANK.
http://francescabellpoet.com/
ARBITRARY TASTE-MAKING LIST ALERT
11 FAVORITE BOOKS OF 2014 Wherein I Offer No Explanation As To Why, Other Than The Fact I Read It More Than Once Because It Was That Great
1. How the Potato Chip was Invented by Daniel M. Shapiro (Sunnyoutside Press)
2. What Is a Domicile by Joanna Penn Cooper (Noctuary Press)
3. State Sonnets by B.J. Best (Sunnyoutside Press)
4. Sediment & Veil by Kirsten Jorgenson (Horse Less Press)
5. Milk & Water by Amy Watkins (Yellow Flag Press)
6. A Sweeter Water by Sara Henning (Lavender Ink Press)
7. By Fire by Jessica Cuello (Hyacinth Girl Press)
8. The Failure Age by Amanda Montei (Bloof Books)
9. A Small Man Looked at Me by Sara Lefsyk (Little Red Leaves Textile Series)
10. Nights I Let the Tiger Get You by Elizabeth Cantwell (Black Lawrence Press)
11. Crixa by Megan Hudgins (Two of Cups Press)
Lauren Gordon is the author of three chapbooks: “Meaningful Fingers” with Finishing Line Press, “Keen” with Horse Less Press, and “Generalizations about Spines” with Yellow Flag Press. She is also a Contributing Editor to Radius Lit and lives and works outside of Milwaukee, which Alice Cooper pronounces as “mealy-walk-ay.”
1. JP Grasser
I moved to Iowa from Southern California when I was twenty one years old and although I now live in Wisconsin, I have been experiencing culture shock for the last fifteen years. JP Grasser’s poetry is steeped in Midwestern pastoral and every.single.thing I read by him speaks to my inner prairie-loving Cheese head. That’s an under-sell. The deftness of language in his work is what makes it memorable for me – like the consonance of the line “three grackles hunker down for anthracite” in the poem “Grayscale”. Have you ever watched someone blow molten hot lead into some delicate, cold little glass unicorn? Grasser is a master glass smith. Someone hurry up and give this guy a book deal so I can hunker down with an actual physical book instead of reading these amazing poems on this tiny iPad that is ruining my aging eyes and probably giving me groin cancer.
Three poems by JP Grasser at West Branch Wired.
http://jpgrasser.com/
2. Meg Day
Meg Day is one of those poets whom, after I read her work, leaves me shouting “Come on. Come on! COME ON.” Yeah, it is that good. Like, I get outraged it is so good. The series of “On Nights When I am ____” poems are just kick-a-wall good. We should all be concerned that her incredible poetry is moving me to violence and incredulity. In the poem “On Nights When I Am Always Almost a Mother”, the alliteration and rhyme and line breaks set a pacing that is soft and frantic at the same time: “That body,/it quivers—/& as a hair/unsettles/in a mare’s/tidal mane”. Tidal mane?! I mean COME ON. It’s quicksilver beautiful. Meg Day is one of those poets who I seem to read while holding my breath.
"On Nights When I Am Almost a Mother" by Meg Day at Vinyl Poetry.
http://www.megday.com
3. Francesca Bell
If JP Grasser is the glass smith and Meg Day makes me need to use my inhaler, Francesca Bell is the poet whose work makes my stomach hurt. Her series of poems on child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church that appeared in an issue of PANK this year are phenomenal and horrific. They are the stuff of stomach aches and nausea and they are really fucking important. She combines persona and narrative and doesn’t hold back and the effect is startling. The reaction I have to these poems is so physical and visceral, and that so rarely happens to me when I read poetry. I can’t tell you how many poems I read in a day that leave me thinking, “so what?” These poems are not “so what” poems and Francesca Bell is a necessary poet with a dire voice.
5 Poems from Francesca Bell at PANK.
http://francescabellpoet.com/
ARBITRARY TASTE-MAKING LIST ALERT
11 FAVORITE BOOKS OF 2014 Wherein I Offer No Explanation As To Why, Other Than The Fact I Read It More Than Once Because It Was That Great
1. How the Potato Chip was Invented by Daniel M. Shapiro (Sunnyoutside Press)
2. What Is a Domicile by Joanna Penn Cooper (Noctuary Press)
3. State Sonnets by B.J. Best (Sunnyoutside Press)
4. Sediment & Veil by Kirsten Jorgenson (Horse Less Press)
5. Milk & Water by Amy Watkins (Yellow Flag Press)
6. A Sweeter Water by Sara Henning (Lavender Ink Press)
7. By Fire by Jessica Cuello (Hyacinth Girl Press)
8. The Failure Age by Amanda Montei (Bloof Books)
9. A Small Man Looked at Me by Sara Lefsyk (Little Red Leaves Textile Series)
10. Nights I Let the Tiger Get You by Elizabeth Cantwell (Black Lawrence Press)
11. Crixa by Megan Hudgins (Two of Cups Press)
Lauren Gordon is the author of three chapbooks: “Meaningful Fingers” with Finishing Line Press, “Keen” with Horse Less Press, and “Generalizations about Spines” with Yellow Flag Press. She is also a Contributing Editor to Radius Lit and lives and works outside of Milwaukee, which Alice Cooper pronounces as “mealy-walk-ay.”
