Sunday, February 05, 2006

A few more books

I have been on a bit of a reading spree the past month. Some of the books I have mentioned already. Here are a few others:

The Go-Go Boy Sonnets, Edmund Miller. The sonnets are very strict in terms of form. The content is a little more unconventional: they are written to the hundred or so Go-Go Boys the author met during the past thirty years in New York dance clubs. The book is fully annotated and indexed, as if it were a very serious academic study, with a Glossary of Gay Terms and Bar Slang, and indexes of Languages Used; Allusions; Artists, Designers Trademarks and Logos; New York Locales; Occupations and Types, and etc. All so one could look up, I imagine, a sonnet about a leather queen who wears Prada and goes to the Ramrod, that alludes to Proust and that incorporates French. It's really silly, but a lot of fun.

The Silent Treatment, Richard Howard.

Jubilant Thicket, new & selected poems, Jonathan Williams. How come I had never heard of this guy before? He has been around for ages (he's 75 now). Funny, imaginative, mostly short, very gay, very "English" poems. A great read.

Goldbeater's Skin, GC Waldrep. I love the title "Saccade" and wish I had used it first.

Our Post-Soviet History Unfolds, Eleanor Lerman.

What Remains, Stuart Greenhouse. Lovely chapbook, Stuart! My favorite poem so far: "Lead Hat."

Singing Home the Bones, Gregory Scofield. Two spirit Native American poet/poems.

A Palace of Pearls, Jane Miller. What an amazing book. It's a 34-part long poem sequence, where the titles are at the bottom of each poem, and the final poem "Coda" is all of these titles run together. Its about war and art and life and politics, with a bit of the Arab world (both contemporary and historical) thrown in. Here's a poem:

4

Do you know how long it has been since a moral choice presented itself

and the wrong choice was made

not two minutes

why is it not quiet between lightning and thunder as if someone where asking

do you have other articulable feelings if so express them now

tragedy ensues

with a laser blast from the cockpit

the dangled finger of god makes contact

PLEASE CALL FOR SEVERAL HUNDRED THOUSAND PHYSICIANS IMMEDIATELY



Happy reading . . .

and GO SEAHAWKS!

4 comments:

A. J. Patrick Liszkiewicz said...

Sorry, Peter. Jeremy Stevens kinda Norwooded things for you. : (

Peter said...

Yes. It was a sad day.

Pamela Johnson Parker said...

I think that was one of the moore poorly officiated games I have ever seen, and I am a Steelers fan most of the time. I don't see how a team with the Seahawks' statistics in that game was defeated unless it was all of those calls.

David Vincenti said...

It's a shame a team as good as the Seahawks acquitted themselves so poorly for you (not that the Steelers played much good football either). The game was two big plays (Parker run, Randle-El throw), and 59:15 of sloppiness. I suspect you'll be back at least as far as the NFC title game next year.

I'm behind on What Remains; need to get myself a copy soon.