Thursday 8 January 2009

New Book Purchases

This year, I have decided to try to record all my new book purchases on my blog, at least new poetry and poetry-related books. We will see how long this lasts, but since I bought two new books yesterday, now seems like a good time to start.

First, we have Primate Behavior by Sarah Lindsay. I loved Lindsay's most recent book (Twigs & Knucklebones, Copper Canyon, 2008) so much, I decided to order her previous books. Primate Behavior is her first collection, and it was published by Grove Press in 1997. Her second collection, Mount Clutter (Grove, 2002), is still on order.

So far, her first collection is anything but a disappointment. The more of her poems I read, the more I like her as a poet. I read her work with excitement and a small amount of envy. She is quickly becoming one of my favourite contemporary poets.





Next, we have The Romantic Dogs by Roberto Bolaño. Bolaño is a hot commodity these days, as translations of his novels are increasingly popular with English-speaking readers. Bolaño admitted he thought of himself as a poet first and foremost, saying, "The poetry makes me blush less." With this in mind, I have decided to make his poetry my personal introduction to his works.

This book contains 44 poems in the original Spanish and in English translation on facing pages. So far, so good.





I ordered this last year, but it arrived in 2009. My Vocabulary Did This to Me: The Collected Poetry of Jack Spicer is a must have, in my opinion. He is my favourite poet of the Berkeley Renaissance. It's been a pleasure since it arrived, and it will remain so for a long, long time.

2 comments:

Nick said...

Hey Paul,

re: the Bolano introduction

Just promise me after that you'll read Last Evenings on Earth (the last story, "Dance Card", in particular), then the Savage Detectives. After that I won't need to tell you to read 2666; you'll want to so bad it hurts.

Paul Vermeersch said...

Nick, I am on the case.