The Poet X by Elizabeth Acevedo

Title: The Poet X
Author: Elizabeth Acevedo

Genre: Poetry, Young Adult

This book was suggested to me by a patron - sometimes readers' advisory works the other direction as well. 

It is about a young poet named Xiomara Batista who lives in Harlem. Her story is told through her poems. You can feel her joy, her angst, her frustration as she deals with body image issues, religious quandaries, familial pressures, and the throes of first love. It is raw slam poetry, brutal in its honesty and yet beautifully lyrical.

I would highly recommend listening to this as an audiobook to enjoy the author's  delivery. 

- Sarah R.

Check out The Poet X @ the library.

Poetry Review: "Love Her Wild" by Atticus and "Elise Cowen: Poems and Fragments" by Tony Trigilio

This week's review compares two poetry books. The first is Love Her Wild by Atticus, and the second is Elise Cowen: Poems and Fragments by Tony Trigilio. Read on to discover which may appeal to you!

Looking for something light to read this summer? Try some poems!  In Love Her Wild, mysterious instagram poet Atticus collects some of his most evocative writings.  These short, lyric observations capture the beauty and adventure in life from the delight in wild places to the irrepressible energy of young love.  Read about moonlit nights in the desert and love that tears poems from your flesh alongside stark black and white photographs of the world he so lovingly describes.  Love Her Wild is the perfect book to bring along on a picnic or to the beach.

Or, if love and beauty aren’t your cup of tea, Elise Cowen has an extended metaphor about corpses that might speak to you.  Following her suicide in 1962, nearly all of Cowen’s work was burned for their unsettling exploration of sex, drugs, and mental illness.  In Elise Cowen: Poems and Fragments, Tony Trigilio collects and comments on the sole surviving notebook of the legendary beat poetess, best known for dating Alan Ginsberg.  In this glimpse into the mind of one of the most prolific writers you’ve never read, Cowen questions the source of her madness, the social mores of her time, and the role of women through a proto-second-wave-feminist lens.  Read about cockroaches and pot shards and the charmlessness of love.  This book is can’t-miss for any fan of the beat generation, or anyone curious to see how poems evolve from draft to finished form.

- Leah

Check out Lover Her Wild and Elise Cowen: Poems and Fragments @ the library.

Beauty Poetry: She Walks in Beauty and Nature Poetry: Make Me a Picture of the Sun by Sheila Griffin Llanas

Two slender volumes filled with information about poets and poetry, Beauty Poetry: She Walks in Beauty and Nature Poetry: Make Me a Picture of the Sun by Sheila Griffin Llanas will be of interest to readers who like words, rhyme, rhythm and history. Each volume contains eight poems with a chapter devoted to each poem. Each chapter provides a biography of the poet, a short discussion of the poem in its historical context, an analysis of the rhyme and rhythm scheme and a discussion of the meaning of the poem. The writers are well-known poets of the English language, such as William Wordsworth, Emily Dickinson, William Shakespeare and Lord Byron. Many of the poems, but perhaps not all, will also be familiar. The explanations of all elements of each poem are easily understood and, just as an art expert can point out the importance of brush strokes or tints in a famous painting, Ms. Llanas isolates particular words and phrases that add to the understanding of a poem. These books are a good introduction or a good refresher to poetry. 

Poems That Make Grown Men Cry edited by Anthony and Ben Holden

Both men and women should read POEMS THAT MAKE GROWN MEN CRY: 100 MEN ON THE WORDS THAT MOVE THEM. This anthology in which poems have been chosen by one hundred men with backgrounds in the arts and literature gives the reader a diverse selection of poetry. Poetry lovers can read the book cover to cover.  Readers with a more casual interest can search out the verses they might find particularly appealing. Stars of stage and screen as well as writers, editors and college professors are among the men who have selected poetry for this volume. English and American poets are well represented but Indian, Japanese and Spanish poems have also been chosen. Although this poetry can make grown men cry, it is not only about the death of loved ones. Some poems are about looking for work, the inevitability of war, political oppression, the love of imperfect parents or children, unrequited love and separation. The beauty of nature and other happy events can bring people to tears as well. Some of the more well-known men who selected poems for this book are Salman Rushdie, Hugh Bonneville, Ken Follett, Daniel Radcliffe, and Sir Patrick Stewart of “Star Trek” and “X Men” fame. Some poems are pages long and some only a verse or two. Gifted poets can express honest emotion in any number of words or lines. Perhaps the most poignant work in this book is the shortest, written in 18^th century Japan by a woman whose son had died:

“Dragonfly catcher,

Where today

Have you gone?”

Check out Poems that Make Grown Men Cry out @ the library!

Ten Poems to Say Goodbye by Roger Housden

Ten Poems To Say Goodbye is a collection of poems carefully chosen by Roger Housden to help us confront and understand death. This book consists of works by ten different poets, each addressing different aspects of death and grief.  The author accompanies each selection with a personal essay that may help the reader appreciate the poem, but the poems themselves are the heart of this book. The author writes that with most poetry collections he finds “no more than a couple of poems that strike me to the core.” In this collection, he has assembled some of these, each poem a gem that expresses grief, comfort, regret, relief and other emotions associated with life and death.  

Check out Ten Poems to Say Goodbye @ the library!

The Anthologist by Nicholson Baker

Paul Chowder is suffering from writer’s block as he tries to compose an introduction to his poetry anthology, Only Rhyme.  On the verge of a nervous breakdown, he turns to other endeavors (badminton, housecleaning, floor installation, beading), while he ruminates on what he knows about poetry. This book is a combination of novel and essay on rhyme and meter and the lives of modern poets. Don’t let this description discourage you. After you’ve read this book, you too will love poetry and want to move into Paul’s neighborhood and meet Roz and Victor and Nan and Smacko the dog.  Celebrate National Poetry Month and pick up The Anthologist @the library!

Morning Song: Poems for New Parents edited by Susan Todd

A poetry book for new parents

But they haven’t got time to read.

This book can be enjoyed by anyone,

Whether or not you breed!

The poems are short and clever,

By poets, known and unknown.

Just flip through this book for enjoyment

When you check it out on loan.

This is a charming collection of poems, purportedly for the parents of babies. Since they won’t have time to read it, I recommend this book to all who enjoy rhyme, rhythm and clever ideas. The selections are generally short and the poets range from classical to contemporary. Just flip Morning Song: Poems for New Parents open to any page and find a gem.