…in a pointed and angry essay on contemporary poetry, New Criterion Editor David Yezzi writes, “Poetry has become so docile, so domesticated, it’s like a spayed housecat lolling in a warm patch of sun. Most poets choose to play it safe, combining a few approved modes in a variety of unexceptional ways…these poems feel t home in coffee shops and on college campuses; they circulate breezily among crowds of like-minded poems and all of them work hard to be liked.” Below is a list of very new titles, perhaps, as spring gives way to summer, spend some time putting Yezzi’s assertion to the test?
- Special Powers and Abilities : Poems by Raymond McDaniel
- Black Crow Dress by Roxane Beth Johnson
- Letters to Borges by Stephen Kuusisto
- The Word on the Street: Rock Lyrics by Paul Muldoon
- Me and Nina: Poems by Monica A. Hand
- The Eternal Ones of the Dream: Selected Poems, 1990-2010 by James Tate
- Almost Invisible by Mark Strand
- Bright Brave Phenomena: Poems by Amanda Nadelberg
- Home Burial by Michael McGriff
- The Alphabet Not Unlike the World: Poems by Katrina Vandenberg
- In the Futurity Lounge: Asylum for Indeterminacy: Poems by Marjorie Welish
- Pity the Beautiful: Poems by Dana Gioia