Poetry Books Read: Winter 2022
A catch-up on all the wonderful poetry collections I read this winter.
The theme of Winter 2022 for one Ashley Hajimirsadeghi is that I have learned to love my library. For the longest time I thought they just bought their books based on popularity and the fact that someone who works there might be an XYZ fan, but I was proved wrong as I poked through their site. Not only can I get Kanopy and The New York Times for free, but I also can request any book I want within reason. Now, because I’m a broke freelance writer, I can’t actually afford to buy most things I want, nor do I want to bring in the clutter inside my home.
Thus I request all the newest poetry collections I’m lusting for through my local library system, and, thankfully, they tend to agree with my taste and buy all the books. So I’m actually keeping up with the poetry trends instead of just reading the free literary magazines. Has this helped my practice? Probably? I prefer fiction and nonfiction, but I vibe with Min Jin Lee’s approach of collecting interviews and a bunch of historical facts before beginning to write something.
Since I’ve been reading a lot, I though to make a compilation of some of my favorite collections I’ve read. Let’s start this!
The Past by Wendy Xu
The Past by Wendy Xu (2021). Published by Wesleyan University Press.
I really started using my library around this point, and I requested they order Wendy Xu’s newest collection, The Past. I haven’t ready Wnedy Xu’s other works before, but I saw some other poets I enjoy posting about this collection, which is her third released poetry collection. I thought the cover was absolutely beautiful, so I put in a request through my library as soon as I knew about it.
An anchor to these poems is that Xu immigrated to the United States just days after the Tiananmen Square protests and murders. There are quite a few poems dwelling upon this coincidence, and one of the most striking was the one about the man photographed standing in front of the tanks.
All in all, I really enjoyed this collection of poems. The images were striking, the lines fluid and use of white space quite intentional. I enjoy seeing a mix of experimental and more quote on quote traditional pieces with a collection, so this was a book right up my alley.
I also really liked how the poems embody the past in such an evocative manner, even forcing English-language poems to fit a conventional Chinese poetry form.
Seeing the Body by Rachel Eliza Griffiths
Seeing the Body by Rachel Eliza Griffiths (2020). Published by W. W. Norton Company.
I love Rachel Eliza Griffiths’ poems, and I knew I would eventually get to Seeing the Body. The first time I heard her work was when she was reading through this collection at a Brooklyn Poets reading, and I felt really moved by the way she read and wrote about her mother’s death. There were such tenderness to these poems that I can admire greatly as a fellow writer.
That being said, this is a multimedia collection incorporating Griffiths’ photographs alongside her poems. The anchor behind these poems is that fact that her mother died, so the catalyst behind all of them is the grief that Griffiths faced when confronting her death.
I think why I like this collection so much is because I tend not to like complex poetry that you have to think really hard about before even getting to the superficial level of it. I like blunt poems that add meaning once you delve into contexts and traditions, and that’s exactly what Griffiths does in her writing here.
The poems are very direct and to the point, leading the reader exactly where she wants them. It’s up to the reader to dig deeper into the text and forms to find deeper meanings.
The Sunflower Cast a Spell to Save Us From the Void by Jackie Wang
The Sunflower Cast a Spell to Save Us From the Void by Jackie Wang (2021). Published by Nightboat Books.
The Sunflower Cast a Spell to Save Us From the Void by Jackie Wang was shortlisted for the National Book Award the year is was released, which is how I had found out about it. I had never heard of Jackie Wang as a poet before this, so I was quite intrigued, and man I was glad I wasn’t aware of her work before now.
This collection presents itself completely as a series of prose poems, which I found surprising because it was indeed nominated for the NBA. With the release of Don Mee Choi’s DMZ Colony and the acclaim it received, it seems like the mainstream is skewering towards accepting hybrid poems. These poems were based on dreams and it could be easily missed if you don’t realize that fact, but they are evocative in the way that one would imagine a dreamscape to unfold.
What I liked the most about these poems were the presentation (prose) and how they set up reality to be devoid of anything productive. Wang is an academic and knows quite well how to connect contemporary culture in her poems, and that was clearly evident in the construction of these poems. They’re one big massive existential crisis.
How to Not Be Afraid of Everything by Jane Wong
How to Not Be Afraid of Everything by Jane Wong (2021). Published by Alice James Books.
How to Not Be Afraid of Everything by Jane Wong lured me in with that cover. It’s so beautiful. Just look at it. I also was lured in by the title, as I got a sense of vulnerability straight off the bat. To get over your fears, you must first confront them. That’s the expectation I had when I cracked open this collection. I think the nutshell of my observations lately is that I vibe well with Chinese-American writers.
Wong grapples with a lot of ideas that interconnect with Wendy Xu’s collection: the past, intergenerational trauma, the concept of growing up as an immigrant or the kid of immigrants. I will say I liked most of the poems in this collection, but the longest one, the centerpiece that’s twenty pags long, I could not get with. I can’t do long poems, it’s not in my nature. I’m sure other people will love poems like these, but not me.
I enjoyed Wong’s choices of words and line breaks the most. I found myself picking apart the structure of her lines and diction as I went along because I liked what she did a lot, so that’s why I’m including it here today. I think I’m not the perfect fit when it comes to audience, but I know good poetry when I see it, so I know others will definitely enjoy this collection.
The Age of Phillis by Honorée Fanonne Jeffers
The Age of Phillis by Honorée Fanonne Jeffers (2021). Published by Wesleyan University Press.
The Age of Phillis by Honorée Fanonne Jeffers has been on my to-read list for a long time now. I’ve had the chance to immerse myself recently in the work of Phillis Wheatly, the individual who plays the centerpiece of this collection. Wheatley was a slave brought to the English colonies from West Africa.
She was the first African-American to have a book of poetry published, as her masters encouraged her to get an education and thus trained her in reading, writing, and poetry. This poetry collection seeks to tell her story while connecting it to contemporary issues still plaguing African-Americans today.
I absolutely adore the way Jeffers writes. I had previously read her novel The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois and remembered how electric and comfortable her prose was for me, and that was what inspired me to finally pick up this collection. I can see how it was longlisted for the National Book Award for poetry, and while it didn’t make the shortlist the competition was fierce that year.
I definitely think this is an important collection to pick up, especially if you’re interested in African-American poetry and its history in the states. Whetley is often a forgotten figure, and her biography was written by a white woman fifty years after her death—it’s time to reclaim her past.
