2018: The Year in Poetry Books

At the beginning of 2018, I vowed to become more well-read in poetry books, both classic and contemporary. Probably I did better in contemporary, if only because it is more fluid with free verse than the more form-conscious classics.

For those interested in similar vows for 2019, here’s a list of my 2018 poetry book reviews on Goodreads, listed chronologically from January (total: 36 plus one constantly-critical reread). If interested in possibly reading any on the list, give it a click and you’ll be down that good rabbit hole:

  1. Stag’s Leap (Sharon Olds)
  2. Zen Master Poems (Dick Allen)
  3. Priest Turned Therapist Treats Fear of God: Poems (Tony Hoagland)
  4. The Night Parade (Edward Hirsch)
  5. What Work Is (Philip Levine)
  6. Letters to a Young Poet (Rainier Maria Rilke)
  7. What About This: Collected Poems of Frank Stanford
  8. Falling Awake (Alice Oswald)
  9. Magdalene (Marie Howe)
  10. What the Living Do: Poems (Marie Howe)
  11. The Good Thief (Marie Howe)
  12. Blood Pages (George Bilgere)
  13. The Narrow Road to the Deep North and Other Travel Sketches (Matsuo Basho)
  14. Death of a Naturalist (Seamus Heaney)
  15. Best American Poetry 2017 (Natasha Trethewey, Ed.)
  16. Wade in the Water (Tracy K. Smith)
  17. Brown: Poems (Kevin Young)
  18. Burn Lake (Carrie Fountain)
  19. Plainwater: Essays and Poetry (Anne Carson)
  20. More (Barbara Crooker)
  21. Life on Mars (Tracy K. Smith)
  22. Like a Beggar (Ellen Bass)
  23. Blind Huber (Nick Flynn)
  24. Sinners Welcome (Mary Karr)
  25. Praise (Robert Haas)
  26. Still Life with Two Dead Peacocks and a Girl (Diane Seuss)
  27. The Selected Poems of Donald Hall
  28. The Carrying: Poems (Ada Limon)
  29. Not Here (Hieu Minh Nguyen)
  30. The Complete Cold Mountain: Poems of the Legendary Hermit Hanshan
  31. Tremulous Hinge (Adam Giannelli)
  32. Don’t Call Us Dead (Danez Smith)
  33. Portrait of the Alcoholic (Kaveh Akbar)
  34. He Held Radical Light (Christian Wiman)
  35. Made Flesh (Craig Arnold)
  36. Poetry as Survival (Gregory Orr)
  37. Lost Sherpa of Happiness (Ken Craft)