{"id":4896,"date":"2011-12-21T12:00:15","date_gmt":"2011-12-21T17:00:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lanternreview.com\/blog\/?p=4896"},"modified":"2011-12-21T02:05:16","modified_gmt":"2011-12-21T07:05:16","slug":"staff-picks-holiday-reading-recommendations-2011","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lanternreview.com\/blog\/2011\/12\/21\/staff-picks-holiday-reading-recommendations-2011\/","title":{"rendered":"Staff Picks: Holiday Reading Recommendations 2011"},"content":{"rendered":"

It’s become a little bit of a tradition for us to post a list of books recommended by the LR<\/em> Blog writers and editors just before the holidays.\u00a0 In keeping with that tradition, we’ve surveyed the staff team and have put together a list of\u00a0 titles that we enjoyed reading this year and think that you might like, too. Here are our end-of -year Staff Picks for 2011:<\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"PEOPLE<\/a>
PEOPLE ARE TINY IN PAINTINGS OF CHINA<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

People are Tiny in Paintings of China<\/a>
\n<\/em>by Cynthia Arrieu-King
\nOctopus Books, 2010
\nRecommended by Iris: <\/strong>
\n“I lost my father in late 2010, and the delicate\u2014almost brittle\u2014transparency of this collection (which has much to do with fathers and familial heritage) struck me to the bone.\u00a0 Arrieu-King’s language is beautifully evocative, but economical; her poems are rendered with slim, decisive strokes that are as breathtaking for their clear-eyed, precise minimalism as they are for their wry, sharply observant (at times downright blunt) commentary.\u00a0 Acts of mathematical counting, division (or inability to divide, as in the case of the poem titled “Prime Numbers”), and serial repetition are motifs in the collection, as are colors, lenses or frames of vision, the contours of landscapes and language. Taken together, these themes serve to magnify and illuminate the speaker’s gaze as she negotiates what it means to claim a multiracial, transnational identity in a world that irrationally desires, even demands, perfectly divisible, concrete forms.”<\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

\"ARDENCY\"<\/a>
ARDENCY<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Ardency: A Chronicle of the Amistad Rebels<\/em><\/strong><\/a>
\nby Kevin Young<\/strong>
\nAlfred A. Knopf, 2011<\/strong>
\nRecommended by Mia:
\n<\/strong>“Kevin Young’s latest book, Ardency,<\/em>\u00a0is at once epic and lyric, documentary and wholly imaginative. \u00a0Written from the perspective of various figures involved in the Amistad<\/em> rebellion of 1839, the three sections of this book, ‘Buzzard,’ ‘Correspondence,’ and ‘Witness: A Libretto’ unfold in a dramatic reimagining of this moment in history. \u00a0While it’s true that with this collection, Young ‘[places] himself squarely in the African American poetic tradition pioneered by such writers as Langston Hughes’ (as the Washington Post <\/em>claims on the book jacket), he also uses it to reinvent the tradition.”<\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

\"THE<\/a>
THE ANATOMY THEATER<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Anatomy Theater<\/em><\/a><\/strong>
\nby Nadine Sabra Meyer<\/strong>
\nHarper Collins, 2005<\/strong>
\nRecommended by Mia:
\n<\/strong>“Nadine Sabra Meyer won the 2005 National Poetry Series Award with this collection, and I can’t recommend it more highly. \u00a0The poems draw deeply from history and mythology, studies of the human figure\u2014its dissections, assemblages\u2014and the tradition of the body in medicine and art. \u00a0Her work is riveting, beautifully crafted, and a must-read for anyone interested in, as John Koethe puts it, the human body and its relationship to the transcendent. \u00a0Luckily, Harper Collins lets you browse the contents of the book on their website, so you can preview a selection of the poems online.”<\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

\"CHEERS<\/a>
CHEERS TO MUSES<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Cheers to Muses: Contemporary Works by Asian American Women<\/em><\/a> <\/strong>
\nAsian American Women Artists Association, 2008<\/strong>
\nRecommended by Kelsay:<\/strong>
\n“Cheers to Muses<\/em> is a truly inspired and inspiring anthology featuring visual art, poetry, fiction and nonfiction by Asian American women who challenge contemporary and historical assumptions about what it means to create Asian American art in all of its forms. Barbara Jane Reyes, Kathy Aoki, Keiko Nelson, Nellie Wong, Katherine Westerhout, Genny Lim, Catherine Ceniza Choy and many others share pieces of work and tributes to the Asian American women who have influenced their creative lives. Aside from being visually appealing, it offers a taste <\/span>of how Asian American women approach the contemporary art scene.”<\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

\"APOCALYPTIC<\/a>
APOCALYPTIC SWING<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Apocalyptic Swing<\/a><\/strong><\/em>
\nby Gabrielle Calvocoressi
\nPersea, 2009<\/strong>
\n Recommended by Henry:<\/strong>
\n“This was recommended to me by someone who’s completing a dissertation on boxing and Modernism. I’ve boxed and had a hard time writing about it, and have never come across any literature about the sport\/art that isn’t mere glory or gossip. But this book of poems is ‘it.’ Brutal, beautiful, sincere. It’s the one that blew me away this year.”<\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
bough breaks<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Bough Breaks<\/a>
\n<\/em>by Tamiko Beyer
\nMeritage Press, 2011<\/strong>
\nRecommended by Jai:<\/strong>
\n“I am excited by this book’s inquiry into and desire for queer conception and how it imagines what queer mothering would look like.”<\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

For yet more evocative reading, we also recommend any of the following titles, which we have reviewed or featured in the last year:<\/p>\n

Poetry<\/strong><\/p>\n