<\/p>\n
Mezzanines<\/a> Iris’s comments:<\/strong>\u00a0I’ve been a fan of Matthew Olzmann’s work since I first met him and heard him read<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>during an AWP panel in 2009, and Mezzanines\u00a0<\/em>did not disappoint.\u00a0Quirky, humorous, and at times profane, but always grounded by dint of its razor-sharp observations about human nature and an underlying sense of deep empathy, the voice of his poems fills up the space of the imagination with a childlike wonder that is at once riotously absurd and insanely beautiful. Few poets could successfully mix tender intimacy with wry, self-conscious humor (such as the “product placement” in the poem “Mountain Dew Commercial Disguised as a Love Poem,” which apparently prompted PepsiCo to send the poet a letter of thanks in real life!), and yet Olzmann does so effortlessly and always with great aplomb.<\/span><\/p>\n The Saints of Streets<\/a> Iris’s comments:\u00a0<\/strong>Luisa A. Igloria’s new collection,\u00a0The Saints of Streets<\/em>\u00a0left me breathless. As is par for the course in her work, Igloria writes with beauty, strength, and piercing intimacy, precisely interleaving light and shade like a master of shadow puppets. I am told that the poet has several other collections’ worth of poems brewing (thanks to her poem-a-day project over at\u00a0Via Negativa<\/em><\/a>), and I cannot wait for the next installment.<\/p>\n Iris’s comments: <\/strong>Last, but not least, on my list is an older title, Tracy K. Smith’s\u00a0Life on Mars\u2014<\/em>winner of the 2012 Pulitzer. I’d heard Smith read at the 2011 Page Turner Festival and had been captivated by the empathy inherent in the persona poems that she’d shared. It was no surprise to me, then, that I fell headlong for\u00a0Life on Mars, <\/em>a haunting collection that explores science and the domestic\/private life of the scientist and the poet. Life on Mars\u00a0<\/em>won the Pulitzer for a reason: it is simultaneously\u00a0tender and steely, masterfully integrating the infinite scale of the particulate cosmos with the particular stuff of the everyday. Smith’s poems about her father, a retired NASA scientist, are especially moving. I began the book while home sick from work one day, read it all in one sitting, and when I finished, I closed its pages and wept.<\/p>\n * * *<\/p>\n Recommended by Wendy<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n The Palace of Contemplating Departure<\/a> Wendy’s comments:<\/strong>\u00a0Brynn Saito’s\u00a0The Palace of Contemplating Departure\u00a0<\/em>is\u00a0a sublime meditation on arrivals and departures, childhood, sisterhood, lost love, and freedom. From cityscape to dreamscape, these poems are deeply felt and fully realized.<\/p>\n * * *<\/p>\n Recommended by Henry<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n The Proxy Eros<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n by Mookie Katigbak Burning Houses<\/a><\/em> * * *<\/p>\n Recommended by Jai<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n Islands Linked By Ocean<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n by Lisa Linn Kanae Jai’s comments: <\/strong>I was blown away by Kanae’s experimental text written in (and about)\u00a0Hawaiian Creole English and pidgin, “Sista Tongue.” This collection of\u00a0her short stories is deeply moving, flat-out hilarious, and\u00a0strengthened by the sharp vulnerability in each character’s voice.<\/p>\n TwERK<\/em><\/a> Jai’s comments:\u00a0<\/strong>This book is sonic genius . . . Diggs is sonic genius. A multilingual\u00a0text written in Cherokee, Japanese, Spanish, Quechua, Yoruba and more,\u00a0it is a (re)sounding “werk” of kinesthetic\/kine-sonic delight.<\/p>\n ZONG!<\/em>\u00a0<\/a> Jai’s comments:\u00a0<\/strong>In 1781 on the slave ship Zong,<\/em> over 150 slaves were thrown overboard\u00a0in order for the ship’s owners to collect insurance money. Philip\u00a0grasps at these submerged voices, a drowned language. Reading this\u00a0book is disorienting and chaotic\u2014letters are jettisoned from words, phrases are cast and broken. In this horror, in this violence done\u00a0unto language\/bodies, the dead arise from the sea.<\/p>\n * * *<\/p>\n For additional reading, we also recommend any of the following titles that we featured here on the blog during 2013:<\/p>\n What were your favorite reads in 2013? Tell us in the comments, or share a link with us on Facebook or Twitter! Have a safe and wonderful new year, and we’ll see you in 2014.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It’s that time again! It’s become a tradition, at the end of every calendar year, for the staff to post a list of favorite reads from among the books that we’ve read in the past 365 days. Without further ado, here are our picks for this year. Recommended by Iris Mezzanines by Matthew Olzmann […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[14],"tags":[1007,1013,1016,1009,1014,39,616,293,968,1012,1008,1011,997,1010,1015,1017],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lanternreview.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7065"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lanternreview.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lanternreview.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lanternreview.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lanternreview.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7065"}],"version-history":[{"count":22,"href":"https:\/\/www.lanternreview.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7065\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7095,"href":"https:\/\/www.lanternreview.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7065\/revisions\/7095"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lanternreview.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7065"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lanternreview.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7065"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lanternreview.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7065"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"MEZZANINES\"](\"https:\/\/www.lanternreview.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/MezzaninesFrontCover-copy.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n
\n<\/em>by Matthew Olzmann
\nAlice James, 2013<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n
\n<\/em>by Luisa A. Igloria
\nU of Santo Tomas, 2013<\/p>\n<\/a>Life on Mars<\/a><\/em>
\nby Tracy K. Smith
\nGraywolf, 2011<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n
\n<\/em>by Brynn Saito
\nRed Hen, 2013<\/p>\n<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n
\nAnvil, 2008<\/p>\n
\nby Mookie Katigbak-Lacuesta
\nUniversity of Santo Tomas, 2013<\/p>\n<\/a>
\nHenry’s comments:<\/strong>\u00a0I first encountered Mookie Katigbak’s “As Far As Cho-Fu-Sa,” a\u00a0variation on Pound’s adaptation of the Li Po poem, when I was just\u00a0starting to take poetry seriously. I remember actually getting upset\u00a0that she had nothing more published at the time. So imagine my joy\u00a0when I rediscovered Katigbak just this month, whose name has since\u00a0expanded, and who now has two books of poems which contend with myth and canons in gorgeously clarifying visions. These lines from that early poem (which you can find in The Proxy Eros<\/em>) have echoed with me\u00a0for years: “What I am, ever, is this: composure of stones. . . . \/ \/But nothing moves. Somewhere \/ You are actual. Happen to me there.”<\/p>\n<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n
\nBamboo Ridge Press, 2009<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n
\nby LaTasha N. Nevada Diggs
\nBelladonna, 2013<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n
\nM. NourbeSe Philip
\nWesleyan University Press, 2008<\/p>\n\n