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National Poetry Month Detox
May 3, 2007
April is over. It wasn't cruel, but, for people involved who work in the business side of poetry--if such a thing exists--it is perhaps exhausting. Dozens of poetry titles were released last month, from obscure first books, to highly anticipated first books, to second books by up-and-comers, to mid-career books by established poets, to umpteenth books by old people. So lots of books . And also lots of readings. And strange, otherwise unheard of promotional devices. FSG started a wonderful blog, maintained by theiir excellent publicist Ami Greko. And HarperCollins kept it's blog a-going. And poet-bloggers kept their blogs a-going.
Anyway, as somebody who's pretty obsessed with poetry all year 'round, I tend to get a little oversaturated during NPM. Of course, a lot of my work here at PW is done in March or earlier. The poetry sections in the three preceeding months were overstuffed with reviews of April books. And I wrote our two features--a profile of Peter Gizzi and an article about literary magazines--leading up to March. Now, things are finally getting back to normal.
Which, of course, means more new books coming down the pike for spring, summer and early fall. Look out for promising titles by T.K. Smith, Fanny Howe, Les Murray, Joanna Klink, A.Van Jordan, Cate Marvin, Donna Stonecipher, Michael Dumanis, Tony Tost and many others. Selections and compendiums are due soon from Franz Wright, Carl Phillips, the late Ted Hughes, Breyten Breytenbach, W.S Merwin, X.J. Kennedy and Ed Ochester. I hear, though I haven't seen the galleys, that the fall will also bring new books by G.C. Waldrep, Robyn Schiff and, well, me! So, while they're not all coming in one month, there's a lot to look forward to.
For now, though, I'd be happy to just conssder this National May Month, the month every year when we remember the fact that it's may, and that's good enough.
Posted by Craig Morgan Teicher on May 3, 2007 | Comments (0)
