best poetry 2008

Out goes 2008, welcome 2009! But before I obliterate a year of poetry reading, it’s time to reflect on poetry. Now granted, my life in poetry has mainly been located in the poetry I taught in 2008 and the poetry located in the rubric of my reading lists for my comprehensive exams (aka comps or, as I affectionately call it in verb form, comping). Thus my tastes are not located in 2008 primarily, but span, say 108 years. Please, no ad hominem attacks, no factious comments, no bathetic praise for my idiosyncratic reading practices. I’m at fault, but feel free to divert responsibility elsewhere. Blame the weather, blame the election coup of the media, blame the garden, etc.

*cough* the list then:

Kumin, Maxine. Selected Poems: 1960-1990.
Campo, Rafael. What the Body Told.
Grahn, Judy. Work of a Common Woman: The Collected Poetry of Judy Grahn: 1964-1977.
Bradfield, Liz. Interpretive Works
Miller, Leslie Adrienne. The Resurrection Tale: Poems
Raz, Hilda. All Odd and Splendid.
Swenson, May. Nature: Poems Old and New.
Ostriker, Alicia Suskin. No Heaven.
Cihlar, Jim. Undoing.
Bosselaar, Laure-anne. The Hour Between Dog and Wolf: Poems.

Honorable mentions include the rereading of works by Audre Lorde, Elizabeth Bishop, and Carl Sandburg.

The new year has begun and I’m cuddling up with Pound, Stevens, Roethke, and a few others I haven’t met yet.