Top Five Poetry Books and Poetry Chapbooks of 2009

First I shall admit that my top five poetry book and poetry chapbook choices of 2009 are subjective and based upon the somewhat limited number of poetry books published in 2009 that I actually had the pleasure of reading. While I might have read more poetry books than some readers, I still read nowhere close to all the potentially interesting sounding releases of the year. If only I had enough resources and time to enable me to acquire and partake of every poetry collection that caught my fancy, but alas, such is not the case. Happily, I still enjoyed many pleasurable and provocative poetry reading experiences, though.

Allow me to begin with the category of poetry chapbooks, which for those who are unaware, are small tomes, sometimes hand-designed or featuring other personalized touches, often presenting a collection of material that is thematically linked, and always considerably shorter than a full-length poetry book. Whereas a full-length collection is typically at least 50 pages long, a chapbook is more likely to run anywhere from about 10-40 pages. Some chapbooks are published by the author herself or by an artist collective; some are published by independent presses, university-based presses, or other small publishing outfits. Also, in these screen-friendly times, there are plenty of e-publishers of chapbook-length collections, in addition to the print-based publishers.

For more information about poetry chapbook publishing, feel free to read my article, 'DIY Poetry Publishing Power', here:

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/1494846/diy_poetry_publishing_power.html?cat=2

and/or my article focusing upon my very own small poetry press, here:

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/2346286/columbusbased_poetry_publisher_blood.html?cat=2

To take a closer look at some poetry chapbook wares, you may also visit the Blood Pudding Press etsy shop, here:

http://www.BloodPuddingPress.etsy.com

Having presented that little poetry chapbook explanation, I will now move on to my shortlist of five favored poetry chapbooks and then full-length poetry books of 2009, listed by title, author, and publisher-and in some cases, followed by a link, in case you'd like to partake of a book review.

Top Five Poetry Chapbooks 2009:

~Ode to Industry by Michelle Detorie, Dusie Kollektiv

Feminism meets the industrial rhythms of machination, mechanization, and assembly line constraints; it weaves and warps and fuses into a dangerous hybrid with teeth. Read my full review of this collection here: http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/2486840/for_it_to_work_she_has_to_look_like.html?cat=38

~The Sad Epistles by Emma Bolden, Dancing Girl Press

A poetically sad assembly about pining and longing and secret craving and conflicted desires and unrequited love.

~Squint by Kristen Orser, Dancing Girl Press

A bittersweet and delightfully quirky romp through some creative (mostly inner) landscapes.

~At night, the dead: by Lisa Ciccarello, Blood Pudding Press

A dark meditation on love and death. Read the latest review of this ribbon-bound tome here: http://www.weavemagazine.net/2009/12/at-night-dead-by-lisa-ciccarello.html

~The Spare Room by Dana Guthrie Martin, Blood Pudding Press

An artfully woven and disturbingly resonant suite of poems that combine myth with real life in unlikely ways and draw uniquely thought provoking parallels between torture scenes, sideshow attractions, scientific anomalies, and what it means to be a contemporary woman trying to stake out her own existence as an individual and as a partner.

Top Five Poetry Books 2009:

~Shana Linda~Pretty Pretty by Nanette Rayman-Rivera, Scattered Light Publications

Rayman-Rivera's is an original poetic voice, offering a painful mix of melodious and gritty--beautiful imagination and harsh reality--lush sensuality and unwanted poverty. At times difficult to read due to its themes of homelessness, drug addiction, and withering dreams, yet this book gives us a voice that needs to be heard.

~The Ravenous Audience by Kate Durbin, Black Goat/Akashic Books

A gooey girlie book, but girlie in a primal, sexual, ferocious, and yes ravenous kind of way; childhood innocence and fairy tales quickly gave way to more complex starlets with secret lives , secret desires, and sometimes virulently violent tendencies.

~The Future is Happy by Sarah Sarai, BlazeVOX

This variegated quilt of a collection demonstrates a knack for patching together unlikely juxtapositions. A thread of spirituality runs through much of this book, but it is a very open, inclusive, and generous thread rather than being tightly affixed to any one viewpoint or belief system. Read my full review of this collection, here: http://www.prickofthespindle.com/reviews/3.4/small_presses/sarai/the_future_is_happy.htm

~I Have to Go Back to 1994 and Kill a Girl by Karyna McGlynn, Sarabande Books

The unique female voice within these poems lays out a strange voyeurism of oblique clues, disturbing images, and sense of mounting menace somehow associated with female identity, sex, and death. Stay tuned for my full review coming soon from Gently Read Literature.

~Moth Moon by Matt Jasper, BlazeVOX

From mental illness to existential angst on some sort of cosmic scale, this is a weird and wonderful collection that provokes many different emotions. Stay tuned for my full review coming in February at online literary magazine H_NGM_N.

Happy reading in the New Year and beyond!