This week for #thesealeychallenge, I am turning my attention to the books on my shelf that were, in some way, formative for me as an author. Books that it's been a decade or more since I revisiited but feel I should. As in my entry from a few days ago on mentorship, I feel like so many of these books led by example. All by women, mostly contemporaries of the same generation more or less, these books were the books I was discovering in the aughts--a time when I was just beginning to come into anything like a poetic voice. Many were poets I was getting to know, either IRL (Simone Muench) or on the web (Daniel Pafunda). Some are poets I've never actually met (Larissa Szporluk, Catherine Barnett) and some are poets I met or friended long after I was already a fan (Sabrina Orah Mark, Mary Ann Samyn, Jenny Boully) At least a couple, I've had the delightful pleasure of publishing through dgp. Many were recommendations to me--from other poets, from teachers, from folks in my MFA program. They span a lot of different styles and purposes of poetry. They range in release date through the entirety of the decade and represent a number of different presses. Some were prize winners, some more indie press releases.
There were actually a couple more I would have included but could not. Last week, I reread Daphne Gottlieb's Final Girl, which would definitely make this list if it hadn't happened last week. I could not find my copy of And Her Soul Out of Nothing by Olena Kalytiak Davis, but it definitely also would have made the list. I kept it to only seven (I intend to raid my library stash for new reads next week, but other books I pulled from mys shelves and put back for lack of room this week , include Rebecca Loudon's Radish King, June Jordan's Carolina Ghost Woods, Karen Volkman's Spar.), They are also books from CD Wright, Jorie Graham, Plath, Millay, Carolyn Forche that are from earlier generations that could otherwise go on this list.)
I am enjoying my picks and find that they are not to cumbersome if I keep them with me throughout the day rather than setting aside a time to get through them in one sitting. I am also finding that reading poems sets my mind churning a bit more even when I am away from the page, which is good oil for the machine since i am hoping to get back to my morning routine and finish the spell project by month's end.
