Cloudland Canyon, my one destination for spring break
Now that we’re on spring break, ten beautiful days, I have some spare time to update this blog. Don’t imagine me living it up in Cancún, however. I’ll be at home, catching up on laundry and writing a paper. I never was one of those Daytona Beach types, anyway. When I was studying Spanish in Madrid, I spent a whole week reading La Regenta while my compadres went to Egypt. Ugh.
Since a few people have wondered what books we’re reading in the MFA program I attend, I’m providing a list from one of my current courses. This semester I’m taking Contemporary American Poetry; all the books we’re looking at have been published within the last ten years. In fact, most of them are from within the last three years. Each student in the class had the opportunity to choose a collection to present –mine was Slamming Open the Door, by Kathleen Sheeder Bonanno.
I want to add a book that we aren’t studying, but one I’ve read this semester and that I highly recommend. One of the poets in the class, Emily Elizabeth Schulten, has a first book that has just launched: Rest in Black Haw. I’ve heard her read twice in Atlanta-the poems are authentic, intimate, and well-crafted. They’ll floor you with their attention to the natural world and their implications of human connections. Stay tuned for a review in the next few weeks. In the meantime, you can enjoy this amazing poem, “Labor Day Weekend,” featured on Verse Daily.
Bonanno, Kathleen Sheeder. Slamming Open the Door
Dickman, Matthew. All American Poem
Hass, Robert. Time and Materials
Kaminsky, Ilya. Dancing in Odessa
Balanced On the Edge 
“Labor Day Weekend” is awesome. I love the natural images, and these lines are so wonderful:
“I tasted your bourbon fat tongue.
We laid this way until we slept,
hair slop-soaked with algae,
and the morning burned my bare skin.”
And, of course, the ending is excellent. The dirt and the filth is so beautiful, isn’t it? Thanks for all of the links. I’ll go check everything out now. Have a great spring break, Christine!
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I also read the poem “Labor Day” and was struck by the sense of a past time, melancholy. I love that, how a poem that has nothing to do with me can conjure my own recollection, a feeling more than anything else. Nice to get your reading list, too.
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Have a wonderful spring break, my friend, and thank you for sharing your eclectic reading list. I hope you’re going to allow yourself a little time to dream and stare out the window.
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