I read a lot this year. Sometimes it felt like the only thing I could do. I found myself checking out 4-5 books from the library at the end of my Friday shift and returning 2-3 of those books upon returning to the library on Monday. While plenty of books remained (and remain) unread and in stacks around me, I’m inspired and dazzled by this list below. I mostly read poetry (over 100 collections), but I also read 15 novels, 12 short story collections, 7 graphic novels, 3 children’s books, and 1 memoir. Here, in no particular order, is a small chunk of that long list.
[note: shameless self plug - here are my favorite books of 2020. And 2019. And 2018. And, uh, * coughs and feels old *, 2017.]
Okay. As the great podcast Weird Studies always says, “On with the show.”
Joanna Ruocco
The Week (2017)
Field Glass (w/ Joanna Howard) (2017)
Dan (2014)
Another Governess / The Least Blacksmith, a Diptych (2012)
A Compendium of Domestic Incidents (2011)
Man’s Companions (2010)
The Mothering Coven (2009)
I fell in love with the writing of Joanna Ruocco this year. After a few stumblestarts with her novel Dan (I’ll forever be intimidated by long chapters and this book is one long chapter) I finally burned through it with joy and proceeded to devour any and all things Ruocco. Along with writing the most unpredictable novel I've ever read, she also has numerous books of shimmering prose that teeter on poetry and bleeds into microfictions or short stories. Tales dancing as magical news updates. Novellas that sit side-by-side. It’s all meticulous on the level of the line, and for that, I am grateful. I still have a few more Ruocco books to read (so many!), as well as her romance alter ego Joanna Lowell.
"The people are all dead and the animals are too, but new animals are coming now, down through the mountains, so it must be safe again, and the bones in the tree knock together and no one tells us it's time to go home anymore, but we go."
Kiik Araki-Kawaguchi
The Book of Kane and Margaret (2020)
I didn't know what to expect from the debut novel by Araki-Kawaguchi. I was hesitant when I saw WWII because I often struggle with nonfiction and “period pieces”, but HOLY SHIT HOW I WAS WRONG! My jaw dropped before page 5 and the tears arrived before page 10. This is one of the most inventive and magnificent novels I have ever read. Told in fragmented doses of surrealism and awe where each chapter seemingly starts from scratch while still gathering past baggage. Reading this book felt like hallucinating in the desert, hearing campfire tales beyond human comprehension. It's a smoke signal in the dust, it's a god-like insect resting on velvet. It's 100 dreams within one fully original book.
I can’t wait for you to read Kiik’s debut poetry collection, Disintegration Made Plain and Easy (2022, out through 1913 Press). Interview coming soon.
Rikki Ducornet
Trafik (2021)
The Complete Butcher's Tales (1994)
I love that the only two books I have read by prolific storyteller Rikki Ducornet are so similar and different at the same time. Both made up of 2-3 page snapshots, The Complete Butcher’s Tales (1994) is a collection of unhinged fables and folkloric fairy tales, while Trafik teeters into futuristic science fiction, a steampunk saga told in snippets of data entries. Both are magical while one steps back in time and the other runs forward.
Thank you, David Naimon, for putting me on to Ducornet’s work.
Herta Müller
Father's on the Phone with Flies: A Selection
(originally published in German in 2012,
with an English translation by Thomas Cooper in 2018)
I don’t know anything about this author and I don’t know how I found this book but I’m glad I did. Father’s on the Phone with Flies is a collection (or selection) of collage poems that look like German ransom notes that are then translated into English. These are dreamy and woozy and magical and fun. The kind of book I want on my coffee table for guests to skim through.
Daria Tessler
Cult of the Ibis (2019)
Yes, yes, yes, yes! Take a head-first dive into this menacing wormhole. A mescaline adventure through Escher labyrinths and melting roosters. As if Jim Woodring's Frank was involved in a noir getaway. It seems the press Fantagraphics can do no wrong. Grab this one. Daria Tessler (on Instagram as animalsleepstories) will dilate your pupils.
Annelyse Gelman
POOL (2020)
To read this book is to enter a piece of art. A walk inside a gallery. To open is to witness the creative process, timestamps and all. Once you see the first page, you’ll be immersed within a growing pool. So cool. Unlike anything I've read before.
Head over to Midst if you need another trip.
Edward Carey
The Swallowed Man (2021)
Edward Carey’s newest is one of the most delightful and playful and magical novels I have ever read. A Geppetto side story I didn’t know I needed. I knew it would be dark (literally, the narrator is inside of a sea stomach) and I knew it would be sorrowful, but I didn't expect it to have this much heart. Every lonely page empathizes with the surrounding world. Olivia Crabb is to Geppetto as Wilson is to Tom Hanks in Cast Away. What an emotional, moving tale. A new favorite on my shelf.
[note: I’m also currently (slowly) reading Observatory Mansions (2000)]
Duchess Goldblatt
Becoming Duchess Goldblatt (2020)
Books don’t make me cry very often (maybe 2-3 on this list) but with this anonymous/persona memoir, I cried and I cried and I cried some more. I haven't read a memoir in a while but I'm glad I opened this one. This book warmed and expanded and woke my dormant heart. Funny and touching, just as Her Grace is on Twitter.
Joseph Pintauro
The Peace Box (1970)
The Magic Box (1970)
The Rabbit Box (1970)
A Box of Sun (1970)
Go back in time and unwind with a box of psychedelic love poems. Multimedia collages of vintage graphics and haphazard magic. Poems in cursive in a box of rabbit dreams. These are absurdly expensive books if you can track them down at all, and for that, let’s give a shout-out to Interlibrary Loan.
Guilherme Petreca
Ye (2016)
While reading it, I felt like this graphic novel was made for me. A moving epic that features a snowstorm, a pirate battle, a circus, a hot air balloon, a drunk clown, and more. Such fun with such jaw-dropping illustrations. And boy do I love a good wordless narrator.
Diane Williams
How High? - That High (2021)
The Collected Diane Williams (2018)
Fine, Fine, Fine, Fine, Fine (2016)
Vicky Swanky is a Beauty (2012)
It Was Like My Trying to Have a Tender-Hearted Nature (2007)
Romancer Erector (2001)
The more I read Diane Williams, the less I understand. Her writing terrifies me in the best of ways. What has my brain inhaled? Within her short stories and novellas is where regal meets grotesque. Where bleak meets dream logic draped in velvet. Buying pearls and finding roadkill. Sipping champagne as you chisel warts from your frozen toes.
Sarah Goldstein
Fables (2011)
Sometimes you don’t read a book or see a movie until ten years later, when it’s out of print and difficult to track down. Such was my experience with Sarah Goldstein’s Fables - her first and only book as far as I know. With this collection (out from Tarpaulin Sky) we have tiny fables that pack a wallop. Misplaced fairy tales and welted retellings. This is a collection to cherish if you, like me, refuse to grow up and forget about magic.
Daniel Bailey
A Better Word for the World (2021)
The Drunk Sonnets (2009)
I was introduced to the work of Daniel Bailey this year and read two of his poetry collections: his debut as well as his most recent. With a 12 year difference between the collections, it was interesting to see the evolutions, the similarities, the maturity, the leaps. While The Drunk Sonnets is made up of caps lock sonnets that will throw your heart against the wall time and time again, A Better Word for the World is more quiet, tender, ambient, all the while maintaining an ongoing strong sense of humor. Continual curiosity and fascination despite residing in a fucked world.
Jeremy Radin
Dear Sal (2017, republished 2021)
Slow Dance with Sasquatch (2012)
Confessionals and theatrical monologues and character pieces and sharp jokes and loneliness and dazzling, surrealist delights. The writing of Jeremy Radin is empathetic, tender, observational, so many things working at once. A keen observer and animated performer able to inhabit the characters he sees along the way.
Miriam Bird Greenberg
Into the Volcano’s Mouth (2016)
All night in the new country (2013)
Pact-Blood, Fever Grass (2013)
I took a class earlier this year on myth-making during quarantine with instructor (and poet/author) GennaRose Nethercott. One of her example poems was from Miriam Bird Greenberg’s post-apocalyptic chapbook All night in the new country. After burning through the collection, as well as Pact-Blood, Fever Grass (which came out in the same year), I read her full-length collection and continued to be in awe.
Her work is full of haunting and stark poems. Dystopian countryside terrors. End of the world fables surrounded by animal bones and wet blades. Like if Cormac McCarthy raised goats. Almost every poem is a 2-5 page poem. Epic, ambient whirlwinds. Journeys that demand a knapsack, a compass, and a blade.
Jessica Poli
Canyons (2018)
Jessica Poli’s Canyons is one of the most beautiful books I own. A compact, limited edition collection made up of tiny poems, whispers, inserts, and a marble box to tie it all together. To read it is to hold and recite a prayer. If this collection and her centos are any indication, I’ll be very pleased with whatever she writes next.
Paul Cunningham
The House of the Tree of Sores (2020)
One of the most exciting and unique debut collections I've ever read. Signature in its interlingualism (Swedish and English) and weaving of fable and reality and confusion and misdirection and mayhem. Like eating too much peyote inside of an IKEA. Like finding a black hole in the center of America. We spoke earlier this year about his book, translation, and more.
Evan Nicholls
Holy Smokes (2021)
Evan Nicholls’ debut collection is a blend of collage and prose poetry, mayhem and beauty. He’s one hell of a multimedia artist and this offering is a fine showcase of his eclectic talents. I was fortunate enough to write a blurb for this one, which you can read right here:
"Evan Nicholls has skillfully opened the barn door and set free the rat terriers and the horses and the pumas and the goats... Vikings and cowboys, snow peaches and beans. Holy Smokes is right: this collection is an 'auction talk' whirlwind, a multimedia parade of nature and beast and beating heart."
Donna Stonecipher
Transaction Histories (2018)
Model City (2015)
The Cosmopolitan (2008)
Souvenir de Constantinople (2007)
The Reservoir (2002)
I found many new “favorites” this year, but when it comes to the prose poem, discovering Donna Stonecipher takes the cake. Born out of obsession and meticulous yet whimsical sequencing, each collection celebrates language in the best of ways. Memories and contradictions and doubling and mirror images. A prose poet unlike any other. It’s a wonder to jump inside.
“Night was falling, and the people all sat quietly in their living rooms, wondering if the future had any candy in its purse.”
Peter Markus
When Our Fathers Return to Us as Birds (2021)
Inside My Pencil: Teaching Poetry in Detroit Public Schools (2017)
Bob, or Man on Boat (2008)
I read one Peter Markus book last year [Good, Brother (2001)] which opened the door, but it wasn’t until 2021 that I really dove into Serious Markus Territory™️. Bob, or Man on Boat, his minimalist and repetition-driven heart-felt novel felt like reading a really long nursery rhyme or bedtime story. It took me there. Like a river. Like a lake. Like a fish. I followed this up with his nonfiction teaching book, Inside My Pencil, which is stuffed full of heart and curiosity and love. His most recent release is also his debut poetry collection, one written about the growing illness and ultimate passing of his father. Not a light subject, but each page remains packed with shining, blinding light.
Edward Gorey
Amphigorey (1980)
Amphigorey Too (1980)
1925-2000. The goat. A legend. A joy. Lemony Snicket before Lemony Snicket. Dark and twisted and delightful and fun. These tiny books within his anthologized bigger books were significant inspirations for a short collection I’m working on called Hearsery Rhymes. I’m going to buy these for my nephews when they’re a wee bit older. Rest in Peace to a titan.
Elizabeth Robinson
On Ghosts (2013)
Counterpart (2012)
Three Novels (2011)
Also Known As (2009)
The Orphan & its Relations (2008)
Apostrophe (2006)
Under That Silky Roof (2006)
Apprehend (2002)
Pure Descent (2002)
House Made of Silver (2000)
Elizabeth Robinson has so many great examples of project books, or book-length concepts, or inter-linked sequences. Condensed fairy tales and fables, surrealist visions and daydreams. Often speaking with past source text, forming something vivid and new. To read her work is to meditate, to slow your breathing, and float.
Amina Cain
Indelicacy (2020)
Creature (2013)
Author Amina Cain has written two quiet books. Ekphrastic in their looking glasses. Her book of stories, Creature, is a book full of ambient, hushed ghosts. Characters and scenes that seem to be half-asleep, nearly floating, nearly dead. With her debut novel, Indelicacy, a lone wolf forges her own path through diary entries, moving paintings, dresses, class, friends, and (in)fidelity.
Fiston Mwanza Mujila
The River in the Belly (2021)
[tr. from French by J. Bret Maney]
I was thrilled to see Fiston Mwanza Mujila’s debut (English) collection of poems on Deep Vellum’s calendar this year. I read his novella Tram 83 five or six years ago and it still sits with me, burning like a joint in the cave of my brain. With his new poetry collection, we have a headfirst plunder into jazz-soaked fevers of the river's underbelly, where a daydreaming reporter soaks in his surroundings like a surreal sponge. Visceral, original, fragmented madness.
Sara Kachelman
Autopsy of the Sewing Machine (2019)
This inventive book is a work of art. Prose poems and mosaics pulled from antique sewing machine manuals and thrown into a kind of instructive taxidermy guide book. While this book is no longer in print, and while her debut collection Socratic Wig seems to still be in development, I’ll wait patiently for whatever it is Kachelman does next.
Bronka Nowicka
To Feed the Stone (2021)
[tr. from Polish by Katarzyna Szuster]
I don’t know if these are short stories or prose poems or parables and I’m okay with that uncertainty. Like Daniil Kharms arm wrestling with Russell Edson in a living room in Poland. Insane and absurd and sad and confused and lost in translation.
"They shoved food in their heads and pulled out words."
John Colasacco
The Wagners (2019)
Two Teenagers (2016)
John Colasacco sculpts madcap journeys. The Wagners throws you down a wormhole of domestic bewilderment while Two Teenagers has every page beginning with the same line, then going in very unexpected and unpredictable directions. Poetic narratives, narrative poetics. Hoard your hallucinogens and get to reading.
Katie Jean Shinkle
Ruination (2018)
This book will stay with me for weeks and months and years to come. One of the more original worlds I've entered, especially within a collection of poetry. Open wide and read along as women turn to flower, tree, branch, bark, dirt, earth.
[note: I also read somewhere that she’s working on a collaborative novel, so look out for that.]
Moon Bo Young
Pillar of Books (2021)
[tr. from Korean by Hedgie Choi]
This book is a breathtaking trip! Dense and eclectic and funny and strange. Every page presents us with a writer showing off their many poetic skills. I especially loved the prose poems scattered throughout.
“In the fog a man with a nose like a bookmark sells lottery tickets.”
Glen Baxter
Almost Completely Baxter (2016)
Comics. Poems. Odes. Mystery puzzles. Humor. Jokes. I spent a great deal of time with this collection on my coffee table, flipping to a random page whenever I needed a small break. These are a delight. Swipe for a taste.
Kelby Losack
Hurricane Season (2021)
I read this novel is one sitting. Gritty and real from start to finish. Ghosts and dead horses and god-like raccoons and Kevin Gates lyrics. This one reads like grinding teeth. I’m eager to get my hands on more writing from Losack, whose voice is original and refreshing as hell.
Barton Smock
Untouched in the Capital of Soon (2021)
Skin to Skin in an Unmarked Life (2021)
Rocks Have the Softest Shadows (2020)
Ghost Arson (2018)
I am 100% a Barton Smock fanboy. Do yourself a favor and grab just one of his books. Read just one of his poems. He has hundreds (thousands?) on his website. You’ll be hooked. Sparse, surreal, dream-like, fluid. To start to read is to have no idea where you are about to go. One of my favorite poets. Period.
Susanna Clarke
Piranesi (2021)
I normally read way more poetry collections than novels, yet it’s often the novels that sit in my head longer. More demanding, maybe, but frequently more rewarding and more immersive. Piranesi is a perfect example of this immersion. The landscape and setting is one of my favorite locations I’ve entered within a novel. The world-building! The atmosphere! The heart of the main character! I could have lived in this house forever.
[note: mark my words - this will (rightfully so) be made into a movie.]
[additional note: when you’re done reading Piranesi, listen to this in-depth podcast discussion and dissection.]
Souvankham Thammavongsa
Cluster (2019)
Light (2013)
Found (2007)
Earlier this year, I tuned in for a Zoom reading of Vi Khi Nao, and one of the other readers on the bill took my breath away: Souvankham Thammavongsa. She started reading a poem about her mother giving birth after turning 60 and offering the baby to her and I was hooked. Surreal and sparse and reflective and off-kilter, her three collections of poetry are ones to read in one sitting, in one held breath.
Patrick Lawler
Rescuers of skydivers search among the clouds (2012)
Feeding the Fear of the Earth (2006)
Reading a Burning Book (1994)
A Drowning Man is Never Tall Enough (1990)
The tail-end of 2021 has been spent reading the work of Patrick Lawler. After devouring his snapshot novel of sparse fragments and domestic dream snippets (Rescuers of skydivers search among the clouds), I read his three poetry collections, all of which are part of a quadrilogy of the natural elements (earth, fire, water - still waiting on wind). His imagination sings. It has no ceiling.
“I lived in a cellar. A house grew out of my belly.”
Jeff Alessandrelli
Fur Not Light (2019)
This Last Time Will Be the First (2014)
Erik Satie Watusies His Way Into Sound (2012)
I found Alessandrelli’s work through the Surreal-Absurd Sampler over at Mercurius Magazine. One of the founders of the indie press Fonograf Editions, his poetry collections are full of inspired voices, dancing ghosts, slapstick sorrow, and deadpan absurdisms. Truly a treat.
Vik Shirley
Grotesquerie for the Apocalypse (2021)
Vik Shirley’s collection couldn’t have a more fitting title. Inspired by Kharms, Edson, and Tate, the UK poet’s pamphlet is a surreal offering of ghost poems and twisted grief, splitting in half a majorette and later showcasing a sequence of Hello Kitty nightmares. It’s a lot of goddamn fun.
Tom Snarsky
Light-Up Swan (2021)
Tom Snarsky’s debut full-length poetry collection is a book on love and joy and gratitude and curiosity and an endless dance that blends them all. I feel like this book is speaking to hundreds of voices, living and dead. A community. A town. An inspired and inspiring read.
Hiromi Kawakami
People From My Neighborhood (2021)
Having only been available in the U.S. for a few weeks, Kawakami’s collection of short stories are linked pieces of flash that all take place on the same street, or at the same school, or in the same back yard, always playing a little with fable, with monster, with magic forever dancing in the background. These are pristine, crystalline modern fairy tales.
Mike Topp
The Poetry Jug (2021)
29 Mini Essays (2012)
Sasquatch Stories (2010)
I interviewed writer Mike Topp earlier this year and declared him the King of the Brief. The humorist works inside of a tiny confines, often a joke told in a sentence or two. Short enough for a tweet. He released his Collected earlier this year and if you ask nicely, he might mail you one.
“My mother has the brain of a serial killer. She keeps it in a fancy gold box on the mantle of her fireplace.”
some 2021 chapbooks:
Leigh Chadwick - Daughters of the State
John Maradik - The Python
Ori Fienberg - Old Habits, New Markets
Evan Williams - The Pony from Waco
Stuart Buck - Blue the Green Sky
2020/21 releases by authors previously mentioned:
Michael Bazzett - The Echo Chamber
C.T. Salazar - American Cavewall Sonnets
Nathan Hoks - Nests in Air
Zachary Schomburg - Fjords Vol. 2
Mark Leidner - Returning the Sword to the Stone
Jennifer L. Knox - Crushing It
stack of to-be-read books that will probably be on next year’s list:
Catherine Lacey - Pew
Mark Baumer - The One on Earth
Tyler Barton - Eternal Night at the Nature Museum
Rainie Oet - Glorious Veils of Diane
Sean Shearer - Red Lemons
