#readsealeywithme

[dotheunstuck]

Sealey Challenge Day 10

"Ecstasy" by Alex Dimitrov

I found Dimitrov via Tumblr a while ago, with his poem "Someone in Paris, France is Thinking of You".

An intense collection that feels exactly what I imagine being young and hot in NYC would feel like.

[dotheunstuck]

Sealey Challenge Day 9

"Kitchen Hymns" by Pádraig Ó Tuama

I love Pádraig's podcast and collections - his poetry unbound project is such a wonderful way to approach poetry. And this poem knocked my lapsed catholic ass over.

[dotheunstuck]

Sealey Challenge Day 8

"Short Talks" by Anne Carson

Oh, I wanted to love this, but I STRUGGLED. I'm going to have to read more of her work and come back to this, I think.

[dotheunstuck]

Sealey Challenge Day 7

"The Theory and Practice of Rivers" by Jim Harrison

Most of this book is a long form poem, a portion of which is below.

[dotheunstuck]

Sealey Challenge Day 6

"Crush" by Richard Siken

I already wrote on this book, and words will never enough. Here's another poem as a treat.

[dotheunstuck]

Sealey Challenge Day 5

"Letters to a Young Poet" by Rainer Maria Rilke

Technically not poetry, but also not not poetry. Another perennial favorite, though.

To be honest, I had completely forgotten how central eroticism is to one of my favorite letters, and how Rilke identifies it as another way of knowing one's way into one's questions. I've had complicated relationships with ideas of eroticism and desire and how we treat them in US culture over the years, so that was interesting to revisit and consider in this reread.

[dotheunstuck]

Sealey Challenge Day 2

Mothman Apologia by Robert Wood Lynn

This was a reread for me - I read this about a month ago, and it lit my brain on fire. This is a Yale Younger Poets book, which my all time favorite collection of poetry is (siken's "Crush"). Like Crush, this collection caught me under the ribs and pulled. Besotted with this one.

The Elegies for Fire and Oxycodone ate some of the best concrete poetry I've seen in contemporary work

Lynn is so good at using juxtaposition to build meaning.

[dotheunstuck]

Sealey Challenge Day 1

Shadow of Sirius by W.S. Merwin

Merwin is one of those poets that I've somehow always read around (one of the perils of having one's poetic education be entirely self-directed). He was a name I knew, in a vague, who's who of late 20th century letters kind of way.

So when I found this at a local bookstore (shop local, friends), and saw it was from Copper Canyon, and won the pulitzer, and was just the right length for a day off, it seemed right.

Absolutely lovely collection.

Cursory thoughts:

Beautiful, crystalline imagery

A handling of time through verse I'll be coming back to study

No punctuation - only line and stanza breaks

I have with me / all that I do not know / I have lost none of it