Attention Span 2011 | Joshua Edwards

Srikanth Reddy | Voyager | California | 2011

At the time of this writing I’m in Berlin, and Reddy’s triple-erasure of Kurt Waldheim’s memoir would be an especially poignant reread here . . . had I the foresight to bring it along. Sadly, I didn’t bring any books except for the collected Yeats, so I’ve gotta depend on my shoddy memory. That said, before I left I’d read Voyager a couple of times already, and it’s one of my very favorite books of the past few years—a haunting portrayal of individual consciousness and collective ghosts.

Anne Carson | Glass, Irony and God | Vintage | 1995

Glass, Irony and God helps me read better and travel with a more astonished eye, and Carson’s wry, hyper-aware meditations are good for the (dare I say) soul.

Paul Valéry, trans. various | Selected Writings of Paul Valéry | New Directions | 1964

“All powerful, inescapable astral strangers, / Deigning to let shine far off in time / Something supernaturally sublime”

John Milton | The Complete Poems | Penguin Classics | 1999

Samson Agonistes and Paradise Lost are fundamental influences to the verse novella I’m at work on, so I’ve been living in a cool Miltonic shadow for the better part of two years.

Coral Bracho, trans. Forrest Gander | Firefly Under the Tongue | New Directions | 2008

Coral Bracho read in San Francisco earlier this year with another great Mexican poet, María Baranda (whose book, Ficticia, I translated), and it was wonderful to become reacquainted with the luscious, inimitable poems in this collection through her voice. The work in Firefly Under the Tongue is full of surprises of sound, phrases that redouble and move between meanings, and astonishing mindfulness. Forrest Gander’s translation is excellent.

Brandon Shimoda | The Girl Without Arms | Black Ocean | 2010

These poems come from out of the sacrebleu. The Girl Without Arms is intensely lyrical, disturbing, funny, and weirdly warm. Its syntax is slippery and unique. Its voice is that of a brilliant mind that perhaps belongs to another era wrestling with a maximalist world (perhaps akin to Ceravolo in this way). Shimoda’s got another book coming out soon—I can’t wait.

William Shakespeare | Macbeth | Royal Shakespeare Company | 2011

My partner Lynn and I went to an amazing production of Macbeth in Stratford this summer. It was especially good to see since I reread the play a month or so before, and I could therefore follow what was going on instead of getting lost in the play’s language, which is what usually happens to me with Shakespeare. As expected, it was creepy and exceedingly bloody.

Sappho, trans. various | Various | Various | Various

For quite some time this spring I always had an edition of Sappho in my backpack and a few others on my desk.

Cedar Sigo | Stranger in Town | City Lights | 2010

A lot of people told me about Cedar Sigo and I read a great chapbook of his published by House Press, then I got hold of Stranger in Town. His poems are supercharged with energy and life—they’re romantic, funny, and personal, and they hearken back to the sixties while also seeming to come from a parallel universe. Also, they’ve got great titles.

Alan Gilbert | Late in the Antennae Fields | Futurepoem | 2011

I’m always on the lookout for Alan Gilbert’s poems, and I think I’d read most of Late in the Antennae Fields before the collection came out. It’s great to now have all the work in one place—the poems accumulate force as the collection goes along, and I recommend reading it all in one sitting, then going back over each poem slowly to enjoy the book’s astonishing images and turns of phrase.

Susan Howe | That This | New Directions | 2011

I haven’t read as much of Susan Howe’s work as I feel I should have. Luckily, a friend of mine in Berlin has That This, and she lent it to me. It’s a beautiful book, extremely nuanced and challenging.

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Joshua Edwards is the author of Campeche and the publisher of Canarium Books. Edwards’s Attention Span for 2010, 2009, 2007. Back to 2011 directory.

Attention Span 2009 – Elizabeth Treadwell

Jennifer Firestone & Dana Teen Lomax, eds. | Letters to Poets | Saturnalia | 2008

“I for one don’t care about George Bush, we shouldn’t be disturbed by dogs, or low caste people and the power they have, they are average minds with a lot of power and attention, but for me they are just farts who don’t know the true history of how cultures and science weave. They are always into themselves, they cannot perceive other people or the pain that they are causing them. Obviously you can’t reach them with language.”—Victor Hernandez Cruz, to Brenda Coultas

“Female history is always destabilized by whatever guy is now watching the line of women parading by. It’s maddening but those guys will never change. We have to think differently. ….I think females need to write new fictions to hold their truths….. We have to set each other up better all the time and the terms of the world are always inadequate to women’s true accomplishments…..The feminine line means that above all women mustn’t be contemptuous of themselves. Just when the last thing going on is one’s purported femininity, it erupts like a big bow. We’re just so many things. I distrust my own jargon, my abandoning of the feminine for the female. I guess I was preferring sex over gender, but later thinking how arrogant to pretend not to be feminine. For anyone really. Why is the feminine the thing to hate. Something men, or mothers made to control girls. Surely it can free us too, then in some homeopathic way. I often forget words, that’s why I like holes. All this quiet diving through the dictionary and a bird comes up tweeting.”—Eileen Myles, to Jennifer Firestone

Reid Gomez | K’e/For Future Reference | http://reidgomez.blogspot.com | ongoing

“Food, dolls, stories, baskets, beadwork, silverwork, weavings, hand drums, flutes, songs and dances tell us who we are and teach us how to care for ourselves and our relations. Farmers, artists, wise men and women, weavers, dancers and singers invest their time and money living tradition, making a place for us in the here and now. They invest their resources in us and our future, creating and forging relationships that support us as individuals and as people. When we support them we support ourselves. When we purchase objects or services based in hate and exploitation we are funding hate and exploitation.”

Ann Vickery | Leaving Lines of Gender: A Feminist Genealogy of Language Writing | Wesleyan | 2000

Such dear close history, a little surprised I’m just reading it now.

Nate Dorward, ed. | Antiphonies: Essays on Women’s Experimental Poetries in Canada | The Gig | 2008

The Johanson on Annharte and O’Leary on Wolsak were of particular interest to me.

Trevor Joyce | Courts of Air & Earth | Shearsman | 2008

The gorgeous Irish. Love it. Trans from the trad, intro’d by Fanny Howe.

Tim Atkins | Folklore | Salt | 2008

“Milks. Stitched into history.”

A curious pleasure to read this in conjunction with the above.

Andrew Rippeon | Priest | 2008

This little chap just appeared in my box, beautiful work.

Cathy Park Hong, Evie Shockley, &c, eds. | jubilat

Never a dull issue. I especially enjoyed the interview with CB I Hate Perfume in #15.

David Brazil & Sara Larsen, eds. | Try

Again with the never a dull issue, plus highly lovable production values.

Sappho, trans. Willis Barnstone | Poems | Green Integer |1999

Keeping this close of late.

More Elizabeth Treadwell here.