Gosh, the first sentence is always the hardest. I suppose by way of introduction, my name's Natalie, and I write, read, and critically review poetry, the latter of which is the hope for this here blog. Now, when I say I "critically review poetry," this means neither that I read poems in some remote area of Upstate New York and brim with utter hatred at the thought—no, gall—of this or that idea, nor does it mean that I believe my opinions are the be-all-end-all of contemporary poetry. Whether flouting or fawning, the purpose of this blog is to investigate the stakes in poetry collections fresh to scene via review and interview.
Since it's Summer '10 and I'm not yet employed thanks to our fledgling economy and my seemingly meaningless MFA-degree, I've been buying a lot of books at St. Mark's Bookstore, the Barnes & Noble at Union Square, and Spoonbill, close enough to my stomping grounds in Brooklyn. (That's right, you read a whole paragraph without knowing that I'm actually Brooklyn scum.) These are some books that I've picked up (and guys, listen, I need to emotionally prepare you—not all these books are poetry collections, okay?), which for now, I'll merely describe in three words, this way it's less likely of sounding like reckless blurbing:
Raptus by Joanna Klink— Kindhearted Crisis Lyric
Jesus' Son by Denis Johnson— Vicious Journey Nowhere
Orion You Came And You Took All My Marbles by Kira Henehan— Hardboiled Metaphysical Irony
Mean Free Path by Ben Lerner— Discursive Psychological Redemption
All of these books are brand-spanking new except for Jesus' Son, which admittedly took a while to enter my radar, and an even longer while to actually purchase, and an extremely short while to read. The other three books you should expect to see review posts for in the near future, as I'm sure my minx-y exclamations have made you just short of piss yourself in minx-activated glee over.
Is it weird that I'm totally cool with Google's templates? My limited savviness it seems has exchanged canny sensibilities for complacent approval. One day, poetrydegree.blogspot.com, you will be beautiful.
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