Thanks to all for the very enthusiastic response! The Sylvia Plath was the first read of choice from among these but the Philip Larkin had a very respectable showing, and as that is where I will read first, I featured the full cover image above. And the five lucky winners? The ones who will each receive the entire set as seen here?
Ultimate book lust. Last year, I was wowed by the design of the 80th anniversary poetry series, and this year they have come back to provide these cousin editions displayed above in colorful glory. Faber senior designer Miriam Rosenbloom provides insight and inspiration for the design process here at the Faber blog, The Thought Fox.
And this year's titles?
And the individual covers?
You know you want them. Comment here by end of day next Monday, July 5 for a chance at winning the whole set. Just tell me which one you would read first if the whole set was right before you. From the lovely, generous Faber folks. Five lucky winners. Open to US, UK and Canada residents. Can't wait to get mine.
"We want people to have a centre, a history, an account that makes sense. We want to be able to say This is what he did and Here's why. It forms a lock against oblivion. Does it?" Anne Carson
The most lovely book just arrived in the mail today. I know, I know, I say this all the time. My bookish infatuations are numerous and intense. But Nox by Anne Carson, due out later this month from New Directions, is breathtaking. I can't put it down. After leafing through an arc some time back, I already knew how special the content is here. A moving eulogy for Carson's brother. But until I actually opened this "book in a box" today in its finished form, it did not wield its full impact upon me.
So you open the book (the box) like this.
And then the pages unfold before you much as the narrative thread does. One piece at a time accordion style. Like the pieces of a life that march through a sequence but remain joined, intact. Indivisible from the whole story.
The scrapbook effect of personal artefacts, photos, notes, collage, sketches tell the story of Carson's brother's life in a visually arresting way before you ever get to the words. Will be back soon with my account of those words. Still reading the visual story.
There is something especially lovely and meaningful about reading aloud with loved (or liked) ones during the holidays. Away from the mall and the occasionally crass commercialism, the social demands, the craziness. Just beautiful words shared by the tree. This volume from New Directions is a personal favorite of mine. It is little - about 4x6 inches. Luxurious paper. French flaps. And full of good cheer. Put one in a stocking.
"Christmas Poems is a pleasing and diverse selection of classic holiday poems that goes all the way back to an eclogue of Virgil, moves along to a wide range of authors such as Chaucer, Herbert, Longfellow, Dickinson, Paul Dunbar, Rilke, Yeats, William Carlos Williams, Robert Frost, E. E. Cummings, Kenneth Patchen, Thomas Merton, Wallace Stevens, Marie Ponsot, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Frank O'Hara, Denise Levertov, and Bernadette Mayer.Beautifully designed, this New Directions gem (originally published in the 1940s and reissued in the 1970s) rings with the deep sentiments of the season and just the right splash of holiday cheer.
Christmas Poems was originally edited by Albert M. Hayes and New Directions founder and publisher James Laughlin as A Wreath of Christmas Poems, and published as part of the "Poets of the Year" series in 1942. The collection was updated and revised in 1972, and selections for this newly revised 2008 edition have been chosen by the editorial staff at New Directions." (from the publisher)
And if you will indulge me a favorite:
Little tree
little silent Christmas tree
you are so little
you are more like a flower
who found you in the green forest
and were you very sorry to come away?
see i will comfort you
because you smell so sweetly
i will kiss your cool bark
and hug you safe and tight
just as your mother would,
only don't be afraid
look the spangles
that sleep all the year in a dark box
dreaming of being taken out and allowed to shine,
the balls the chains red and gold the fluffy threads,
put up your little arms
and i'll give them all to you to hold
every finger shall have its ring
and there won't be a single place dark or unhappy
then when you're quite dressed
you'll stand in the window for everyone to see
and how they'll stare!
oh but you'll be very proud
and my little sister and i will take hands
and looking up at our beautiful tree
we'll dance and sing
"Noel Noel"
Thrilled to see all of this enthusiasm for these beauties. Eliot fans edged out both Plath and Auden by just two votes with Yeats pulling in close behind. A few of us held firm for Hughes, and one single think outside the box individual checked Betjeman's box. In the end, these were the randomly selected winners:
I will contact you all shortly via comments on your blog, but if you see this before the comment, please forward me your shipping address? My email link is in upper left sidebar. Congratulations to the winners and many thanks to all who participated! And many, many thanks to the kind people at Faber for providing these stunners.
Crow's Fall
Spent quite a bit of time in April looking about the Farrar, Strauss & Giroux poetry blog, The Best Words in Their Best Order. Go look if you have the inclination and time to get lost for a bit or more than a bit. A stray comment I left somewhere won me this signed, limited run (500 copies) chapbook. Elegant darkness just like Seidel's words. Thrilled. And bracing myself for the brute force of his words from this new collection.
From the FGG poetry blog:
Calvin Bedient has called Seidel “the most frightening American poet ever.” Michael Robbins calls him “a ghoul,” while James Lasdun defined his work as "an oasis…in the desert of contemporary American poetry.”
The man in bed with me this morning is myself, is me,
The sort of same-sex marriage New York State allows.
Both men believe in infidelity.
Both wish they could annul their marriage vows.
You have to practice looking like thin air
When you become the way you do not want to be,
An ancient head of ungrayed dark brown hair
That looks like dyed fur on a wrinkled monkey.
Evening Man sits signing bills in the Oval Office headless -
Every poem I write starts or ends like this.
His hands have been chopped off. He signs bills with the mess.
The country is in good hands. It ends like this.
In the beginning of this week, it seemed too hot to do anything but read. Then it seemed too rainy and dreary to do anything but read. But last night was perfect here in DC so I went out with a friend to hear someone read to me. Busboys and Poets on 5th and K was hosting an evening of Nikki Giovanni reading from and discussing her new book of poetry, Bicycles: Love Poems.
We arrived nearly an hour early to an entire two level restaurant already packed with people. I laughed a little thinking that this was going to be interesting, but then comes another friend who organized the event for the benefit of the Washington Area Bicyclist Association. Guiding us to the two seats he reserved for us right in front of the podium. The seats from which the photo above was taken. Ever have one of those moments when nearly everything in you is saying "too much," but a more formidable voice booms a commanding "Silence!" to the boringly conscientious chidings? Of course you have. And we loved the seats.
The walls of windows rolled back into the walls permitted the most welcome breezes to move through. The conversation all around was warm and sparkly and excited. The bottle of Viognier that sat between our chairs proved good. And as I watched my friend who had just left her seat to photograph the goings on sharing a broad smiled exchange with my other friend, I couldn't help but feel content. Then Nikki Giovanni sat down next to me. Almost too much. Thank God she's hilarious.
So she sits and listens to a well-phrased tribute and intro, and then takes the stage. Where the time flies by through an effortless stream of the poet's thoughts as she wraps us all in a quilt sewn from the most disparate elements - the tragedy at Virginia Tech, her pride the first time she hears some of her books have been stolen from a store, a warning to call Granny first before you come by as she may be in bed with her lover, creationist myth, the nature of love, and of course, Deal or No Deal. She reads three poems from the new book. And as my friend noticed, the whole room is warm with affection for the poet, her words, her stance, her history, and a reflection of her own accessibility. Great intelligence voiced in simple words. An admirable but difficult choice for many.
The crowd overflowed outside the patio and front door. The signing line went on for hours and they sold out of books. Yet everyone was happy, near giddy, and speaking to strangers around them like they were all old friends. Everyone celebrating some of their favorite words with the author in their midst.
Been to a great author event lately?
The publicists are hard at work getting the word out for National Poetry Month. Knopf is kind enough to deliver a poem to my inbox every day this April, and I especially enjoyed today's (surprise) offering from Joyce Carol Oates.
Waiting On Elvis, 1956
This place up in Charlotte called Chuck’s where I
used to waitress and who came in one night
but Elvis and some of his friends before his concert
at the Arena, I was twenty-six married but still
waiting tables and we got to joking around like you
do, and he was fingering the lace edge of my slip
where it showed below my hemline and I hadn’t even
seen it and I slapped at him a little saying, You
sure are the one aren’t you feeling my face burn but
he was the kind of boy even meanness turned sweet in
his mouth.Smiled at me and said, Yeah honey I guess I sure am.
Poem from this new release: "Music’s Spell, a new title in the Everyman’s Library Pocket Poets series, is a gathering of poetry from a wide variety of voices through time (William Congreve, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Amy Lowell, Langston Hughes, Anna Akhmatova, to name a few) on the subject of music’s power, on pop and rock and jazz and blues, on composers and instruments." (from the publisher)
Other favorite clicks for National Poetry Month:
Have some favorites of your own? Share here?
