Siren

Below are the “votes” of five contributors (Dorianne Laux, David Hernandez, Bruce Covey, Jason Fraley, and Kiki Petrosino) and the editor.  No guidelines were set (such as how “new” should be defined or how many suggestions should be made) except that neither Siren, nor either editor, should be included in any recommendation. The books below that are listed without links can all be found at www.amazon.com (or www.powells.com , www.alibris.com , etc.).  If I could not yet find a book at Amazon, links are provided to sites where you can either find more information about, or in most cases purchase, the book.

Thank you to the contributors who, during a very busy time of year and academic calendar, took time to share such well-informed choices.

 

 

Recommendations with the most mentions:

 

Jenny Boully, [onelove affair]  (2 mentions)

Matt Hart, Who’s Who Vivid  (2 mentions)

Cormac McCarthy, The Road  (2 mentions)

 

 

 

Bruce Covey (poet, issue two):

 

(Editor’s Note: Bruce, an incredible reader, as well as poet and editor, who probably reads more books in one month than I seem to be able to in one year, in addition to these books, noted, charmingly, “Well, uh, Bruce Covey, Elapsing Speedway Organism.”  He also noted that nothing is listed in any particular order.)

 

Books published in 2006:

  

PF Potvin, Attention Lesson

Maureen Owen, Erosion's Pull

E. Tracy Grinnell, Some Clear Souvenir

Peter Davis, Hitler's Mustache

Tao Lin, You are a little bit happier than I am

Sandy Florian, Telescope

Anselm Berrigan, Some Notes on My Programming

Gloria Frym, Solution Simulacra

Elizabeth Treadwell, Cornstarch Figurine

Katie Degentesh, The Anger Scale

Natasha Trethewey, Native Guard

Mei Mei Berssenbrugge, I Love Artists

Alice Notley, Grave of Light

Alice Notley, Alma or the Dead Women

Robert Creeley, Collected Poems

Lisa Lubasch, 21 After Days

Kate Greenstreet, Case Sensitive

Anna Moschovakis, I Have Not Been Able to Get Through to Everyone

Jenny Boully, [one love affair]

Carly Sachs, The Steam Sequence

Alex Lemon, Mosquito

Reb Livingston and Molly Arden, The Bedside Guide to No Tell Motel

Dan Bouchard, The Filaments The Filaments

Aaron McCullough, Little Ease

http://ahsahtapress.boisestate.edu/books/mccollough2/mccollough2.htm

Shin Yu Pai, Sightings

http://www.spdbooks.org/Details.asp?BookID=0978141407

K. Silem Mohammad, Monsters

http://lime-tree.blogspot.com/2006_08_01_archive.html

Amy King, On the Fly

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=103268170

 

 

New Journals and Magazines of 2006 (Literary and/or Art):

 

Glitter Pony, Alice Blue, Melancholia’s Tremulous Dreadlocks, Cannibal, Locus Point, Cabinet, Otoliths, ActionYes, Hot Whiskey, Wildlife Poetry

 

 

New Poets of 2006:

(not including new poets who have not yet published a book)

 

Natalie Lyalin, Jen Tynes, Theresa Sotto, Kristi Maxwell, Michael Rerick, Ashley VanDoorn, Matt Henriksen, Julie Doxsee, Sandra Simonds, Heather Brinkman, Jon Leon, Sandy Florian, Tao Lin

 

 

 

Jason Fraley (poet, issue three):

 

“Two of the best books published in 2006 have to be Ben Lerner's The Angle of Yaw and Matt Hart's Who's Who Vivid.  And I'm consistently impressed by the quality of work published in [the literary magazine] The Canary.”

 

 

 

David Hernandez (poet, issue one):

 

Novel: The Road, by Cormac McCarthy
Chapbook: Guarding the Violins, by Misty Harper

(http://www.poetrysociety.org/cgi-bin/psa-com/frame.cgi?address=1135023113)

Literary Magazine: Field
Album: What the Toll Tells, by Two Gallants
Movie: Little Children

 

 

 

Dorianne Laux (poet, issue two):

 

Books published in 2006:

Choke, Michael McGriff  (Traprock Books)
http://www.abebooks.com/servlet/BookDetailsPL?searchurl=y=9&bi=781046502&isbn=0976741121

The Curator of Silence, Jude Nutter  (Notre Dame Books)
http://www3.undpress.nd.edu/exec/dispatch.php?s=title,P01123

Sleeping Upside Down, Kate Lynn Hibbard  (Silverfish Review Press)
http://www.amazon.com/Sleeping-Upside-Down-Kate-Hibbard/

Becoming the Villainess, Jeannine Hall Gailey
http://www.wku.edu/~tom.hunley/steeltoebooks/villainess.htm

Wu Wei, Tom Crawford  (Milkweed Editions)
http://www.amazon.com/Wu-Wei-Poems-Tom-Crawford/

One Hidden Stuff, Barbara Ras  (Penguin)
http://www.amazon.com/One-Hidden-Stuff-Poets-Penguin/

Selected and New, Robert Wrigley  (Penguin)
http://www.amazon.com/Earthly-Meditations-Selected-Poems-Penguin/

Logorrhea, Adrian Louis  (Triquarterly Books)
http://www.amazon.com/Logorrhea-Poems-Adrian-Louis/


New Literary Journals and Magazines of 2006:

The Burnside Review, Portland, Oregon: http://burnsidereview.org/


Poetry Northwest, Portland, Oregon: http://www.poetrynw.org/


New Poets:

Poets Brian Turner, Major Jackson, Matthew Dickman, Michael Dickman, Michael McGriff and Stacey Lynn Brown, all former University of Oregon MFA graduates, can be found at Fishhouse, an audio archive of emerging poets:  http://www.fishousepoems.org/poets.shtml

Poets Jay Nebel, Mike McGriff and Teresa Ballard can be found at Best New Poets, Virginia: http://www.bestnewpoets.org/

 

 

 

Kiki Petrosino (poet, issue two):

 

Best Book of Poetry:

 

Best New Poets 2006 (University of Virginia Press)

 

 

Sara Kearns (editor):

 

Best New Books (Published in 2006):

 

Poetry:

Joshua Beckman, Shake

Matt Hart, Who’s Who Vivid

Richard Siken, Crush

 

Prose & Poetry:

Jenny Boully, [one love affair]

 

Prose (Fiction and Nonfiction):

Irene Némirovsky, Suite Française

Cormac McCarthy, The Road

Paul Rusesabagina, An Ordinary Man

Michael Pollan, The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals

 

Prose & Art:

Frank Warren, My Secret: A PostSecret Book

 

 

Best New Poets:

(Poets who have not yet had a book published, and of whom I had not read or heard before 2006.  So some of my favorites who are generally still considered to be “new” or “emerging” poets, such as Robyn Art, are not included.)

 

Gabriella Klein, Jehanne Dubrow, Erin Martin, Cait Rappel, Kiki Petrosino

 

 

Best Emerging (Visual) Artists:

 

Marcela L., Mel Kadel, Scott Odom, Katia Fuentes

 

 

Best Poetry Blogs & Websites:

 

Sarah Sloat, Laurel K. Dodge, Scott Odom, Daniel Nester, Jenni Russell, Amy King

 

 

Special Mentions:

 

Dancing Girl Press, Selby’s List;

Carolyn Creedon and Junot Diaz with pleas to put out a book soon, which I’m certain would be on many, many “Best” lists;

Poets Dorianne Laux, Rachel Loden, Matt Hart, Laurel K. Dodge,  Oliver de la Paz, and Bruce Covey (as well as all the contributors to Siren’s first issue) for being supportive, generous with their work, and just plain nice to a new poet and brand-new editor.