Where are You Going, Where Have I Been?

While I haven’t been posting here (or at Poetic Idealism) lately, that’s not to say things haven’t been very busy.

One thing I’m very proud of is the state of the new issue of Barely South Review, which has taken up most of my time these past two weeks. It’s turned out beautifully, with no small thanks to the contributors who sent us wonderful materials to work with, and the staff who put in many long hours.

On the other hand, this workload also means my thesis has taken somewhat of a back seat recently. I’ve written a couple of new things, but still feel about fifteen poems short. These are in me somewhere, and now I have time to go mining for them.

I’ve also reached the point where I think my reading list is fairly robust, especially with the contemporary works, where I’ve had to cut a bunch of things I really want to use, but them’s the breaks. I’m less certain about some of the historical works, and one particular craft book, but these will iron themselves out as I move through this project.

Here’s what I have right now:

  • Contemporary Works:
    • Tracy K. Smith – Life on Mars
    • Ben Lerner – Mean Free Path
    • Kurt Brown, ed. – Verse & Universe
    • Sarah Lindsay – Twigs & Knucklebones
    • Mark Strand – Man and Camel
    • Matthew Zapruder – Come on All You Ghosts
    • Pattiann Rogers – Wayfare
    • Lyrae Van Clief-Stefanon – ]Open Interval[
    • Matthew Rohrer – Destroyer and Preserver
    • Kim Addonizio – What is this Thing Called Love
  • Historical Works
    • Herman Melville – The Poems of Herman Melville
    • Cesar Vallejo – The Complete Poetry, A Bilingual Edition
    • Rumi – Like This
    • Rimbaud – Illuminations
    • T.S. Eliot – Four Quartets
    • C.P. Cavafy – The Collected Poems (with parallel Greek text)
    • Walt Whitman – Leaves of Grass (1855)
    • Alfred, Lord Tennyson – In Memoriam A.H.H.
    • Wallace Stevens – Collected Poetry & Prose
  • Craft Works
    • Kurt Brown, ed. – The Measured Word
    • Deborah Brown, ed. – Lofty Dogmas: Poets on Poetics
    • Stephen Dobyns – Best Words, Best Order
    • Susan Stewart – Poetry and the Fate of the Senses
    • Tony Hoagland – Real Sofistikashun

That’s a lot of reading, though I’m mostly familiar with these.