Book I Wish I Had Read In 2012/First Books I'll Read In 2013

Since the world didn't end, I guess I'll get to read some books next year. This is what I'm diving into first.

Butcher's Tree by Feng Sun Chen is a beautifully constructed and designed book by Black Ocean. I've had it since this spring, but haven't found time to squeeze it in.

Gina Abelkop's Darling Beastlettes. I helped with organizing the reading period and sent some of the responses for Apostrophe Books and actually read excerpts of the book before it was accepted. I was super excited about the book when it was coming out and saw it before it shipped, but alas, I've been super lazy and haven't gotten to purchase it. Gina is also one of my favorite people in small-press publishing and on the internet. My favorite thing someone ever said about her was Megan Lamb, who said Gina looked like a mermaid and she probably does in real life.

Infinite Jest. I started it before thanksgiving. I got twenty pages in. I'm stalled mostly because I've been reading a lot poetry.

Robinson Alone by Kathleen Rooney. Everytime I read a snippet of this book my tongue melts. The book has such rhythm and sonics that you NEVER hear in Contemporary American Poetry. NEVER. And that does AMAZING things for the line... I haven't read the whole book, only a handful of poems, but I'm willing to bet that it's the prettiest sounding book so far published in the 21st century.

I've read AWE by Dorthea Lasky and it was pretty OK, but I wasn't blow away or anything. I'm going to give Thunderbird a try because several friends really like the book and I've been told Dorthea is a very charming human.

How have I not read Madness, Rack, and Honey? idk. it's going to happen soon. Mary Ruefle is one of my favorite humans. I once drove her to the airport at 5 am and we talked about her first metaphor, my family, her life in Vermont, why academia is such a tragic place for poets... I love her brain.

Dark Matter. Just look at this book. Look at it.