Wondering what to give someone for the holidays? If you”ve still get a few people left on your holiday shopping list, head down to the nearest bookstore and fill their stocking with beautiful words. Here”s a quick selection of some of the best new books of poetry from the past year to help you decide.

Thirst (Mary Oliver)
Mary Oliver”s latest book of poetry, Thirst has been hailed as a work of faith and an affirmation of love. At 71, the poet takes a long, loving look at the world around her, and reaffirms the good and the beautiful, while acknowledging that there is darkness as well. This is a powerful book for anyone who loves Oliver”s poetry, and a wonderful introduction to poems of strength, faith and nature.

Strong Is Your Hold (Galway Kinnell)
Kinnell”s first new collection of poetry in over a decade was long-awaited and met with critical praise. The Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award winning poet writes luminous poetry that invites readers to view everyday objects with a poet”s vision. This book contains the entirety of Kinnell”s requiem for the Twin Towers, first published in the New Yorker, “When the Towers Fell”. It includes a CD of the poet reading his own works, with introductions and little stories about each piece as he reads. A truly thoughtful gift for anyone who loves poetry.

I Heard God Laughing (Hafiz, translated by Ladinsky)
Daniel Ladinsky”s translations have helped popularize the poetry of traditional Persian poet Hafiz in the English speaking world. Hafiz” poetry captures the essence of love in all its forms, becoming a journey in which the only constant is growth and transformation.

How to Read Poetry (Terry Eagleton)
For the student of poetry, Eagleton”s book is one of the most accessible discussions on how to read poetry with an ear to more than just “what it says”. Using examples taken from poetry throughout history, he carefully dissects each to show how the mechanics of poetry add to the meaning and feeling of a poem in a way that few others writers can approach.

Collected Poems: 1947-1997 (Allen Ginsberg)
Speaking of long-awaited… this book is an absolute must for any fan of Beat poetry. It”s the first complete collection of Ginsberg”s work. It includes the full text of the 1980 Collected Poems, and adds White Shroud (1986), Cosmopolitan Greetings (1994) and Death and Fame: Last Poems (2000)

Most teaching hospitals feature a weekly Grand Rounds, during which any unusual and interesting medical cases from the week are presented. In many of them, the Grand Rounds includes a presentation of a provocative or interesting subject for contemplation. Often, outside surgeons and specialists are invited to present at Grand Rounds with the intent of exposing the resident doctors to ideas and experiments from outside the organization. Dartmouth”s Medical School is no different, offering a Grand Rounds each Friday morning as a teaching tool where visiting researchers and physicians are invited to share their work. Most often, the subject is clinical or medical. The Grand Rounds scheduled for Friday, October 20, is decidedly different.

The presenter at Grand Rounds on that morning will be the U.S. Poet Laureate, Donald Hall, and his presentation is titled Love and Death and Patrick Clary, founder and owner of The Palliative Care Service. The Grand Rounds announcement was made in the Dartmouth Vox, newspaper for the Dartmouth faculty and staff.

Palliative care is an interdisciplinary medical specialty that focuses on giving comfort, not only physical but spiritual and emotional as well, to patients and family members facing life threatening illnesses. Some of Hall”s most well known works are the poems and books that deal with the illness and death of his wife, poet Jane Kenyon. Clary, in addition to being the founder of The Palliative Care Service, is a poet as well. His second book of poetry, Dying for Beginners, is due out later this month. As a physician and a poet, he has made it his mission in life to bring comfort to those dealing with all the myriad complications that come along with life threatening illnesses and death.

Ira Byock, director of palliative medicine at Dartmouth, invited the two poets to present at Grand Rounds in an attempt to educate and illuminate, he said.

“Good poetry allows us to perceive things we might miss. It stops us and holds our attention and illuminates something real. Donald Hall and Patrick Clary allow us to see, and more importantly, feel how illness, caregiving, and grief both tear at and expand our ability to live deeply.”

Clary”s work has been lauded by many in both poetic circles and the halls of medicine. Says a hospice nurse of his poetry:

After years of reading Dr. Clary”s poems to patients and pedestrians, finally, I can carry his work to everyone whose path will be enriched by his rare, articulate and compassionate company.
— Virginia Lynn Fry

The fact that this need for processing through poetry is being recognized by established medical bodies is encouraging to me, one more bit of evidence that no, poetry is not dead. It is not even on life support. Poetry in today”s world is alive, well and thriving as people in all professions recognize the importance of ritual, poetry and meaning in our lives.

Listen to Clary read selections of his poems
Clary”s book is available through Lost Borders Press.

Technorati Tags: poems, poetry, Patrick Clary, poetry healing

…or Something Like It is the very appropos title of a new book of poetry written by members of the St. James Drop-In Center in Montreal. Having put in my time working in a homeless shelter with a drop-in center, this story from www.hour.ca caught my eye. I”ve seen other projects that gave those “marginalized” by society a voice, but this one seems very well put together. The project was started by Greg Rickhaus, McGill social work stagiere helping out at the drop in center. Rickhaus initiated a series of poetry workshops, held weekly at different sites around the city.

The poems in the book were written by clients of the drop in center, and are accompanied by photos taken by them. The book will also include biographies and email addresses where the poets can be contacted. “There”s a lot of pride in the book,” says Rickhaus. “It”s a very big step to have your own poetry in a book [...] In a poem, you”ve poured down your heart. The hard things on your mind are out there, raw, for whoever wants to see. The book was an opportunity for growth.”

The book will be sold at the St. James Drop-In Center and other locations around the city. If you”re interested in knowing more or making arrangements to sell the book at your own venue, email info@stjamescentre.ca.

I dropped by Rus Bowden”s blog this morning for a totally unrelated reason and found that I”d missed a very big one in my last post about 9/11 poems. The book is Babylon Burning: 9/11 five years on, and it”s being distributed by nthposition.com. The pdf file is a free download, with a request to people to make a contribution to the Red Cross, who serve at disaster sites throughout the world.

From nthposition.com”s announcement page:

Nearly 90 poets from around the world have contributed to Babylon Burning: 9/11 five years on, an anthology of poems on the Twin Towers atrocity and its consequences. But we are aiming for more than pious hand-wringing: the anthology will be free, but there is a request to donate to the Red Cross, which works tirelessly to help people caught up in disasters and conflicts, wherever and whoever they are.

Enjoy Babylon Burning, then please give something to the Red Cross.

Please feel free to host it on your site, or email it to friends and colleagues and ask them to consider donating. Like nthposition”s other anthologies, it”s copyleft, so pass it on, spread the word and raise some money…

A paperback version of the anthology will also be available, with all profits going to the Red Cross. Please contact Val Stevenson for notification of when it”s ready.

Remembering the desperate on 9/11
For immediate release
Nearly 90 poets from around the world have contributed to Babylon Burning: 9/11 five years on, an
anthology of poems on the Twin Towers atrocity and its consequences. But they aim for more than pious
hand-wringing: the anthology will be free, but there will be a request to donate to the Red Cross.

nthposition, the site behind the anthology, wants to maximise the money raised by listing it on iTunes as a PDF. Though sales of poetry books are flat, online poetry is booming the internet is “more fluid, flexible, and much more accommodating”, as Marjorie Perloff said recently.

Many of the poets involved contributed to 100 Poets against the War, which the London Times said gave
protest poetry “a new lease of life”. The first edition went online in January 2003, a week after the idea
was floated. Two further online editions and a print edition followed. Readers were encouraged to host
the PDF on their sites or forward it to friends, and tens of thousands of copies were downloaded from
nthposition alone. Val Stevenson, nthposition editor, said: “The success of 100 poets blew us away, but
we”re being more ambitious this time. It”s hard to think of an organisation that”s doing more to help the
desperately needy than Red Cross.”

Todd Swift, the poetry editor, agreed: “Auden said that “poetry makes
nothing happen”, but we think it can, and we”d like to prove it.” Like 100 Poets, Babylon Burning will rely
on readers to spread the word the site is completely unfunded. A print-on-demand paperback of the
anthology will also be available from lulu.com, with all profits going to the Red Cross.

Contributors to Babylon Burning are: Ros Barber, Jim Bennett, Rachel Bentham, Charles Bernstein, bill
bissett, Yvonne Blomer, Stephanie Bolster, Jenna Butler, Jason Camlot, J R Carpenter, Jared Carter,
Patrick Chapman, Sampurna Chattarji, Maxine Chernoff, Tom Chivers, Alfred Corn, Tim Cumming, Margot
Douaihy, Ken Edwards, Adam Elgar, Elaine Feinstein, Peter Finch, Philip Fried, Leah Fritz, Richard Garcia,
Sandra M Gilbert, Nathan Hamilton, Richard Harrison, Kevin Higgins, Will Holloway, Bob Holman, Paul
Hoover, Ranjit Hoskote, Ray Hsu, Halvard Johnson, Chris Jones, Jill Jones, Kavita Joshi, Jonathan
Kaplansky, Wednesday Kennedy, Kasandra Larsen, Tony Lewis-Jones, Dave Lordan, Alexis
Lykiard, Jeffrey Mackie, Mike Marqusee, Chris McCabe, Nigel McLoughlin, Pauline Michel, Peter Middleton,
Adrian Mitchell, John Mole, David Morley, George Murray, Alistair Noon, D Nurkse, John Oughton, Ruth
Padel, Richard Peabody, Tom Phillips, David Prater, Lisa Pasold, Victoria Ramsay, Harold Rhenisch, Noel
Rooney, Joe Ross, Myra Schneider, Robert Sheppard, Zaid Shlah, Henry Shukman, Penelope Shuttle, John
Siddique, Goran Simic, Hal Sirowitz, Heather Grace Stewart, Andrew Steinmetz, John Stiles, William E
Stobb, jordan stone, Sean Street, Joel Tan, Nathaniel Tarn, Mark Terrill, Helên Thomas, Vincent Tinguely,
Rodrigo Toscano, John Tranter and John Welch. All gave their work for free.
Babylon Burning is available from nthposition.com/babylonburning.pdf

+++
Notes
nthposition was shortlisted for the 2002 European Online Journalism Awards, nominated for a People”s
Voice award in the 2003 Webbys, and won a Readers” Poll award in the 2004 Utne Independent Press
Awards. In 2005, the site was selected as Webby Worthy, and in 2006 it was archived into the British
Library”s permanent collection. More from the “About us” page. Val Stevenson, nthposition”s editor, is a
reviews editor and writer. Todd Swift, Babylon Burning”s editor, writes, edits and teaches poetry.
Contacts: Till 7 September – Val Stevenson: val@nthposition.com
After 8 September, Todd Swift: toddswift@clara.co.uk

It”s the Fall – the time of year that the publishers put out the big books, the ones that they hope will make a splash in time to make it onto people”s gift-giving lists. Here”s what”s coming out this fall in the world of poetry (source: Publishers Weekly)

My Pick
Thirst (Oct., $22) by Mary Oliver presents 38 new poems from the Pulitzer Prize winner, illuminating her perspective on grief, loss and faith.
# Hardcover: 88 pages
# Publisher: Beacon Press; 1st edition (October 4, 2006)
The reviews are, as always, good, though there”s a strong undercurrent that Oliver has taken a new direction in her work. The Publishers Weekly review suggests that some readers may find some of the poems heavy-handed in their religious imagery.

The Book of Martyrdom and Artifice: First Journals and Poems: 1937-1952 (Oct., $27.50) by Allen Ginsberg contains previously unpublished poems by the Beat Generation poet.
# Hardcover: 416 pages
# Publisher: Da Capo Press (November 2006)
Scheduled for release in November, new poems from Allen Ginsberg. No reviews yet – available from Amazon.ca, but not on the US web site yet.

So What: New and Selected Poems 1973-2005 (Sept., $18) by Taha Muhammad Ali, trans. by Peter Cole and Gabriel Levin. This bilingual collection marks the American debut of the Palestinian poet.
# Paperback: 280 pages
# Publisher: Copper Canyon Press; Bilingual edition (September 2006)
Ali is Palestine”s most highly regarded poet. His work is fresh and forthright, and inspired the Washington Post to say, “He has developed a style that seems both ancient and new, deceptively simple and movingly direct.” So What is the first of Ali”s books to be translated for an American audience. Again, can be pre-ordered on Amazon.ca, but not yet available at Amazon.com.

See the Publishers Weekly list for other releases.