Book picks similar to
Except by Nature by Sandra Alcosser


poetry
estrella-azul-s
pacific-mfa-faculty
mfa-reading-list

Bodega: Tales from the Bodegaverse


Edward Forsyth - 2019
    Lover. Sniper. Thief. Scourge of the wicked. In fact, scourge of anyone if there's money to be made. A lawless man in a galaxy overrun by villains, Mork beasts, Dildonians and the dreaded imperial forces of Crem Slumdump. Aided by his otherwise unemployable crew of drunks, criminals, assassins and broken down combat droids, Bodega seeks fortune, and trouble seeks him. Armed with his array of hi-tech gadgets, and of course his famous las-gun, Bodega careens around the corners of the known Universe in his ship, the Disco Volante, guided by his unique sense of justice, and his love for the psychic entity known only as Majesta.Bodega: Tales from the Bodegaverse contains all the episodes of Bodega previously transmitted via the Triforce Podcast, and heaps more Bodega action besides. What're ya waiting for, pard?

Madwomen: Poems of Gabriela Mistral


Gabriela Mistral - 2008
    The Locas mujeres poems collected here are among Mistral’s most complex and compelling, exploring facets of the self in extremis—poems marked by the wound of blazing catastrophe and its aftermath of mourning.            From disquieting humor to balladlike lyricism to folkloric wisdom, these pieces enact a tragic sense of life, depicting “madwomen” who are anything but mad. Strong and intensely human, Mistral’s poetic women confront impossible situations to which no sane response exists. This groundbreaking collection presents poems from Mistral’s final published volume as well as new editions of posthumous work, featuring the first English-language appearance of many essential poems. Madwomen promises to reveal a profound poet to a new generation of Anglophone readers while reacquainting Spanish readers with a stranger, more complicated “madwoman” than most have ever known.

I, Lalla: The Poems of Lal Dĕd


Lalla - 2012
    Emotionally rich yet philosophically precise, sumptuously enigmatic yet crisply structured, these poems are as sensuously evocative as they are charged with an ecstatic devotion. Stripping away a century of Victorian-inflected translations and paraphrases, and restoring the jagged, colloquial power of Lalla’s voice, in Ranjit Hoskote’s new translation these poems are glorious manifestos of illumination.

Dear Girl


Aija Mayrock - 2020
    From a poet and celebrated spoken-word performer comes a debut poetry collection that takes readers on an empowering, lyrical journey exploring truth, silence, wounds, healing, and the resilience we all share. Dear Girl is a journey from girlhood to womanhood through poetryIt is the search for truth in silenceThe freeing of the tongueIt is deep wounds and deep healingAnd the resilience that lies within usIt is a love letterTo the sisterhood

Fragment of the Head of a Queen: Poems


Cate Marvin - 2007
    The brokenness and loss of the fragmented queen—seeming to rise up through centuries—is their tutelary spirit.

Bone


Yrsa Daley-Ward - 2014
     Bone. Visceral. Close to. Stark. The poems in Yrsa Daley-Ward's collection bone are exactly that: reflections on a particular life honed to their essence--so clear and pared-down, they become universal. From navigating the oft competing worlds of religion and desire, to balancing society's expectations with the raw experience of being a woman in the world; from detailing the experiences of growing up as a first generation black British woman, to working through situations of dependence and abuse; from finding solace in the echoing caverns of depression and loss, to exploring the vulnerability and redemption in falling in love, each of the raw and immediate poems in Daley-Ward's bone resonate to the core of what it means to be human. "You will come away bruised. You will come away bruisedbut this will give you poetry."

When No One Is Watching


Linathi Makanda - 2020
    It is a depiction of sides that people don't readily show, sides of vulnerability, insecurity and tiny amounts of hope. One could say it is the result of shedding light into a world of secrecy, escapism, an alternate reality belonging to an alternate version of an individual. When No One Is Watching is the truth in its purest form.

The New Sentence


Ron Silliman - 1987
    Linguistics. Originally appearing in 1977 and now in its 11th printing, THE NEW SENTENCE by Ron Silliman is a classic collection of essays by one of the sharpest minds in American contemporary poetic thought. It is a collection with rich insight into Silliman's own monumental poetical work and the writing of his peers, a book which both illuminates the concerns of the era in which it was written and radiates outward with a tremendous scope that continues to bear fruit for the contemporary reader. Ron Silliman is a terrific prose critic...positively bristles with intellectual and political energy of a very high order -Bruce Boone.

Lord of the Butterflies


Andrea Gibson - 2018
    Each emotion here is deft and delicate, resting inside of imagery heavy enough to sink the heart, while giving the body wings to soar.

Did I Say That Out Loud?: Notes on the Chuff of Life


Fi Glover
    Their book promises to take mid-life by its elasticated waist and give it a brisk going over with a stiff brush. At a time of constant uncertainty, what we all need is the wisdom and experience of two women who haven't got a clue what's happening either.

Landscape with Sex and Violence


Lynn Melnick - 2017
    Lyrically complex and startling—yet forthright and unflinching— these poems address rape, abortion, sex work, and other subjects frequently omitted from male-dominated literary traditions, without forsaking the pleasures of being embodied, or the value of personal freedom, of moonlight, and of hope. Throughout, the topography and mythology of California, as well as the uses and failures of language itself, are players in what it means to be a woman, a sexual being, and a trauma survivor in contemporary America.

My Feelings: Poems


Nick Flynn - 2015
    . . the take from his bank jobs, all of it will come to me, if I can just get him to draw mea map, if I can find the tree, if I can find the shovel. And the house, the mansion hegrew up in, soon a lawyer will pass a key across a walnut desk, but even thislawyer will not be able to tell me where this mansion is. —from "Kafka"In My Feelings, Nick Flynn makes no claims on anyone else's. These poems inhabit a continually shifting sense of selfhood, in the attempt to contain quicksilver realms of emotional energy—from grief and panic to gratitude and understanding.

Hard Times Require Furious Dancing: New Poems


Alice Walker - 2010
    No small accomplishment in a world as challenging as this one.”— from the prefaceI was born to grow,alongside my garden of plants,poemslikethis oneSo writes Alice Walker in this new book of poems, poems composed over the course of one year in response to joy and sorrow both personal and global: the death of loved ones, war, the deliciousness of love, environmental devastation, the sorrow of rejection, greed, poverty, and the sweetness of home. The poems embrace our connections while celebrating the joy of individuality, the power we each share to express our truest, deepest selves. Beloved for her ability to speak her own truth in ways that speak for and about countless others, she demonstrates that we are stronger than our circumstances. As she confronts personal and collective challenges, her words dance, sing, and heal.

Incarnadine: Poems


Mary Szybist - 2013
    The spectacular was never behind them.                         -from “The Troubadours etc.”  In Incarnadine, Mary Szybist restlessly seeks out places where meaning might take on new color. One poem is presented as a diagrammed sentence. Another is an abecedarium made of lines of dialogue spoken by girls overheard while assembling a puzzle. Several poems arrive as a series of Annunciations, while others purport to give an update on Mary, who must finish the dishes before she will open herself to God. One poem appears on the page as spokes radiating from a wheel, or as a sunburst, or as the cycle around which all times and all tenses are alive in this moment. Szybist’s formal innovations are matched by her musical lines, by her poetry’s insistence on singing as a lure toward the unknowable. Inside these poems is a deep yearning—for love, motherhood, the will to see things as they are and to speak. Beautiful and inventive, Incarnadine is the new collection by one of America’s most ambitious poets.

Four-Legged Girl: Poems


Diane Seuss - 2015
    Ghostly, sexy, and plaintive, these poems skip to the tune of a jump rope, fill a wishing well with desire and other trinkets, and they remember past lush lives in New York City, in rural Michigan, and in love. In the final poem, she sings of the four-legged girl, the body made strange to itself and to others. This collection establishes Seuss's poetic voice, as rich and emotional as any in contemporary poetry.