Generally what lights me up are novels and memoirs that let me suspend disbelief and drop me into a timeless space. That’s magic to transfer mental images through squiggles. It’s not the subject but the resonance. Stories that model community and friendship caught me this year, accepting and rolling otherness into an us.
Novels:
Binti: The Complete Trilogy by Nnedi Okorafor (DAW, 2019) is an amazing trip through the universe as a girl comes of age as an extraordinary leader with intergalactic stakes, and forming her family of choice
The Allspice Bath by Sonia Saikaley (Inanna, 2019) is about living in a conservative Lebanese family and trying to find your own path despite being marriageable age.
Journey of a Thousand Steps by Madona Skaff-Koren (Renaissance Press, 2015) is a spy story with a protagonist fighting her limits with MS.
Amusement Park of Constant Sorrow: a novel by Jason Heroux (Mansfield Press, 2018) is absurdist in a way that’s realistic. Oddly it like Skaff-Koren’s novel also involves unwelcome home security systems.
No one can pronounce my name by Rakesh Satyal (Picador, 2017) follows a few people moving from isolation to connection, confession and to community
The Kennedy Moment by Peter Adamson (Myriad Editions, 2018) was a compelling thriller of how to drawn government funding to immunization.
Fish in a Tree: a novel by Lynda Mullaly Hunt (Penguin, 2015) where a special teacher sees through the coping strategy of a funny kid to the dyslexia beneath.
Son of a Trickster by Eden Robinson (Alfred k Knoff, 2017) is inside the world of urban indigenous and trickster magic
Sister-Mine by Nalo Hopkinson (Grand Central Publishing, 2013) was an absorbing ride through twists of magic and myth
Grave Importance: A Dr Greta Helsing novel by Vivian Shaw (Orbit, 2019) like a lot of supernatural fiction has a core community of support within the strange contexts. It’s the strongest piece in the trilogy.
The Uninvited by Geling Yan (Faber & Faber, 2006) follows a poser who accidentally enters the world of newspaper food critic /socialite and lavish eating in an otherwise impoverished neighbourhood. Hooting social criticism but at the same time elicits rooting for characters.
Memoir and non-fiction:
Having Our Say: The Delany Sisters’ First 100 years by Sarah L Delany and Elizabeth Delany with Amy Hill Hearth (Dell book, 1993) is a memoir of transcribed interviews of 2 unique and spirited strong women who lived through a century of change for black women in the U.S. There’s a power to oral histories in print in their own voices.
Becoming by Michelle Obama (Crown, 2018) which is a story of acting for change to give a hand up to make equity and empowerment happen. By audio book hearing it in her own voice was particularly powerful and heartening.
Love lives here: a story of thriving in a transgender family by Amanda Jetté Knox (Viking, 2019) Is a memoir of a family’s journey as 2 come out as transgender and one as queer. It made us cry and laugh as my partner and I read it all aloud.
The Howls of August: Encounters with Algonquin Wolves by Michael Runtz (Boston Mills Press, 1997) because he has a thrilled passion for his subject and deep knowledge.
Brave: Living with a concussion by Kanika Gupta (Language of Growth, 2019) is a brilliant illustrated book on understanding and navigating concussion. See images here: https://www.bykanika.com/brave.html
For Poetry:
Eleven Elleve Alive: poems by Stuart Ross, Dag T Straumsvag & Hugh Thomas (Shreeking Violet, 2018)
The day the moon went away by Marilyn Irwin (above/ground, 2019) is an economical chapbook but with an impact that doesn’t get less with rereads
Espesantes by Stuart Ross (above/ground, 2018)
Concealed Weapons/Animal Survivors by Natalie Hanna (above/ground,2018)
Note, embarrassingly enough I accidentally truncated list in copy and paste and didn’t notice. (Feb 7, 2020)
More favourite poetry from the year:
On forgetting a Language by Isabella Wang (Baseline Press, 2019)
Calling Down the Sky by Rosanna Deerchild (Bookland, 2019)
Choose your own poem by Laura Farina (above/ground, 2019)
Blood Memory by Neile Graham (Buschek Books, 2000)
These are not the potatoes of my youth by Mathew Walsh (Icehouse, 2018)
Welcome to the last earth show by Michael Sikkema (where is the river, 2018)
Dirty Laundry by N.R. Pillai (battleaxe, 2019)
A season in Lowertown by David Blaikie (manuscript, 2019)
The Way of Haiku by Naomi Beth Wakan (Shanti Arts LLC, 2019)
Rommel Drives on deep into Egypt by Richard Brautigan (A Delta Book, 1979)
You are enough: love poems for the end of the world by Smokii Sumac (Kegedonce Press, 2018)
In the Silhouette of your silences: poems by David Groulx (Now or Never Publishing, 2916)
I generally read a lot of memoir and science, but novels have foregrounded lately and poetry has dropped to less than half of my titles read in 2019.
In my total I include chapbooks (27/111 titles) and YA and lids books, comic books, graphic novels and audio books. Still it adds up to over 18, 300 pages of completed. (I have a couple dozen partly read books as the year closes.)
After the list are graphs of where I found books & the demographics read. Another post will highlight my favourites.
1 Gros Morne National Park by Michael Burzynski (Breakwater Books, 1999)
2 Towers by Frances Boyle (Fish Gotta Swim Editions, 2018)
3 The Way of Tanka by Naomi Beth Wakan (Shanti Arts LLC, 2017)
4 Petit-Bleu et Petit-Jaune by Leo Lionni (lutin poche de l’école des loisirs, 1970)
5 Spherical Harmonic by Catherine Asaro (TOR, 2001)
6 Yellow Crane by by Susan Gillis (Brick Books, 2018)
7 Diamond Star by Catherine Asaro (Baen, 2009)
8 Raising Goats Naturally: The Complete Guide to Milk, Meat and More by Deborah Niemann (New Society Publishers, 2013)
9 The Night Chorus by Harold Hoefle (mqup, 2018)
10 A Season in Lowertown By David Blaikie (unpublished)
11 The Invention of Hunger by Rae Armantrout (Tuumba 22, 1979)
12 27 canadian sail craft by Daniel f Bradley (unarmed, 2018)
13 Carnelians by Catherine Asara (Baen, 2011)
14 The Second time by Marco Fraticelli and Philomene Kocher (King’s Raod Press, 2004)
15 The Way of Haiku by Naomi Beth Wakan (Shanti Arts LLC, 2019)
16 The Windigo Chronicles by David Groulx (Bookland, 2016)
17 The Little Book of Hygge: The Danish Way to Live Well by Meik Wiking (Penguin, 2016)
18 Calling Down the Sky by Rosanna Deerchild (Bookland, 2015)
19 Sunrise Alley by Catharine Asara (Baen, 2006)
20 Asleep by Banana Yoshimoto, translated by Michael Emmerich (Grove Press, 2001)
21 Pooh’s Workout Book by Ethan Mordden (Dutton, 1984)
22 Living Starts with Love: Learning To Make Your Life Shine by Lesley Strutt PhD
23 We, Old Young ones by Dominik Parisien *Frog Hollow, 2019)
24 Sister-Mine by Nalo Hopkinson (Grand Central Publishing, 2013)
25 I’ve been meaning to tell you: a letter to my daughter by David Chariandy (M&S, 2018)
26 Yardwork: A Biography of an Urban Place by Daniel Coleman (Wolsyk & Wynn, 2017)
27 When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times by Pema Chödrön (Shambhala, 1997)
28 Keep Moving: And other tips and truths about living well longer by Dick van Dyke (Hachette Books, 2016)
29 The Inner Life of Animals: Love, Grief and Compassion: Surprising Observations of a Hidden World by Peter Wohlleben, trans by Jane Billinghurst (Grestone, 2017)
30 The Reason you Walk by Wab Kinew (Viking, 2015)
31 Dead as a Doornail by Charlaine Harris (Ace, 2005)
32 Choose your own poem by Laura Farina (above/ground, 2019)
33 Beautiful Stupid by John B Lee (Black Moss, 2018)
34 All Together Dead by Charlaine Harris (Ace, 2005)
35 You’re going to have to keep this up Forever by IAN MARTIN (AngelHouse, 2018)
36 Trauma Head by Elee Kralji Gardiner (AnvilPress, 2018)
37 Bob Snider: on Performing, or how to break a leg (Gaspereau, 2008)
38 from Turtle Island to Island Gaza: poems by David Groulx (AU press, 2019
39 Having Our Say: The Delany Sisters’ First 100 years by Sarah L Delany and Elizabeth Delany with Amy Hill Hearth (Dell book, 1993)
40 Dirty River: A queer femme of colour dreaming her way home by Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha (Arsenal, 2015)
41 Who Fears Death, by Nnedi Okorafor (DAW, 2010)
42 Rommel Drives on deep into Egypt by Richard Brautigan (A Delta Book, 1979)
43 Con/tig/u/us by Kevin Heslop (Blasted Tree, 2018)
44 No Tv for Woodpeckers: poems by Gary Barwin (Buckrider, 2017)
45 Water by Bapsi Sidhwa (key porter, 2006)
46 Make Contact: Contributive Bookselling and the Small Press in Canada Following the Second World War, thesis by Cameron Alistair Owen Anstee (U of O, 2017)
47 a hole in the light: the red moon anthology of English language haiku of 2018: ed by Kim Kacian (red moon, 2019)
48 This is where I get off by Kirby (Permanent Sleep press, 2019)
49 Witness: poetry and prose of Joanne Page by Stan Dragland (A Fieldnotes Chapbook, 2014)
50 Am a Skin Too by David Groulx (anstruthervpress, 2018)
51 Fireborn by Keri Arthur (Penguin, 2014)
52 Dear Kestrel by Khashayar Mohammadi (K | F | B, 2019)
53 At the water’s edge, edited by Devin Harrison and Mike Montreuil (HaikuCanada, 2019)
54 The Golden Shovel Anthology: New Poems Honoring Gwendolyn Brooks, edited by Peter Kahn (University of Arkansas Press, 2017)
55 These Wings by Kim Fahner (Pedlar, 2019)
56 Sasanka by Doris Fiszer (Bywords, 2018)
57 China Suite by Julie de Belle (Éditions Vaudreuil, 2018)
58 The Kennedy Moment by Peter Adamson (Myriad Editions, 2018)
59 Paperdoll by Manahil Bandukwala (Anstruther, 2019)
60 Babymouse: our hero by Jennifer L Holm & Matthew Holm ( RandomHouse, 2005)
61 Still No Word by Shannon Webb-Campbell (Breakwater, 2015)
62 Flesh, Tongue by Yaya Yao (Mawenzi House, 2015)
63 The Orville: New Beginnings, part 1 of 2, by David A Goodman (2019)
64 Binti: The Complete Trilogy by Nnedi Okorafor (DAW, 2019)
65 In the Silhouette of your silences: poems by David Groulx (Now or Never Publishing, 2916)
66 Hiraeth: Tercets from the last Archipelago by Eileen R. Tabios (Knives, forks & spoons press, 2018)
67 Forest Primeval: poems by Vievee Francis (University of Illinois, Triquarterly, 2015)
68 You are enough: love poems for the end of the world by Smokii Sumac (Kegedonce Press, 2018)
69 The Spaceship Next Door by Gene Doucette (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2018)
70 An Aorta with Branches, A Travelogue by Deborah Wood (Sunnyoutside, 2017)
71 Machina by Nina Jane Drystek (& co collective, 2017)
72 Welcome to the last earth show by Michael Sikkema (where is the river, 2018)
73 Ninety Tiny Poems by Stuart Ross (above/ground, 2019)
74 The Orville: New Beginnings, part 2 of 2 by David Goodman (Blackhorse, 2019)
75 Algonquin Wild: a naturalist’s Journey through the seasons by Michael Runtz (Fitzhenry & Whiteside, 2019)
76 Probability Moon by Nancy Kress (Tor, 2000)
77 The Allspice Bath by Sonia Saikaley (Inanna, 2019)
78 Rose-water syrup: a poetry collection by Maha Zimmo (Cyberwit, 2019)
79 Hard work cheering up sad machines by Jason Heroux (Mansfield, 2016)
80 The accidental chef: a memoir by Caroline Ishii (2016)
81 The Orville # 3: the Word of Avis, part 1 of 2 by David Goodman (Blackhorse, 2019)
82 If I were born in Prague: poems of Guy Jean, trans by Katie Farris and Ilya Kaminsky (Argo Books, 2011)
83 Grave Importance: A Dr Greta Helsing novel by Vivian Shaw (Orbit, 2019)
84 Side by Side: a novel by Anita Kushwaha (Inanna, 2018)
85 On Forgetting a Language by Isabella Wang ( Baseline Press, 2019)
86 Spells for Clear Vision by Neile Graham (Brick Books, 1994)
87 No one can pronounce my name by Rakesh Satyal (Picador, 2017)
88 Fish in a Tree: a novel by Lynda Mullaly Hunt (Penguin, 2015)
89 What looks like crazy on an ordinary day by Pearl Cleage (Avon, 1997)
90 The day the moon went away by Marilyn Irwin (above/ground, 2019)
91 Hymnswitch by Ali Blythe (icehouse, 2019)
92 Maze by Hugh Thomas (invisible books, 2019)
93 These are not the potatoes of my youth by Matthew Walsh (Icehouse, 2019)
94 The cat who said cheese by Lilian Jackson Braun (Jove, 1996)
95 Frying Plantain by Zalika Reid-Benta (Anansi, 2019)
96 The Fly in Autumn by David Zieroth (Harbour, 2009)
97 Blood Memory by Neile Graham (Buschek Books, 2000)
98 The Kabir Book: 44 of the Ecstatic Poems of Kabir, versions by Robert Bly (Beacon Press, 1971)
99 Slip Minute by Anne-Marie Turza (Baseline Press, 2018)
100 Od Magic by Patricia A. McKillip (Ace, 2005)
101 Love lives here: a story of thriving in a transgender family by Amanda Jetté Knox (Viking, 2019)
102 Brave: Living with a concussion by Kanika Gupta (Language of Growth, 2019)
103 Son of a a Trickster by Eden Robinson (alfred k knoff, 2017)
104 The Lost Ones by Sheena Kamal (Harper, 2017)
105 A Thief, A Spy, and the corpse who rode shotgun by Adam Thomlison (40-watt spotlight, 2019)
106 Annie John by Jamaica Kinkaid (Farrar, Strauss & Giroux, 1983)
107 The Landscape that isn’t There by Mary Lee Bragg (Aeolus House, 2019)
108 Amusement Park of Constant Sorrow: a novel by Jason Heroux (Mansfield Press, 2018)
109 Journey of a Thousand Steps by Madona Skaff-Koren (Renaissance Press, 2015)
110 Cluster by Souvankham Thammavongsa (M&S, 2019)
111 Becoming by Michelle Obama (Crown, 2018)
In the year my poetry reading dropped by more than half of total. I didn’t do as much classics as I planned reading half that were published within 2 years. I binged on a couple novelists. I did more audio books than ever. Most books: from the library, followed closely by new from bookstore, used from bookstore then from press fair or festival table.
50% of books read were from 2018-2019, 30% from the decade before and 18% from over a decade but less than half a century.
55% of books that weren’t poetry were novels, memoir 20% and essays 16%. 13% were by GLBTQ2+ 9/111 were from indigenous writers and 28 from POC. I dropped more books, persisting to 1 star dissatisfaction only 1% of books, 2 star for 5% of books and was blown away by 16% of books read.
Want to get your poetry mind in higher gear this year? Have poems at an impasse that you want out the door before New Years? The classes have forums to share with fellow poets (closed to the public) and in each class you can send me 6-10 poems for direct feedback. As well, each has readings and exercises to bring up your game.
Register for Editing poems
https://pearl-s-school-a933.thinkific.com/enroll/433123?price_id=453218
Week1 : Translating You: Cento, Golden Shovels, and writing what only you can
Week 2: Recut: line work. Focusing on the structure of the poem
Week 3: You do you: writing from where and who you are.
Week 4: Ending it: ending lines, ending poems
$138 U.S./$180 Canadian
open for 9 weeks
Register for Brief poems
https://pearl-s-school-a933.thinkific.com/enroll/580995?price_id=613704
$138 U.S./$180 Canadian
open for 9 weeks
Week #1: Write Tighter: Muscular poems
Week #2: Haiku and Senryu: The aesthetics of small
Week #3: Short Lyric: What can you do in under 12 lines?
Week 4: Minimalism: Subtraction for the sake of focus
A third class on feelings in poetry may be added before January.
Hello Poets,
You asked, sometime since 2016, to be in the loop when my short poem class got up and running. We’re there!
It will be 4 weeks long at a site for learning called Thinkific.
It starts this week, where you can set your own pace. The space is open for 2 months.
I’ll be present on and off, but for sure each Saturday afternoon for discussion forums.
We’ll cover heavy structural editing, haiku and senryu, short lyric poems and minimalism in many forms.
Each lesson has principles, examples, with 4-8 stretch exercises.
There is a discussion forum for talking about the process, the principles and each other’s poems. I can give feedback on poems to your comfort level.
Week #1: Write Tighter: Trimming the Fat: 5 pages, 4 exercises, starting with your poems that are giving you problems.
Week #2: Haiku and Senryu: The aesthetics of small8 pages, 12 exercises
Week #3: Short Lyric: What can you do in under 12 lines? 7 pages, 4 exercises including golden shovels and translations of Sappho
Week 4: Minimalism: Subtraction for the sake of focus9 pages, 5 exercises including assembly, erasure, and minimalism
There are surveys of what you are looking to learn and we’ll adapt accordingly.
My CV.
It will be $180 (Canadian) by Visa, M/C, or Paypal. Note that the price is listed in U.S. dollars. $138 U.S. is $180 Canadian. Register now
If you need a reduced rate, there are a couple spots and we can work out how to do that.
I fell just shy of 25,000 print pages (24,357p) of books and chapbooks, including page count of audio books equivalent, completed in 2018. Average page-length is 154 pages.
Doing my numbers I realized a couple good ones weren’t in my top list. Forgot them in the spreadsheet. The post below fixes that.
160 titles, 31 of them chapbooks, and 70 of the titles from 2017 or 2018, despite wanting to read not so much more back list as older. Only 5 titles pre-1800s.
About half of titles are Canadian. More than half are not poetry, which is a switch I’ve been aiming for a reading more widely.
The biggest shift is novels, which I’ve largely avoided for years. I read 33 in 2018, most often by Catherine Asaro with 14 of her books, some audio books, some read aloud to me during concussive “fun”.
Less than 1/4 of titles were by POC or indigenous writers, less than I aimed for. About 9% are by someone in the GLBQQT2+
I tended to get magazines but not actually read so much as skim, skip and dip.
I still read more by males. 44%, compared to 41% female and the remainder being non-binary or multiple authors. My rating of the book were 0.1/5 of each other regardless of place in gender spectrum.
Where did I source books and chapbooks I finished?
1. used book store (by far ahead)
2. small press fair or festival table
3. subscription
4. library
5. review copy
6. gift
7. direct from author
I confess I got 11 from Amazon, although 1 of those I got another copy of from a local indie.
There are books I have a head start on from beginning last year (or the year before). Currently reading 3, all Canadian, 2:1 female to male, one novella, one poetry, one non-fiction.
