John Yau and Albert Mobilio Select a Handful of Poetry Collections for Hyperallergic

For Hyperallergic, Albert Mobilio and John Yau have selected a few of their favorite poetry books from 2019, including Arthur Sze's Sight Lines, Ann Lauterbach's Spell, and eight more. From Yau's writeup of the latter:

Spell (Penguin Poets) is Ann Lauterbach’s tenth book. She has also published a book of essays. I mention the essays because interspersed among the poems in Spell are 13 prose dialogs between “Evening” and an unnamed “I.” In one of the dialogs, Evening announces: ”Nobody mourns me. I come and I go, I do not age, or get sick, or die.” The “I” responds: “And yet, you mark time, day after day.” It is within this space, where time has simultaneously collapsed and stretches out, that these two figures (nature and an individual consciousness) discuss how to move from the past to the future without getting stuck, as we currently are. In Spell, it becomes abundantly clear that Lauterbach wants to bring every kind of writing into her work: dialog, essay, letter, diary, lyric, prose, list, philosophical investigation, dictionary entry, memory, fiction, dream, and citation. This is an inclusive ambition. At the same time – and this needs to stressed – Lauterbach has rejected irony, which has become a commonplace framing device for exposing the limits of language and its ability for representation. There is a reason she rejects the literal: “Facts aren’t the same as persons.” JY

Find all of the selections at Hyperallergic.