April - National Poetry Month

13-Apr-2011

The Academy of American Poets chose April to be National Poetry Month in 1996. Chosen perhaps as a nod to T. S. Eliot's famous line about April's cruel nature? Or to offset, on both sides, the truly cruelest day of all, April 15? Whatever the reason, we are about to cruise through another poetic April, and the ISU Library would like to remind you that there is no shortage of poetry in its collection -- from the Classics and through the Middle Ages, Renaissance, Romantic, Victorian eras to the Modernism and Postmodernism that characterize the 20th Century, to the as yet undefined schools of poetry being written in tandem with this article. Yes, we have Dante, we have Dickinson, and we have Dylan Thomas. But have you heard of Bernadette Mayer, Susan Howe, or Aaron Belz? We have their books too!

For years, the ISU Library has been striving to collect works by the more well-known poets of the day, as well as the ones who might be of interest (and taught in English classes) decades down the road. The Library similarly strives to collect poetry published by presses that might lie somewhere off the beaten path. Some university presses go out of their way to publish poets steeped in experimentalism, but presses with no ties to academia also publish very good work from poets who work in familiar forms to those who push language's envelope in surprising ways.

Poets like Susan Howe and Bernadette Mayer are by no means new to the publishing world, but neither are they household names. Still, they are widely admired by poets and devoted readers of poetry (and Howe, at least, is controversial as well as admired). Mayer has for years played with language and playfully turned different forms of poetry (the sonnet and the ode) on their ear, playfully subverting them with droll personal and political musings of her life and time. Long out of print, Mayer's "Studying Hunger" -- a groundbreaking example of how well poetry can depict the immediate, un-self-censored thought -- will be republished this June by Station Hill Press

Howe has rigorously studied various points in European and, most notably, pre-colonial American history, and composed complex book-length poems that make use of primary and secondary sources, both by way of interpretation and quotation, and quite literally. A visual artist who primarily worked in paint long before she turned to words, she is well-known for her extreme visual approach to poetry. In her most recent book, That This, published last month by New Directions, a large part of the book contains semi-legible cut-up pieces of printed text, carefully laid at odds with, and over, one another, to create an otherworldly juxtaposition of not-quite-words that hint at a ghostly language (this book, rather than exploring periods of national history, tragically explores the death of Howe's second husband). Having written since the early 70s, and been a practicing visual artist long before that, Howe is probably nearing the end of her career, and this month would be a great time to check out That This as well as some key elements of her back catalogue: Singularities, Frame Structures, The Europe of Trusts, and The Nonconformist's Memorial. And if you feel like getting your feet wet with Mayer, the Library owns A Bernadette Mayer Reader, which provides samples from most of her books, and if you want to dive in further, there's the more recent The Formal Field of Kissing: Translations, Imitations, and Epigrams; Poetry State Forest; Two-Haloed Mourner; and Another Smashed Pinecone.

Aaron Belz is a young poet who finished his PhD in St. Louis and subsequently relocated to teach in Los Angeles. His first major book, Lovely. raspberry: poems is a hilarious and poignant look at relationships and language's pitfalls, and masterfully strips what we know from the objects and events that we use and witness every day. Like the best iconoclasts, he'll steal every piece of your mental furniture and replace it with an exact replica, and the world will look just a little different when he's done with you.

These are just three examples of hundreds of poets whose work the ISU Library has been collecting in the past decade. Please browse through the collection and see what poetry's been up to lately. You won't be disappointed, and April will seem much kinder!