68. Mella y criba

Ida Vitale. Pre-textos, 2010.

This book is by the Uruguayan poet Ida Vitale. A bird (a rook) complains in a tree; a cat, inside, wants to get outside to get the bird; a third element, a person observing bird and cat; a fourth layer is the reader of the poem, trying to understand the triangular relationship between these three "languages." Conceptually, that is an amazing poem.

69. The Torches

Tate. Unicorn Press, 1971.

I've probably owned this book since the 70s. It is one of the best examples of the "deep image" school of the time, and it is beautifully printed in a small edition.

70. Sobre una confidencia del mar griego / precedido de Correspondencias

Andrés Sánchez Robayna. Huerga y Fierra, 2005.

This is a beautifully printed book with prints by Tàpies. I translated a few poem from this book.

71. Arden las pérdidas

Gamoneda. Tusquets, 2003.

This book largely recycles images and motifs from Libro del frío and Un armamrio llano de sombras. "Some afternoons, Billie Holiday puts a sick rose in my ears." Blake's sick rose?

72. Edenia

Padorno. Tusquets, 2007.

This is a strange and beautiful book of poem organized around a central conceit: an imaginary, Edenic world with ample descriptions of plants, animals, terrains... Manuel Padorno was a poet from the Canary Islands and I don't know much beyond this book. It isn't quite great poetry, because it ends up being too descriptive and loses energy too often as a result.

73. La última costa

Brines. Tusquets, 1995.

Surely this is one of Brines's most beautiful books of poetry. "Vente, luz, a mis ojos, / descansa tu fatiga / en ellos, tan cansados."

74. Nuevo tratado de armonía

Colinas. Tusquets, 1999.

I have a lot of these brown books from Tusquets in Barcelona, many published in the 90s, probably a few thousand dollars worth. Colinas writes reflections in prose, in a sequel to another treatise in harmony. I like Colinas, in some sense, yet he fails to convince.

75. El equipaje abierto

Benítez Reyes. Tusquets, 1996.

This book is a relentless and skillful deployment of a few clichés. A less original poet is hard to imagine. Yet he has a talent for this, so if you like it, it will please you.

I've now documented about a quarter of the books in this project. Many I have read half of and will get to sooner or later.

76. Shroud of the Gnome

James Tate. Ecco, 1997.

There are poets who get worse by not getting better over the years. The late James Tate has his charms. I've been reading this book a poem or two at a time every morning as I take a xxxx. These are charming poems, but I think he hit his high point earlier on, in The Oblvion Ha-Ha, to be precise. It is probably the case that this book (Oblivion) hit me when I was ready for it. Tate is not responsible for me having been impressionable and then disillusioned by his subsequent work.

77. Amor mi señor

Luisa Castro. Tusquets, '05.

I'm a sucker for the series "nuevos textos sagrados" by Tusquets in Barcelona. This long poetic sequence is a strange turn on the trope of courtly love as a form of erotic slavery. The final part of the book is the original Galician poems that gave rise to the entire book, written in Spanish.

78. Cuatro noches romanas

This book by my old friend Guillermo Carnero (Tusquets, '09) is a bit bizarre, consisting of a series of dialogues between the poetic speaker and a rather grotesque female figure (muse?), on four nights in the city of Rome. Carnero is a prodigiously talented, but this book will appeal to very few readers.

79. Libro de los trazados

Vicente Valero, Tusquets, '05.

I re-read this very beautiful book at the cabin at the lake for my birthday. My only critique would be that it is too explicit: it tells you what it means and doesn't leave you guessing. It is very unitary and well-planned.

80. El común de los mortales

Jorge Riechmann, Tusquets, 2011.

My girlfriend took me to a cabin on a lake for my birthday. I read several books published by Tusquets, the Barcelona publisher of the series Nuevos Textos Sagrados. This book by my friend Jorge Riechmann is an impassioned manifesto in favor of the environment.

81. The Richard Nixon Snow Globe

Rachel Loden sent me this book back in the day (Wild Honey Press, 2005). It is exactly what is seems to be: poems dedicated to RMN in an ironic, flarf-like collage style. Very good.

82. Between Two Walls

Pacheco. Trans. Dorn & Brotherson. Black Sparrow, 1969.

José Emilio was not very well known in English when this translation came out. It is actually just a single poem, a very beautiful one, though the translation could be greatly improved. The library copy is signed by author and translators.

83. Harmatan

Paul Violi. Sun, 1977.

I don't know much about this poet, but somehow picked up this book, a travelogue book of poems, taking place in Nigeria. The book is good without having many good poems; in other words, the writing is good, descriptively vivid, but the poems are not distinguished individually. Still, it seems better to me than most poetry you would come across randomly.

84. Noche abierta

Hugo Mujica, Pre-textos, 1999. I have a copy dedicated to me by the poet. Re-reading it, it seems very calming and nuanced, almost quietistic. Very nice but not stunning.

85. Toner

This book by Ron Silliman (Potes & Poets Press, 1992) and autographed by the author is divided into symmetrical 7 line stanzas over 67 pages, with three stanzas per page. It has blurbs by Kathy Acker, Kevin Killian, David Melnick, Jerome McGann, and Hank Lazer, on the back cover. Then, on the first page, another blurb by McGann, and others by Jed Rasula, Nancy Scott, Barrett Watten, and Keith Tuma. It is part of the Alphabet, Ron's long series. This would be volume T.

I read it at one sitting. The punctuation disappears after a while, then there is a long section in ALL CAPS, then it's back to no caps, no punctuation, and then the punctuation appears again.

It is a diary of a sort, a series of semi-disconnected fragments of observation--again, like much of Ron's work of the 90s. This is not my favorite of his, though his characteristic wit shines through.

86. Ten Versions from Trilce

This is a translation from Vallejo done by Charles Tomlinson, the British poet, and Henry Gifford. I read it at one sitting, aloud, and was quite moved (San Marcos Press, 1970). It is a beautifully printed book, and lacks the Spanish original: less distracting. These poems are haunted by the maternal presence.

Here is 77:

It hails and with so much zest
as if it wanted to have me wake
and augment the pearls I gather
from the very snout of each tempest.

Let it not dry up, this rain.
Grant me this grace at least
to fall int its place now,
or that they might lay me in earth
soaked in the water
that would spout from all the fires.

How far will it reach into me, this rain?
I am afraid I shall be left with some flank dry;
I am afraid it will go away without having proved me
in the droughts of incredible vocal chords,
by which
to harmonize,
one must rise always - never descend!
(Don't we rise perhaps to go down?)

Sing, rain, along that coast that still no seas attend!

Compare Mayhew's translation here.

[UPDATE: Aug. 26: Tomlinson has died]

87. Infamous Landscapes

This book by Prageeta Sharma (Fence, 2007) is the kind of poetry I like, though I do not like this particular book as much as I should. Too often, she misses by a narrow margin, being clever in all the wrong ways. Yet still it resonates with me by stretches because it is my kind of poetry. For some reasons I have a review copy of uncorrected proofs.