Favorite Books Read in 2011

It’s that time of year again.  Of the 100 or so books I read this year, these were some of my faves (again, totally idiosyncratic and not limited to books published this year – I often discover books years after they first appeared in print):

Mary Biddinger – Saint Monica

Joe Brainard – The Nancy Book

Andrew Demcak – Night Chant

H.D. – Pilate’s Wife

Steve Fellner – The Weary World Rejoices

Garth Greenwall – Mitko

Terrence Hayes – Lighthead

Christopher Hennessy – Love-In-Idleness

Donovan Hohn – Moby Duck

Lee Houck – Yield

Paolo Javier – The Feeling Is Actual

Saeed Jones – When the Only Light Is Fire

June Jordan – Living Room

Jee Leong Koh – Seven Studies for a Self-Portrait

Donato Mancini – Ligatures

Dante Micheaux – Amorous Shepherd

Kei Miller – The Last Warner Woman

Michael Montlack – Cool Limbo

Manual Munoz – What You See in the Dark and Zigzagger: Stories

Eric Norris – Takaaki: A Romance

Christina Olson – Before I Came Home Naked

Anne Pitkin – Winter Arguments

Eileen Pollack – In the Mouth: Stories and Novellas

Craig Thompson – Blankets and Habibi

C. Dale Young – Torn

This is where I lament all the books I couldn’t get to this year, especially the big, heavy ones like Robert Duncan’s The H.D. Book and Under the Sun: The Letters of Bruce Chatwin.  I also hope to get to Jesmyn Ward’s Salvage the Bones in January.  And 2012 releases…looking forward to Eduardo C. Corral’s Slow Lightning, and Paul Lisicky’s Unbuilt Projects next year, and a number of books from Sibling Rivalry Press…  =)