Some Favorite Books Read in 2009

I’m not going to do a top ten list, or limit this to books published in 2009 as I discovered a lot of wonderful work this year published since 2007.  I’m sure I’ve forgotten some books here (it’s hard to remember what you were reading back in January and February) so this is by no means meant to be comprehensive.  Just some titles that come to mind (or are still stuck in my mind).  There are also some non-poetry titles mixed in there that I enjoyed.

So in alphabetical order, here are some of the books I really enjoyed this year and that you should try to get a copy of if you can:

Idris Anderson’s Mrs. Ramsay’s Knee

Brent Armendinger’s Archipelago

Shaindel Beer’s A Brief History of Time

Mary Biddinger’s Prairie Fever

Jericho Brown’s Please

Kate Cambor’s Gilded Youth: Three Lives in France’s Belle Epoque

Andrew Demcak’s Zero Summer (and Pink Narcissus!)

Sharon Dolin’s Burn and Dodge

Jill Alexander Essbaum’s Harlot

Steve Fellner’s All Screwed Up

Suzanne Gardiner’s [lapsed insel weary]

Brent Goodman’s The Brother Swimming Beneath Me

Dana Guthrie Martin’s The Spare Room

Travis Holland’s The Archivist’s Story

Charlie Jensen’s The First Risk

Randall Mann’s Breakfast with Thom Gunn

Didi Menendez’s For the Love of an Armadillo

Pamela Johnson Parker’s A Walk Through the Memory Place

D. A. Powell’s Chronic

Laurie Sheck’s Captivity and A Monster’s Notes

Paul Siegell’s poemergency room and jambandbootleg

Patricia Smith’s Blood Dazzler

I know I’m forgetting some.  I may add more as others come to mind.