Saturday, May 30, 2009

So for those that don't know, I'm moving out of Chicago in two weeks (TWO WEEKS, SHIT!) and into my in-laws house for a month or so. This is happening for two reasons; one, because Iowa City is a college town, no apartments worth moving into open up until August and two, because the University of Chicago is a giant piece of crap and terminated our lease two whole days after my wife graduates (tip: the University of Chicago is the place where dreams go to die, don't ever come here). This means that all my books will be packed in a box for the summer and so I've spent the last week sitting in front of my book shelf looking over every title and putting books aside. Last night, in a moment of drunken clarity I finalized what will be my "Summer Reading List." It is as follows:

  1. Take It, Joshua Beckman (because I haven't gotten around to it yet)
  2. The Glass Age, Cole Swensen (because I haven't read too much new Swensen, and I thought it might be a good thing to do before I try to study with her)
  3. Lining, Lisa Fishman (I bought it awhile ago, but lost it in a shuffle of papers and have recently rediscovered it)
  4. Hallelujah Blackout, Alex Lemon (he's been responsible for some of my favorite poems over the last year)
  5. My Vocabulary Did This to Me, Jack Spicer (because I can't imagine a week without it)
  6. The Ghost Soldiers, James Tate (it recently came out in paperback and was thus recently affordable to me)
  7. The two Letter Machine chap books (Veglahn and Berrigan)
  8. This Nest, Swift Passerine, Dan Beachy-Quick (he's "visiting" the workshop this fall and I want to have my bases covered)
  9. Ours, Cole Swensen (same as the other Swensen book)
  10. The Battlefield Where the Moon Says I Love You, Frank Stanford (I'm teaching it this fall and need to read it a few more times before that happens. Basically, if a student mentions a section of the book, I want to be able to envision its place in the whole text and to be able to turn to that page in the book)
and that's it.

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