My Best Of 2008

Here’s my end of year list. Obviously, “best” means “best of what I’ve read” and there are millions of books I haven’t read. The lists under each heading are in alphabetical order. So for what it’s worth…

Best poetry collection published in 2008
Event – Judith Bishop
Me and the Dead – Katy Evans-Bush
Nigh-No-Place – Jen Hadfield
Zeppelins – Chris McCabe
Troy Town – Matt Merritt

Best poetry collection published in some other year
Stretch of Closures – Claire Crowther
Report from the Besieged City – Zbigniew Herbert
Yeah Yeah Yeah – Roddy Lumsden
Paradise Lost – John Milton
A Book of Lives – Edwin Morgan

Best Collected/Selected
Selected Poems (1977) – Zbigniew Herbert
Selected Poems – Michael Hofmann
Scales Dog – Alexander Hutchison
Without End – Adam Ragajewski
Collected Poems – James Schuyler

Best poem I've written this year
Probably ‘Derrida’, part 1 of a two-part poem called ‘Married Life in the Nineties’. Not that there’s been any great enthusiasm from magazine editors to publish it(!), but it will appear in my forthcoming collection.

Best poetry magazines
Magma
I’ve seen one issue each of Succour and Mimesis and both were very good.
The Dark Horse’s articles are of the highest quality.

Best poetry webzines
Horizon Review
qarrtsiluni
Stride

Best poetry events
Every month at the Great Grog (As organiser, I wouldn’t want to single anyone out).
August Kleinzahler at the StAnza International Poetry Festival.
Frances Leviston and Ian McDonough at the Shore Poets in November.

Best non-poetry books
Black Sea – Neal Ascherson
Falling Man – Don DeLillo
Street Without a Name – Kapka Kassabova