Hope you all had a good Christmas. I was very busy through December, but still managed to have a good time. Here’s a short ‘best of’ list for 2010. I did read quite a number of very good books which may, in other years, have made the list. First of all, some 2010 poetry (in no particular order):
In the Wake of the Day – John Ash (Carcanet)
Dammtor – James Sheard (Cape)
Lighthead – Terrance Hayes (Penguin USA)
A Curious Shipwreck – Steve Spence (Shearsman)
On the Governing of Empires – Alasdair Paterson (Shearsman)
Hurt - Martyn Crucefix (Enitharmon)
And some prose fiction:
Dreams of Rivers and Seas – Tim Parks (Vintage)
Da Happie Laund – Robert Alan Jamieson (Luath)
And some non-fiction:
Cutty, One Rock – August Kleinzahler (Farrar Straus Giroux)
21st Century Modernism – Marjorie Perloff (Blackwell)
I also read Louis MacNeice’s Collected Poems (Faber), but it hardly seems right to include a lifetime’s work in a Best of the Year list. In any case, the work varies from brilliant to just OK, although the brilliant work is brilliant in a real sense (as opposed to the ‘book blurb’ sense).
Books I’m looking forward to reading, or am currently in the middle of and very much enjoying, include collections from David Morley (Enchantment), Ryan Van Winkle (Tomorrow We Will Live Here), Matt Merritt (Hydrodaktulop...), Matthew Sweeney (The Night Post) and Dean Young (Primitive Mentor). And Wena Poon’s novel (Alex y Robert). And six extra hours in every day would be great, thanks.
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