Amanda Stovicek : part three

What other poetry books have you been reading recently?

I’ve been re-reading Good Bones by Maggie Smith. It is my go-to when things feel rough and when I want clean and elegant language. Smith’s poems have the right amount of words and sing with emotion. I cannot recommend this book enough.

I have just finished American Sonnets for My Past and Future Assassin by Terrance Hayes. I loved Hayes’ collection How to Be Drawn, and this book takes a very different approach. But the lyricism and music of the poems is still there. I read this one out loud in one sitting and found so much connective tissue and repetition and sound. I definitely recommend reading it in one go, because otherwise you might miss the through-lines that Hayes draws.

I have just started reading Louise Gluck’s American Originality: Essays on Poetry. I am not very far into the collection, but Gluck’s prose is just as sharp as her poems.