POETRY PURCHASED IN 2012

For 2012, I bought 83 books of poetry by, on and/or edited by poets, as well as books in other genres (e.g. biographies) authored by poets.  This is a 77% increase over the prior year's purchases of 47 titles, but not impressive given 2011's low threshold.  Again, I can do better.

I bought from bookstores, publishers, Amazon.com and other online site, St. Helena's wonderful used bookstore Main Street Books and library sales.  What this year reveals is that Kindle didn't take off for me; I stopped using it after a few months of novelty and so only "purchased" four books for Kindle. 

Nota Bene: Money doesn't reflect desire when it comes to my poetry-buying. While this list offers poets whose works I like and thus acquire, it also reflects books bought from no particularly strong desire to include in my poetry library (jest curiosity). For instance, some books were bought at a local public library sale for cents on the dollar, a price that makes me buy poetry without a particularly strong interest in such acquisition. Also, I am fortunate to have alternative access to poetry books I actually will cherish, whether through gifts, trades or even review copies for Galatea Resurrects. Nonetheless, a list exists of my BOUGHT POETRY OR BOOKS BY POETS and so here it is for 2012. Unless stated otherwise, the books are poetry collections:


FRAGILE REPLACEMENTS by William Allegrezza

THE HEART OF A WOMAN by Maya Angelou

BORDERLANDS/ LA FRONTERA by Gloria Anzaldua

THE DOOR by Margaret Atwood

UNPROTECTED TEXTS by Tom Beckett

THE BUDDHIST by Dodie Bellamy

BOUGH BREAKS by Tamiko Beyer

OUR LADY OF THE RUINS: POEMS by Traci Brimhall

THE RING AND THE BOOK by Robert Browning with engravings by Carl Schultheiss

HERE AND NOWHERE ELSE by Jane Brox

EROS: THE BITTERSWEET by Anne Carson

DISAPPOINTED PSALMS by Brian Clements

COLEMAN HAWKINS ORNETTE COLEMAN by Norma Cole

DIANE DI PRIMA: THE OLSON MEMORIAL LECTURE, Edited by Ammiel Alcalay & Ana Bozicevic (LOST AND FOUND: THE CUNY POETICS DOCUMENT INITIATIVE SERIES III)

EDWARD DORN: THE OLSON MEMORIAL LECTURE, Edited by Lindsey Freer (LOST AND FOUND: THE CUNY POETICS DOCUMENT INITIATIVE SERIES III)

SAINTS OF HYSTERIA: A HALF-CENTURY OF COLLABORATIVE AMERICAN POETRY, co-edited by Denise Duhamel, Maureen Seaton and David Trinidad

YEAR OF REVERSIBLE LOSS by Norma Farber

DARK CARD by Rebecca Foust

LIKE THE PIECES OF DRIFTWOOD by Jon Francis

FABRIC by Richard Froude

HAVE by Marc Gaba

SAPPHIC SONGS: SEVENTEEN TO SEVENTY by Elsa Gidlow

CITY OF CORNERS by John Godfrey

SCENTED RUSHES by Nada Gordon

LIFE WORK by Donald Hall

SEASONS AT EAGLE POND by Donald Hall

CRAZY BRAVE: A MEMOIR by Joy Harjo

THE APPLE TREES AT OLEMA: NEW AND SELECTED POEMS by Robert Hass

LANGSTON HUGHES, NANCY CUNARD & LOUSIE THOMPSON: POETRY, POLITICS & FRIENDSHIP IN THE SPANISH CIVIL WAR, Edited by Anne Donlon (LOST AND FOUND: THE CUNY POETICS DOCUMENT INITIATIVE SERIES III)

BIRTHDAY LETTERS by Ted Hughes

SELECTED POEMS IN FIVE SETS BY Laura Riding Jackson

SENTENCE: A JOURNAL OF PROSE POETICS #9, Ed. Brian Johnson

PERSPECTIVES ON A GRAFTED TREE: THOUGHTS FOR THOSE TOUCHED BY ADOPTION, poetry anthology edited by Patricia Irwin Johnston

HALF LIVES by Erica Jong

JEW BOY by Alan Kaufman

WOMEN OF THE BEAT GENERATION by Brenda Knight

JOANNE KYGER: LETTERS TO & FROM, Edited by Ammiel Alcalay & Joanne Kyger (LOST AND FOUND: THE CUNY POETICS DOCUMENT INITIATIVE SERIES III)

WHAT THE STONES REMEMBER: A LIFE REDISCOVERED, memoir by Patrick Lane

THE COUNTRY ROAD by James Laughlin

TRISM by Rebecca Loudon

OLD WAYS TO FOLD NEW PAPER by Leza Lowitz

MUTATING THE SIGNATURE: QUARRTSILUNI, journal edited by Dana Guthrie Martin and Dave Bonta

CLAY FEET / WIRE WINGS, poems by John N. McDowell

CAMPOCORTO by Peter Meinke with drawings by Jeanne Meinke

PRIMER FOR NON-NATIVE SPEAKERS by Philip Metres

COLLECTED SONNETS OF EDNA ST. VINCENT MILLAY

THE SEPARATE NOTEBOOKS by Czeslaw Milosz, Translated by Robert Hass and Robert Pinsky

LORINE NIEDECKER: HOMEMADE POEMS, Edited by John Harkey (LOST AND FOUND: THE CUNY POETICS DOCUMENT INITIATIVE SERIES III)

TRANSFER by Naomi Shihab Nye

LARYNX GALAXY: PROSE POEMS by John Olson

CLOUDFANG :: CAKEDIRT by Daniela Olszewska

NEW & SELECTED POEMS (1995) by Ron Padgett

POEMS 1955-1959 AND AN ESSAY IN AUTOBIOGRAPHY by Boris Pasternak

MIGRITUDE by Shailja Patel

THE MOON IS ALWAYS FEMALE by Madge Piercy

SYLVIA PLATH: A BIOGRAPHY by Linda K. Wagner-Martin

EZRA POUND AND HIS WORLD by Peter Ackroyd

LOVE POEMS by Rene Ricard

PUTI/WHITE by Patria Rivera

BONESHEPHERDS by Patrick Rosal

MICHAEL RUMAKER: SELECTED LETTERS, Edited by Megan Paslawski (LOST AND FOUND: THE CUNY POETICS DOCUMENT INITIATIVE SERIES III)

SELECTED POEMS OF RUMI, Translated by Reynolds A. Nicholson

JOURNAL OF A SOLITUDE by May Sarton

THE SOFT PLACE by Kate Schapira

HERE IS A MINI-PARADE by Kate Schapira and Daniela Olszewska

LIFE ON MARS: POEMS by Tracy K. Smith

DUENDE: POEMS by Tracy K. Smith

REGARDING WAVE by Gary Snyder

THE TULIP SACRAMENT by Annah Sobelman

WELL THEN THERE NOW by Juliana Spahr

5 SHADES OF GRAY by Eileen R. Tabios

SILENCES: THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF LOSS by Eileen R. Tabios

DEADLINE POET by Calvin Trillin

MARINA TSVETAEVA: THE DOUBLE BEAT OF HEAVEN AND HELL, biography by Lily Feiler

NATURAL HISTORIES by Leslie Ullman

THE REAL SUBJECT: QUERIES AND CONJECTURES OF JACOB DELAFON WITH SAMPLE POEMS by Keith Waldrop

MORE ADVENTURES IN MONOCHROME by John Yau

JOHN WIENERS & CHARLES OLSON: SELECTED CORRESPONDENCE, Edited by Michael Seth Stewart (LOST AND FOUND: THE CUNY POETICS DOCUMENT INITIATIVE SERIES III)

EATING IN THE UNDERWORLD by Rachel Zucker


Bought from Kindle (though these are free):
POEMS OF WILLIAM BLAKE

ILIAD by Homer

THE ODYSSEY by Homer

LEAVES OF GRASS by Walt Whitman