Thursday, May 21, 2009

What Should I Read Next?

I am just finishing my second semester in the low-residency Creative Writing MFA program at Goddard College. I picked this low-residency program because the focus was on creative writing, not on jumping through unrelated hoops. The program requirements include critical writing, reading 15 books a semester, doing a teaching practicum, and developing a creative manuscript. I liked that teaching was a required aspect, too. And best of all, I get to design my own curriculum that is meaningful to me, with the guidance of my advisor. Here is what I've read so far:

Carson, Anne. The Autobiography of Red: A Novel in Verse.
Clifton, Lucille. Blessing the Boats: New and Selected Poems: 1988 - 2000.
Dobyns, Stephen. Best Words, Best Order: Essays on Poetry.
Ginsberg, Alan. Howl.
Hillman, Brenda. Loose Sugar.
Komunyakaa, Yusef. Neon Vernacular: New and Selected Poems.
Weschler, Lawrence. Mr. Wilson's Cabinet of Wonder: Pronged Ants, Horned Human, Mice on Toast, and Other Marvels of Jurassic Technology.
Moore, Lorrie. Birds of America: Stories.
Nafisi, Azar. Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books.
Olds, Sharon. The Dead and the Living.
Pinsky, Robert. The Figured Wheel: New and Collected Poems 1966 - 1996.
Rukeyser, Muriel. "The Book of the Dead".
Sexton, Anne. Transformations.
Turpin, Mark. Hammer: Poems.
Whitman, Walt. Leaves of Grass.

Berryman, John. 77 Dream Songs.
Carson, Anne. The Beauty of the Husband.
Carson, Anne. Glass, Irony, and God.
Davis, Lydia. Break It Down.
Ehrenreich, Barbara. Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America.
Hempel, Amy. The Collected Stories.
Hirshfield, Jane. Nine Gates: Entering the Mind of Poetry.
Lee, Li-Young. The City in Which I Live.
Lowell, Robert. Life Studies.
Nelson, Maggie. Jane: a Murder.
Notley, Alice. Mysteries of Small Houses.
Rilke, Ranier Maria. Letters to a Young Poet.
Shakespeare, William. Complete Sonnets.
Rankin, Claudia and Spahr, Juliana. American Women Poets in the 21st Century: Where Language Meets Lyric.
Szymborska, Wislawa. Collected Poems.

Friday, May 01, 2009

Famous... on YouTube

National Poetry Month 2009 - I read my poem "Immersion" in the Port Townsend Poetry Project.  Also check out my classmates' readings on YouTube - Phil, Ellen, and David.