Favorite Reads, 2020

 

What can we say about 2020 that hasn’t been already said (and continues to be said, as we fight our way through the dregs of it)? Well, how about…I read more books this year! There’s one positive outcome. Through this endless expanse of homebound months, I read 44 books, up from 30 last year. In my finished pile this year: 29 novels, 4 short story collections, 5 memoirs, 3 poetry collections, and one autobiography. Last year, I said I wanted to read more biographies this year, which I did not do, and more young adult fiction, which—in part, thanks to my teaching job—I did. It should be noted that one of the books I read this year was a graphic novel, and I expect to have that as a new category in 2021, considering the eagerly anticipated stack on my shelf right now. I also expect to continue reading memoirs in the coming year, particularly those that experiment with form. From time to time, I work on my own strange-form memoir. And I’m beginning to formulate my summer reading project, which will have something to do with place as character—specifically, with houses. If you favor a book in which a house is one of the main characters, kindly send me your recommendation.

So many of the books I read in 2020 struck a deeply personal chord with me. Perhaps my antennae were open and receiving to emotionality during this unprecedented year; perhaps those were the type of reads that caught my eye and attention. In the end, it doesn’t matter. So many books were a balm for me this year. Of my ten favorite reads, most had some sort of autobiography or memoir element, whether it be direct, poetic, auto-fictional, or something else. As always, I enjoy reads that inspire contemplations about genre although in the end, it doesn’t really matter. Feeling in writing is what breaks through, at least for me. 

In no particular order, my favorite reads of the year:

 

 Glen Rock Book of the Dead by Marion Winik (2010)

After a discussion about writing memoir, my friend and colleague (thanks, Jessica!) said I would love this slim memoir, and I did. In chronological order throughout short chapters, Winik reminisces about people she has known who died. Each section is titled (i.e. The Eye Doctor, The Bon Vivant, The Graduate); some are people quite close to her and some are known through others. All left an imprint on her and as she writes about these losses, much more is revealed about Winik herself, life in general, and the times we live in. A unique, surprising—and ultimately, touching read.

Department of Speculation by Jenny Offill (2014)

This novel reads like a series of journal entries, short observations from the point of view of a mother, a wife. When the marriage falters due to an infidelity, she retraces the events of their relationship, trying to find a way forward. She talks about the isolation and fulfillment of motherhood, and about striving for a creative life amidst life’s demands. She notices patterns and brings up things she’s read and learned, all in a concentrated effort to make sense of life, her life. I loved this book. Like the best poetry, I often wanted to take my eyes from the page after reading a section and lean back, enjoying the ripples of association. Another unique, contemplative and beautiful read.

The Carrying by Ada Limón

How does one speak about poetry, about a collection that speaks to so many deep truths? In this stunning book of poems, Limon shows the range of human experience, the burdens and joys we carry from beginning to end. Maybe it’s best if I share my favorite.

After the Fire

You ever think you could cry so hard

that there’d be nothing left in you, like

how the wind shakes a tree in a storm

until every part of it is run through with

wind? I live in the low parts now, most

days a little hazy with fever and waiting

for the water to stop shivering out of the

body. Funny thing about grief, its hold

is so bright and determined like a flame,

like something almost worth living for.

 

Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates (2015)

This National Book Award winner garnered many more accolades in the year it was released and it’s been on my shelf for some time. Written as a series of letters to his son that touch on the history of African Americans in this country, Coates describes his own life experiences within the framework of racial inequity. In describing what it’s been like for him to survive and make his way as a black man, he also he expresses his fears and hopes for his son. Toni Morrison called the book “required reading,” and CNN named it one of the most influential books of the decade. I only wish I had gotten to it sooner.

 

Late Migrations: A Natural History of Love and Loss by Margaret Renkl (2019)

This captivating, introspective book marries grief with hope, and reminds us that humans exist within the folds of nature. Renkl has experienced many of the life changes we all experience: marriage, children, aging parents and loss. In chapters that alternate between memories of family stories, episodes of love and grief, and observations of the plant and animal life outside her back door, a narrative emerges: we are all part of the world, good and bad, bloom and decay, happiness and pain. For me, reading this book was akin to having your hand held. A wise, comforting, and beautifully written book.

 

Based on a True Story (2017) by Delphine de Vigan

The only end-of-year entry from my Summer of France reading (I wrote more about it here), this international bestseller is a surprising and wholly entertaining read. It’s fiction (or is it?), a suspenseful read that follows the friendship between Delphine (the character), who is a writer, and the mysterious woman who reemerges from her past (or has she?). The suspense lies, in part, in figuring out which parts are true, might be true, couldn’t be true. It’s a compelling read with a dark undercurrent. As I said, a great diversion for the elements of the story, but it managed to be an exploration of literature too, and how we determine what is true/real and what is fiction/imagined. And if you’ve been paying attention to the books on my 2020 list so far, you will know that this is a current exploration of mine as well.

The Poet X by Elizabeth Acevedo (2018)

Another National Book Award winner (in this case, for Young People’s Literature), this novel-in-verse tells the story of Xiomara, an Afro-Latina teen who finds her voice through spoken word and poetry. Acevedo says she wrote the book to shed light on the experiences of girls who aren’t often the protagonists of novels. This coming-of-age story addresses religion, the first spark of sexuality, family pressures, and the powers of creative and self-expression. An engaging read, it’s beautifully crafted and packs much emotional resonance.

 

The Book of Boy by Catherine Gilbert Murdoch (2018)

This middle grade novel takes place in the Middle Ages. Boy is a child who has survived the plague but lives in a village desiccated by not only disease, but generations of war as well. When a mysterious pilgrim arrives and chooses Boy to accompany him on a quest to collect the relics of St. Peter and return them to Rome, the adventure of his life begins. It’s a quest story, but so much more, because Boy has much to learn on this pilgrimage—about true spirituality and morality, about the bonds that join people, and about his own true nature. I loved this book for its unique setting, and for the surprising layers in this lovely story for young people.

 

Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman (2018)

The main character of this novel, Eleanor Oliphant, is somewhat of a misfit. Her social skills are questionable, she often says the wrong thing, and she doesn’t spend time with people all that much. When she meets Raymond, a similarly eccentric type, their relationship is the catalyst for her journey back into life and love. This book is funny and smart and full of unseen twists, introducing a character you will remember for a long time. It may seem strange for me to compare this book to the last one on my list—The Book of Boy—but it strikes me that they are similar in many ways. Both are about the redemption available when two unlikely hearts meet.

 

Olive, Again by Elizabeth Strout (2019)

One of my most anticipated books in a long time, and now, one of my favorite reads of the year. Strout picks up the story of Olive Kitteridge, the character from her 2008 Pulitzer-Prize-winning novel of the same name. When you love a book as much as I loved the first, you worry about a sequel living up to your expectations. In this case, I was not disappointed. Strout has a way of imbuing life’s ordinary events with gravitas—because, of course, it is exactly life’s most ordinary events that have the most impact. Like Eleanor Oliphant, Olive is a character who is as large as life, and Strout surrounds her with a cast who reveal themselves to be as people are: confounding and endlessly complicated but also, opportunities for warm connection.

Looking back over my list of the year, I would say that what all of these books—whether novel, memoir, or poetry—have in common are that they somehow, in some way, highlight the importance and redemption of human connection. Isn’t that what the best stories are about? I hope your year of reading sustained you somewhat through the challenges 2020 threw our way. As always, I’d love to hear about your favorite reads of the year!

 

 

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Summer of France: Poems of Paris

Knopf’s Poems of Paris, from the publisher’s Everyman’s Library Pocket Series, was a nice companion to Mantel’s sometimes-overwhelming, dense, historical novel. It’s a lovely little book, in a pleasing size. Some other titles from the collection are “Christmas Poems,” “Love Songs and Sonnets,” “Persian Poets,” “Poems of Mourning,” etc., so you can see there is quite a range. Find the pocket series at everymanslibrary.com.

As for this collection of poems inspired by Paris, it was separated into the following sections: The City of Light, The Sights, The Streets, Parisians, The City of Love, Expatriates, Tourists, Food and Drink, The Arts, Homage to the Poet, Revolution, and War, Occupation, Resistance. This method worked well, and enriched the experience, I thought. And now, because talking of poetry is never as good as reading poetry, I’ll share a few of my favorites so that you, too, can have a taste of Paris.

Spring Evening on the Boulevards

Sitting on a bench one evening in spring on the great boulevards, near the Variétés. A café streaming with gas. A prostitute dressed all in red going from beer to beer. On the second floor, a room quite somber and quiet with a few lamps and tables over which heads were bent, a little study. On the third floor, adazzle with gas, all the windows open, flowers, perfumes, a dance in progress. One can’t hear the music for the din of the street swarming with cabs and people, with the corridors devouring and vomiting people incessantly, and the hawking of programs in from of the Variétés … But one can see, gliding past in front of these ten windows, men in black tails with white shirt fronts, revolving to the music, holding ladies, blue, pink, lilac, white, holding them ever so lightly, so correctly, one can see them pass, repass with serious, unsmiling faces (but one can’t hear the music they follow). Several pimps wander by; one says to the other: “She made ten francs, old boy…” From the Variétés a crowd swarms out during intermission; and the hell of the boulevard continues, the cabs, the cafés, the gas, the shopwindows, more and more pedestrians—more prostitutes filing by under the harsh lights of the café … Near me a newspaper stall and two women chatting; one says: “She certainly won’t last the night, that one, and my kid caught it from hers.” Busses filled with members of both sexes, each with his or her own feelings, troubles, vices.

                And above it all, the gentle, eternal stars.

Jules Laforgue (1860-87); translated by William Jay Smith

Bastille Day

The first time I saw Paris

I went to see where the Bastille

had been, and though

I saw the column there

I was too aware that

the Bastille was not there:

I did not know how

to see the emptiness.

People go to see

the missing Twin Towers

and seem to like feeling

the lack of something.

I do not like knowing

that my mother no longer

exists, or the feeling

of knowing. Excuse me

for comparing my mother

to large buildings. Also

for talking about absence.

The red and gray sky

above the rooftops

is darkening and the inhabitants

are hastening home for dinner.

I hope to see you later.

Ron Padgett (1942-)

In Memoriam

Today is Sunday.

I fear the crowd of my fellows with such faces of stone.

From my glass tower filled with headaches and

                Impatient Ancestors,

I contemplate the roofs and hilltops in the mist.

In the stillness—somber, naked chimneys.

Below them my dead are asleep and my dreams turn

                to ashes.

All my dreams, blood running freely down the streets

And mixing with blood from the butcher shops.

From this observatory like the outskirts of town

I contemplate my dreams lost along the streets,

Crouched at the foot of the hills like the guides of my

                race

On the rivers of the Gambia and the Saloum

And now on the Seine at the foot of these hills.

Let me remember my dead!

Yesterday was All Saints’ Day, the solemn anniversary

                of the Sun,

And I had no dead to honor in any cemetery.

O Forefathers! You who have always refused to die,

Who knew how to resist Death from the Sine to the

                Seine,

And now in the fragile veins of my indomitable blood,

Guard my dreams as you did your thin-legged

                migrant sons!

O Ancestors! Defend the roofs of Paris in this

                dominical fog,

The roofs that protect my dead.

Let me leave this tower so dangerously secure

And descend to the streets, joining my brothers

Who have blue eyes and hard hands.

Léopold Sédar Senghor (1906-2001); translated by Melvin Dixon

January in Paris

                Poems are never completed—they are

                only abandoned.  –Paul Valéry

That winter I had nothing to do

but tend the kettle in my shuttered room

on the top floor of a pensione near a cemetery,

but I would sometimes descend the stairs,

unlock my bicycle, and pedal along the cold city

                streets

often turning from a wide boulevard

down a narrow side street

bearing the name of an obscure patriot.

I followed a few private rules,

never crossing a bridge without stopping

mid-point to lean my bike on the railing

and observe the flow of the river below

as I tried to better understand the French.

In my pale coat and my Basque cap

I pedaled past the windows of a patisserie

or sat up tall in the seat, arms folded,

and clicked downhill filling my nose with winter air.

I would see beggars and street cleaners

in their bright uniforms, and sometimes

I would see the poems of Valéry,

the ones he never finished but abandoned,

wandering the streets of the city half-clothed.

Most of them needed only a final line

or two, a little verbal flourish at the end,

but whenever I approached,

they would retreat from their makeshift fires

into the shadows—thin specters of incompletion,

forsaken for so many long decades

how could they ever trust another man with a pen?

I came across the one I wanted to tell you about

sitting with a glass of rosé at a café table—

beautiful, emaciated, unfinished,

cruelly abandoned with a flick of panache.

by Monsieur Paul Valéry himself,

big fish in the school of Symbolism

and for a long time, president of the Committee of Arts

                and Letters

of the League of Nations if you please.

Never mind how I got her out of the café,

past the concierge and up the flight of stairs—

remember that Paris is the capital of public kissing.

And never mind the holding and the pressing.

It is enough to know that I moved my pen

in such a way as to bring her to completion,

a simple, final stanza, which ended,

as this poem will, with the image

of a gorgeous orphan lying on a rumpled bed,

her large eyes closed,

a painting of cows in a valley over her head,

and off to the side, me in a window seat

blowing smoke from a cigarette at dawn.

Billy Collins (1941-)

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Poem for the Weekend: Marianne Moore

 

Before Marianne Moore became a poet, she was a teacher, then an assistant at the New York Public Library, where she began to meet other Imagist poets. Imagism was a movement in early 20th-century poetry that favored precision of imagery and clear, sharp language. Moore drew much inspiration from the natural world, especially animals. A new collected edition of her poetry was released this year.

 

Talisman

 

by Marianne Moore (1887-1972)

 

Under a splintered mast,
torn from ship and cast
              near her hull,
a stumbling shepherd found
embedded in the ground,
              a sea-gull
of lapis lazuli,
a scarab of the sea,
            with wings spread—
curling its coral feet,
parting its beak to greet
            men long dead.

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Poem for the Weekend: Frank Bidart

The poet Frank Bidart's career has spanned almost fifty years. He's the recipient of many accolades and awards, most recently, this year's National Book Award. More about his writing here and here.

 

Visions at 74

 

by Frank Bidart 

 

                                            

The planet turns there without you, beautiful.

Exiled by death you cannot

touch it. Weird joy to watch postulates

lived out and discarded, something crowded

inside us always craving to become something

glistening outside us, the relentless planet

showing itself the logic of what is

buried inside it. To love existence

is to love what is indifferent to you

you think, as you watch it turn there, beautiful.

World that can know itself only by

world, soon it must colonize and infect the stars.

You are an hypothesis made of flesh.

What you will teach the stars is constant

rage at the constant prospect of not-being.                        

                      •

 

Sometimes when I wake it's because I hear

a knock. Knock,

Knock. Two

knocks, quite clear.

I wake and listen. It's nothing.

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Poem for the Weekend: Chris Forhan

Chris Forhan is an award-winning poet and a professor at Butler University in Indianapolis. His memoir, My Father Before Me, was published in 2016 and tells the story of the author's coming of age during the 60s and 70s, and of losing his father to suicide. Forhan writes of finding solace in poetry. Poems, he believes, relay "a sense of openness, of receptive attention to a life that enchants and baffles.” You can find more information about his writing here.

Gouge, Adze, Rasp, Hammer

by Chris Forhan

So this is what it's like when love
leaves, and one is disappointed
that the body and mind continue to exist,

exacting payment from each other,
engaging in stale rituals of desire,
and it would seem the best use of one's time

is not to stand for hours outside
her darkened house, drenched and chilled,
blinking into the slanting rain.

So this is what it's like to have to
practice amiability and learn
to say the orchard looks grand this evening

as the sun slips behind scumbled clouds
and the pears, mellowed to a golden-green,
glow like flames among the boughs.

It is now one claims there is comfort
in the constancy of nature, in the wind's way
of snatching dogwood blossoms from their branches,

scattering them in the dirt, in the slug's
sure, slow arrival to nowhere.
It is now one makes a show of praise

for the lilac that strains so hard to win
attention to its sweet inscrutability,
when one admires instead the lowly

gouge, adze, rasp, hammer--
fire-forged, blunt-syllabled things,
unthought-of until a need exists:

a groove chiseled to a fixed width,
a roof sloped just so. It is now
one knows what it is to envy

the rivet, wrench, vise -- whatever
works unburdened by memory and sight,
while high above the damp fields

flocks of swallows roil and dip,
and streams churn, thick with leaping salmon,
and the bee advances on the rose.                         

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Poem for the Weekend: Cecilie Løveid

 

One of the most celebrated writers in modern Norway, Cecilie Løveid writes prose, plays and poetry, but is known as a "genre transgressor." In short, she makes her own way. More information about this writer here.

 

 

THE MORNING WOMAN

 

by Cecilie Løveid

 

There is no doubt that there is a body
inside the music
The music would have made love with her
if it could
don’t you think?
If she were not a woman I mean
if she were music
Would she have made love with him if he weren’t music?
She didn’t throw herself out the window
when the music stopped
The morning woman
waits for the continuation
waits for the music
waits for a sign
Would she really have loved him if he were a man
and not music?
Where shall she find him when the music stops
other than deep inside herself
There where she is
The morning woman

 

MORGENKVINNEN

 

Det er ingen tvil om at det er en kropp
inne i musikken
Musikken ville elsket med henne
hvis den kunne
tror du ikke?
Hvis ikke hun var kvinne mener jeg
hvis hun var musikk
ville hun elsket med ham hvis han ikke var musikk?
Hun kastet seg ikke ut vinduet
da musikken stanset
Morgenkvinnen
venter på fortsettelsen
venter på musikken
venter på et tegn
Ville hun virkelig elsket ham hvis han var en mann
og ikke musikk?
Hvor skal hun finne ham når musikken slutter
annet enn dypt inne i seg selv
Der hvor hun er
Morgenkvinnen

 

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Poem for the Weekend: W.B. Yeats

I had a hard time choosing a poem today; I don't know why. Too many thoughts crowding in, too much to do. So I'll give you this classic, still good after all this time.

When You Are Old

by W. B. Yeats (1865-1939)

When you are old and grey and full of sleep,
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;

How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true,
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face;

And bending down beside the glowing bars,
Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.

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Poem for the Weekend: Ronald Stuart Thomas

 

Considered to be one of the most important modern Welsh poets, Ronald Stuart Thomas was an ordained Anglican priest, and much of his poetry reflects his time serving the farming population of rural, rugged Wales. Often compared with Robert Frost, "Thomas is making a universal statement... This pared-down existence, in a land of ruined beauty belonging to the past, is more human than any educated sophistication. Or perhaps one should say, it is more truly symbolic of the human predicament."

You can find more information about Thomas and his life and work here.

A Day In Autumn

by Ronald Stuart Thomas (1913-2000)
 
It will not always be like this,
The air windless, a few last
Leaves adding their decoration
To the trees’ shoulders, braiding the cuffs
Of the boughs with gold; a bird preening

In the lawn’s mirror. Having looked up
From the day’s chores, pause a minute,
Let the mind take its photograph
Of the bright scene, something to wear
Against the heart in the long cold.

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Poem for the Weekend: John Ashbery

This week, many people are sharing their favorite lines or poems written by John Ashbery, one of our very best poets, who passed on September 5th at the age of ninety. He had a long and prolific career, and touched a great many lives; find his biography here.

The New Higher

by John Ashbery (1927-2017)

You meant more than life to me. I lived through
you not knowing, not knowing I was living.
I learned that you called for me. I came to where
you were living, up a stair. There was no one there.
No one to appreciate me. The legality of it
upset a chair. Many times to celebrate
we were called together and where
we had been there was nothing there,
nothing that is anywhere. We passed obliquely,
leaving no stare. When the sun was done muttering,
in an optimistic way, it was time to leave that there.

Blithely passing in and out of where, blushing shyly
at the tag on the overcoat near the window where
the outside crept away, I put aside the there and now.
Now it was time to stumble anew,
blacking out when time came in the window.
There was not much of it left.
I laughed and put my hands shyly
across your eyes. Can you see now?
Yes I can see I am only in the where
where the blossoming stream takes off, under your window.
Go presently you said. Go from my window.
I am in love with your window I cannot undermine
it, I said.

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Poem for the Weekend: Maya Angelou

A Brave And Startling Truth

by Maya Angelou

We, this people, on a small and lonely planet
Traveling through casual space
Past aloof stars, across the way of indifferent suns
To a destination where all signs tell us
It is possible and imperative that we learn
A brave and startling truth

And when we come to it
To the day of peacemaking
When we release our fingers
From fists of hostility
And allow the pure air to cool our palms

When we come to it
When the curtain falls on the minstrel show of hate
And faces sooted with scorn are scrubbed clean
When battlefields and coliseum
No longer rake our unique and particular sons and daughters
Up with the bruised and bloody grass
To lie in identical plots in foreign soil

When the rapacious storming of the churches
The screaming racket in the temples have ceased
When the pennants are waving gaily
When the banners of the world tremble
Stoutly in the good, clean breeze

When we come to it
When we let the rifles fall from our shoulders
And children dress their dolls in flags of truce
When land mines of death have been removed
And the aged can walk into evenings of peace
When religious ritual is not perfumed
By the incense of burning flesh
And childhood dreams are not kicked awake
By nightmares of abuse

When we come to it
Then we will confess that not the Pyramids
With their stones set in mysterious perfection
Nor the Gardens of Babylon
Hanging as eternal beauty
In our collective memory
Not the Grand Canyon
Kindled into delicious color
By Western sunsets

Nor the Danube, flowing its blue soul into Europe
Not the sacred peak of Mount Fuji
Stretching to the Rising Sun
Neither Father Amazon nor Mother Mississippi who, without favor,
Nurture all creatures in the depths and on the shores
These are not the only wonders of the world

When we come to it
We, this people, on this minuscule and kithless globe
Who reach daily for the bomb, the blade and the dagger
Yet who petition in the dark for tokens of peace
We, this people on this mote of matter
In whose mouths abide cankerous words
Which challenge our very existence
Yet out of those same mouths
Come songs of such exquisite sweetness
That the heart falters in its labor
And the body is quieted into awe

We, this people, on this small and drifting planet
Whose hands can strike with such abandon
That in a twinkling, life is sapped from the living
Yet those same hands can touch with such healing, irresistible tenderness
That the haughty neck is happy to bow
And the proud back is glad to bend
Out of such chaos, of such contradiction
We learn that we are neither devils nor divines

When we come to it
We, this people, on this wayward, floating body
Created on this earth, of this earth
Have the power to fashion for this earth
A climate where every man and every woman
Can live freely without sanctimonious piety
Without crippling fear

When we come to it
We must confess that we are the possible
We are the miraculous, the true wonder of this world
That is when, and only when
We come to it.

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Poem for the Weekend: Jane Hirshfield

I recently watched this documentary about the Buddha, which features many speakers but I recognized the poet Jane Hirshfield immediately, because I had recently flagged one of her poems for this feature. Kismet, I guess, especially because this poem speaks to me quite loudly today. Hirshfield has received many accolades for her poetry and she's also an essayist, a translator, and a student of Zen Buddhism who spent three years in monastic practice. I love what she says here comparing writing poems to Buddhist practice, and I'd also highly recommend her poem "On the Fifth Day," which she read at the March for Science on April 22 of this year. But for this space, here's this one:

The Weighing

by Jane Hirshfield

The heart's reasons
seen clearly,
even the hardest
will carry
its whip-marks and sadness
and must be forgiven.

As the drought-starved
eland forgives
the drought-starved lion
who finally takes her,
enters willingly then
the life she cannot refuse,
and is lion, is fed,
and does not remember the other.

So few grains of happiness
measured against all the dark
and still the scales balance.

The world asks of us
only the strength we have and we give it.
Then it asks more, and we give it.                         

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