All of what I said in my posting was true! Books are just NOT in my financial plan most of the time. Don’t get me wrong, I do wish I could have floor to ceiling shelves filled to the brim with beautiful books. But finances, space, other projects, and a slow reading speed also play part in my book purchases. But alas, as I mentioned, there are other ways one can obtain books for free or at a discounted price.
Two of the featured books in this blog are from journals I’ve been published in. I’ve acquired these by being a contributor to the journal, meaning they accepted one of my poems for publication. This is called getting a contributors copy. Two of these books were gifted to me by the authors if I promised to reciprocate the gift with a book review. The others I paid out of pocket for.
Although it would be very informative, this isn’t a post about alternative ways to get poetry books. What I will continue to expand upon are the 9 books from the above and tell you why I appreciate them. I’ll also leave the links to where you can purchase these books below.
Marina Carreira- Save the Bathwater
Marina Carreira is a Luso American queer feminist who is one part poet, one part artist, one part teacher, one part mom, one part partner, and 100% awesome. A native to Newark, New Jersey, some of her work wrestles directly with memory and experiences from some of its most famous city streets like Ferry Street, Broad Street, and Market Street but where it really shines is within the confines of the immigrant experience— particularly her Portuguese heritage.
Within the different poems, Marina gives us snapshots of a first-generation American perspective while also offering the point of views of immigrants arriving to the states in order to establish themselves. She is able to do this all through the speaker’s eye, where a lot of the first- person poems (poems using the “I”) vary from the different women in the Carreira nuclear family.
This is a book that thrives with a matriarchal voice and is well worth the read. I should have a review of Save the Bathwater real soon, but in the meantime, you can check it out yourself.
Victor Alcindor- Stand Mute
Victor Alcindor’s poetry is strong, yet tender. His words are careful and explicit. His book is about the black experience but it is by no means shouting it’s black pride at you. Within the black experience of this speaker are the gendered abuses, racial traumas of colorism, and othering that carry these poems further. Stand Mute does some very poignant work with masculinity as well, putting into question what is considered “manly” and how we choose to navigate those structures.
Aside from his work, Victor is also an amazing human being. A teacher, father, and poet, he is a model citizen to those he is in contact with. Armed with a calm smile and a calm demeanor, Victor’s work appears as he does, neat and cohesive.
I will be reviewing Victor’s book as well. Until then, please check out Stand Mute from Get Fresh Books LLC. You won’t be disappointed with the caliber of the work.
Ysabel Y. González- Wild Innovations
Ysabel Y. González’s work was one of the poets featured during the #PoetsforPuertoRico Newark fundraiser and she is also the poetry coordinator at Dodge Poetry. Her work about the diaspora and Latinx culture is endearing, enlightening, and searing. For instance, reading her poem, “Rebirth of Pinocchio or for Brown Boys” will give you a good idea of the space her work takes up.
As a dear friend and fellow Puerto Rican poet this collection is an amazing coming-of-age collection about growing up in the city of Newark. Even though this book focuses on growing up in the city of Newark, it appeals to many audiences who were brought up in the city. Much like our Nuyorican predecessors, although their work was very niche and unique to the Nuyorican and Black Arts movement, it’s accessibility was what made the work so good. Ysabel is operating in that same frequency as she combines an almost ethereal storytelling with a back beat of hip hop and foot shuffling of b-boys and b-girls.
You can read a blurb to find out more and purchase her book by clicking on the picture.
The three of these books were published by Get Fresh Books LLC. Founder Roberto Carlos Garcia is a powerhouse poet’s poet. An amazing advocate for the literary world and a real scholar. Please, peruse and support GFB. #indypublishing #indiepublishing
Robert Hylton- In America: The Story of an Immigrant
Rob Hylton has been gracing the stages in and around New Jersey for almost 20 years. In my city, this man is a legend and I was proud to know that he was finally publishing his first book.
As a known spoken word artist, it was very interesting to see his work in print because as one can imagine, an appreciator of his work will find a new appreciation in seeing his poems on the page. His poem, “In America,” for example— a poem that I had heard years ago and is one of his most requested— rings like a new poem in person, but breathes new life in his book.
Elizabeth Levine- The Ribbon Around the Bomb
Elizabeth Levine’s work is some of the most elusive poetry on this booklist. This chapbook by Finishing Line Press is a good example of a collection of poems with a succinct purpose. All of the poems in this collection are odes to poets who have committed suicide. Though visceral when describing the last moments of a writer’s life, the poetic eye that is featured in the pages of The Ribbon Around the Bomb exemplify the ways poets reveal the beauty in the grotesque.
To expand upon this, I offer you a piece of her poem, “The Garden of Earthly Delights: Frank O’ Hara (1926-1966)” that touches upon O’Hara’s last night alive and I implore you to focus on the descriptions of O’hara’s mannerisms as it compares to the cosmos and the sea.
I flag down a beach taxi, too drunk to journey home.
I like down in the dunes after tea, waiting,
My pocket of pocket of rhinestones instead of Orion,
For the strength to find the next man. Mystery,
My body forms a starfish in the sand.
My lonely unabashed bones
Seduce like the open flesh of the world.
There is nothing left with which to venture forth
except the lassitude of delirium.
I am rendered a dead man’s voice, reciting the echo
Beautiful lies spoken in every conceivable language.
Willie Perdomo- The Crazy Bunch
Willie Perdomo is a poet’s poet. He’s a friend, advocate, and asset to the Nuyorican, Puerto Rican, POC, and general literary communities yet, you would never know that by having a conversation with him. Although he has been a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, a finalist for the Poetry Society of America Norma Farber First Book Prize, a recipient of the PEN Beyond Margins Award and the Coretta Scott King Honor, you wouldn’t know it by talking to him. Perdomo is still the poet spitting fire on the corner of Lexington in East Harlem.
His body of work is his people. Being a notable Nuyorican voice for the past 20 years, Perdomo has been introducing generations of poets to stage poetics while simultaneously giving them the permission to channel their words through their own urban rhetoric. Where Spanglish and downtown slang are safe, Perdomo’s work sings, raps, and bellows.
Particularly in his latest collection, The Crazy Bunch, the speaker and a group of friends attempt to explain the happenings of a weekend where many of them start to disappear. The overall arc of this story is developed through first person retellings of events that took place, as well as reportages recorded by cops (rightly referred to as the Poetry Cops) who are trying to investigate the various happenings. Thinking back to the poet’s youth in the Golden Age of hip hop, The Crazy Bunch is a well crafted book by a poet who is very seasoned (with Adobo, Sazón, and a touch of sofrito).
The Journal of NJ Poets
This journal is out of the County College of Morristown in NJ and I was very happy to get published in this collection as a proud New Jersey poet. This was a particularly nice collection to get published in because Marina Carreira (mentioned above) was the guest editor for the “Brick City Folio.” You can watch me perform the published poem on my YouTube channel and you can see what Marina had to say about putting the different poems together.
The Paterson Literary Review
This journal has been in print for over 30 years. The Paterson Literary Review is run out of The Poetry Center at Passaic County Community College by poet Maria Mazziotti Gillan and their purpose is to be representative of the diversity of poetry. Openly, Mazziotti Gillan mentions this in the notes from the editor, “As editor, I attempt to be inclusive of the work of writers from many races and ethnicities, choosing what I believe to be the best writing from more than a thousand submissions to the journal.”
It was an honor to have my poem, Fire-setting be featured. I have been visualizing a publication the the Paterson Literary Review and this poem specifically discusses a memory of a childhood home. Like with many families, communal activities like cooking, cleaning, and watching TV were times to learn from one another and acted as poignant points of memory.
Sean Battle- Profess
For those who are even slightly familiar with the Newark Arts scene, one won’t have to go far to hear the name Sean Battle. Sean Battle, better known by his stage name, the “Professor,” is the founder and CEO of the arts education and entertainment firm that hosts one of Newark’s premiere open mic venues, Evolution Dopen Mic.
In his second collection entitled, Profess, Sean Battle returns to the different ideas and lessons he was taught in his upbringing, putting into question his blackness, masculinity, and social responsibility to his family and community. His book reads as a lesson, a poetic syllabus that the reader should follow in order to gain a better worldview.
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