What a wonderful week for reading poetry. I found myself daily smitten with Incarnadine, Mary Szybist’s book. It won the National Book Award–but I’ll admit that I didn’t read it because of that. I read Incarnadine because of this poem sent to me in Kenyon Review’s Weekend Reads email.
Oh, my.
Maybe this is why I haven’t written reviews–because I just want to blubber and gush and tell you how this book is plain-spoken and layered and sumptuous all at the same time, how the Marys and the Annunciation theme thread through its pages. I want to tell you about the erasures and the diagram and the poem that incorporates texts from Robert Byrd and George W. Bush, and then we’ll get to “Happy Ideas.” I should start by telling you about “The Troubadours Etc.“, and then I’d want to tell you about “Annunciation (from the grass beneath them)” and I don’t have a link for it, but that is a great reason to go out and buy or borrow this book.
It’s always inspiring to read the poems I want to write–a kind of heartbreaking joy, in the best way.
Happy reading.
“a kind of heartbreaking joy” — yes!
That’s what really good poetry does, I think.
Breaks our hearts with joy.
Thank you for pointing me to these poems.
A book to borrow, yes.
xT.