Some books I love that you will too.
Reading is personal yet communal. I'm excited to share some favorite authors of mine and the wonderful books they have written. Be sure to check back as this page will be growing with each book I read!
Mag Gabbert
Mag Gabbert's first collection, from 2023, is still one of my favorites from the last three years. Deeply feminist, transformative, and erotic, Gabbert's poems are full of openness, joy, and passion.
Emanuele Coccia
I love this Penguin Classics: Art & Design series. In particular, this is an amazing meditation on home and hearth. Coccia's prose is warm and welcoming. This book made me think differently about the importance of the place where we spend most of our time!
Hedgie Choi
A friend of mine who works at Powell's Books pulled Choi's Salvage: Poems off the shelf and read two poems to me. I was blown away. Easily one of the best first books of poems written in the last ten years, full of the wildness, strangeness, sadness, and honesty I have always wanted from our art form.
Christopher Bonanos
I love reading a bit of non-fiction at night, and Christopher Bonanos' book about the crime photographer of the 1930s, 40s, and 50s is a blast. This isn't a dry book; it's an adventure from New York to LA and back, led by a one-of-a-kind artist.
Major Jackson
Major Jackson has put together a book of nourishment and healing with this anthology/recipe collection. I'm proud to have a poem about my mom's split pea soup included, though my son's favorite is the dumpling soup. Amazing poets such as Dorianne Laux, Tyree Daye, and Jenny Wong, fill the pages.
Callie Siskel
I find that the elegy, and indeed most poems born of grief, are difficult to write in a way that includes the reader. But Siskel does it so well, clearly and patiently. Whatever your loss, this book of brilliant poems will be good company.