This year’s list is longer than usual, in part because I created two literature courses for the Professional Creative Writing program I direct at D.U.’s University College, a process that entailed lots of reading. The Masterworks: Fiction course is behind such classics listed here as Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (I’d read only Through the Looking-Glass, oddly enough); Woolf’s To the Lighthouse (it had long been on my list but I’d managed to read around it, I suppose because I felt intimidated by its reputation); and Theodor Storm’s amazing novellas, gathered under the title of the best of them, The Rider on the White Horse. Storm’s prose was translated by James Wright, whose fascination with Storm is noted in Jonathan Blunk’s powerful, painful, and illuminating new biography, James Wright: A Life in Poetry.
The second course, Masterworks: Poetry, summoned Gwendolyn Brooks’ The Essential Gwendolyn Brooks, edited by Elizabeth Alexander, onto the list; since my reading of Brooks had stopped at her 1963 Selected Poems, The Essential Gwendolyn Brooks opened my eyes to the final 30-plus years of Brooks’s writing. Her work is fierce and demanding and sometimes infuriating, but especially so after her Selected, when Brooks began writing specifically with a Black audience in mind and publishing with independent, Black-owned publishers. This admirable social-political-aesthetic commitment may have narrowed her audience, but it didn’t diminish the quality of her work or the influence she had in the communities she cared about most.
With a list like this, ranking would be ridiculous. Besides, I come to reading not as a critic but as a reader first, then a poet, and so follow the Divine Miss Em’s lead: “If I read a book and it makes my whole body so cold no fire can warm me I know that is poetry. If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry. These are the only way I know it.” With that in mind, let me strongly recommend:
Conversations, by César Aira
The Child Poet, by Homero Aridjis
James Wright: A Life in Poetry, by Jonathan Blunk
The Essential Gwendolyn Brooks, by Gwendolyn Brooks
Zama, by Antonio De Benedetto
The Inspector Barlach Mysteries, by Friedrich Dürrenmatt
Faces Somewhere Wild, by David Giannini
Iron Moon: An Anthology of Chinese Worker Poetry, ed. & tr. by Eleanor Goodman
Signs Preceding the End of the World, by Yuri Herrera
In the Time of the Jacarandas, by Michael Hogan
300 Arguments, by Sarah Manguso
Falling Awake, by Alice Oswald
The Engineer of Human Souls and An Inexplicable Story, or The Narrative of Questus Firmus Siculus, by Josef Skvorecky
Two by Pablo Neruda, Book of Twilight and venture of the infinite man
Diaries of Exile, by Yannis Ritsos
A Skeleton Plays Violin, by Georg Trakl (the third and final volume in Seagull Books’ indispensible series, Our Trakl
The Eclipses, by David Woo
Both Slight Exaggeration and Unseen Hand, by Adam Zagajewski
Some will object to prose being included here, but of course poetry occurs as easily in good prose as it does in verse, and the Divine Miss Em’s physical markers apply to both modes.
Although, as the current Poet Laureate of Colorado, I don’t feel comfortable recommending one fellow Coloradan over another, I’ve taken the liberty of highlighting books by Colorado poets in a spring green color. I’m not being pusillanimous. The fact is that poetry is flourishing in nearly every nook, cranny, arroyo, valley, rugged saddleback, and expanse of piedmont and plain around the state, so you’ll be missing quite a lot if you overlook these invigorating poets.
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How I Became a Nun, César Aira (tr. Chris Andrews), New Directions, 2007
Conversations, César Aira (tr. Katherine Silver), New Directions, 2014
Slow Fire, Pamela Alexander, Ausable Press, 2007
The Child Poet, Homero Aridjis (tr. Chloe Aridjis), Archipelago Books, 2016
James Wright: A Life in Poetry, Jonathan Blunk, Farrar Straus Giroux, 2017
Pitch, Todd Boss, W. W. Norton, 2012
All Ember, Kierstin Bridger, Urban Farmhouse Press, 2016
The Essential Gwendolyn Brooks, Gwendolyn Brooks, Library of America, 2005
An Avocado from Michoacán, Agustín Cadena (tr. C. M. Mayo), Tameme, Inc., 2007
The Postman Always Rings twice, James M. Cain, Vintage, 1989
Life in Suspension/La Vie Suspendue, Hélène Cardona, Salmon Poetry, 2016
Alice in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll, Dover, 1993
Even Now, Hugo Claus (tr. David Colmer), Archipelago Books, 2013
Everything We Met Changed Form and Followed the Rest, Jessica Comola, Horse Less Press, 2016
City Hat Frame Factory, Robert Cooperman, Kelsay Books, 2017
Draft Board Blues, Robert Cooperman, FutureCycle Press, 2017
The War of the Secret Agents and Other Poems, Henri Coulette, Scribners, 1966
The Family Goldschmitt, Henri Coulette, Scribners, 1971
Anatomie of the World, Annie Dawid, Finishing Line Press, 2017
Home Among the Swinging Stars: Collected Poem of Jaime de Angulo, Jaime de Angulo, La Alameda Press, 2006
Zama, Antonio De Benedetto (tr. Esther Allen), NYRB, 2016
Crime and Punishment, Fyodor Dostoyevsky (tr. Constance Garnett), International Collectors Library, 1953
The Inspector Barlach Mysteries, Friedrich Dürrenmatt (tr. Joel Agee), U of Chicago Press, 2006
Linthead Stomp, Timothy Earley, Horse Less Press, 2016
Standing on Earth, Mohsen Emadi (tr. Lyn Coffin), Phoneme Media, 2016
A Simple Heart, Gustave Flaubert (tr. Charlotte Mandell), Melville House, 2004
D’Après Tout, Jean Follain (tr. Heather McHugh), Princeton U Pr, 1981
Stardust, Neil Gaiman, HarperCollins, 1999
Hum of Our Blood, Madelyn Garner, Three: A Taos Press, 2017
The Poems of Sidney West, Juan Gelman (tr. Katherine M. Hedeen & Victor Rodriguez Nuñez), Salt Publishing, 2008 (Note: the 1969 Spanish original of this book purports to be a translation from English of poems by an imaginary American poet, Sidney West)
Four Plus Four, David Giannini, Country Valley Press, 2017
Faces Somewhere Wild, David Giannini, Dos Madres Press, 2017
Nine Dragon Island, Eleanor Goodman, Zephyr Press, 2016
Iron Moon: An Anthology of Chinese Worker Poetry, ed. & tr. Eleanor Goodman, White Pine Press, 2017
Ghosts of the Palace of Blue Tiles, Jorge Fernández Granados (tr. John Oliver Simon), Tameme, Inc., 2008
All I’ve Done for You, Joanne Greenberg, McMania, 2017
Prairie Crocus, Marielle Grenade-Willis, LuNaMoPoLiS, 2016
Collected Poems, Robert Hayden, Liveright, 1996
Signs Preceding the End of the World, Yuri Herrera (tr. Lisa Dillman), & Other Stories, 2015
The Transmigration of Bodies, Yuri Herrera (tr. Lisa Dillman), & Other Stories, 2016
Still the Animals Enter, Jane Hilberry, Red Hen Press, 2016
This Awkward Art, Conrad & Jane Hilberry, Mayapple Press, 2009
In the Time of the Jacarandas, Michael Hogan, Egret Books, 2015
The Iliad of Homer, Homer (tr. Peter Green), U of California Press, 2015
Poetry of the Earth: Mapuche Trilingual Anthology, ed. Jaime Luis Huenún Villa, Interactive Press, 2014
Knowing Knott: Essays on an American Poet, Steven Huff, Tiger Bark Press, 2017
Vortex of Our Affections, Claire Ibarra, Finishing Line Press, 2017
A Passion According to Green, Mark Irwin, New Issues Poetry & Prose, 2017
Robert Lowell: Setting the River on Fire, Kay Redfield Jamison, Knopf, 2017
Regeneration: Red Book/White Book, Meirion Jordan, Seren/Poetry Wales Pr, 2012
CounterNarratives: Stories and Novellas, John Keene, New Directions, 2015
Put On Your Silly Pants: Poems for Children and Very Immature Adults, Daniel Klawitter, Daffydowndilly Press, 2016
Plato Poetica, Daniel Klawitter, Kelsay Books, 2017
Spiral, Lynda La Rocca, Liquid Light Press, 2016
The Stuntman, Brian Laidlaw, Milkweed Editions, 2015
This Town: Poems of Correspondence, Kyle Laws & Jared Smith, Liquid Light Press, 2017
The Left Hand of Darkness, Ursula K. Le Guin, Ace Books, 1987
Solaris, Stanslaw Lem (tr. Bill Johnston), Pro Auctore Wojciech Zemek, 2014
Crane Dance, Lois Levinson, Finishing Line Press, 2017
In the Pit of the Empty, John Levy, Oata’s Bookshelf, 2016
Einstein’s Dreams, Alan Lightman, Vintage, 1993
300 Arguments, Sarah Manguso, Graywolf, 2017
Tiger Fur, Salgado Maranhão (tr. Alexis Levitin), White Pine Press, 2015
All the Way Up, Carl Mayfield, Lilliput Review, 2017
The Magic Rectangle, Sandra S. McRae, Folded Word, 2017
The Gift of Women, George McWhirter, Exile Editions, 2014
Kafka on the Shore, Haruki Murakami (tr. Philip Gabriel), Vintage, 2005
Book of Twilight, Pablo Neruda (tr. William O’Daly), Copper Canyon, 2017
venture of the infinite man, Pablo Neruda (tr. Jessica Powell), City Lights Books, 2017
Water Ways, William O’Daly & J.S. Graustein, Folded Word, 2017
Dear Life, Dennis O’Driscoll, Copper Canyon, 2013
Silvina Ocampo: Selected Poems, Silvina Ocampo (tr. Jason Weiss), NYRB, 2015
Falling Awake, Alice Oswald, Norton, 2016
Memorial: A Version of Homer’s Iliad, Alice Oswald, Norton, 2012
Immensity, Beth Paulson, Kelsay Books, 2016
The Golden Apple: A Round of Stories, Songs, Spells, Proverbs & Riddles, Vasko Popa (tr. Andrew Harvey & Anne Pennington), Anvil Press Poetry Ltd., 2010
There Was an Old Woman, Jessy Randall, Unicorn Press, 2015
Dance the Orange: Selected Poems, Rainer Maria Rilke (tr. Michael Hamburger), ed. Jeremy Mark Robinson, Crescent Moon Publishing, 2012
Diaries of Exile, Yannis Ritsos (tr. Karen Emmerich & Edmund Keeley), Archipelago Books, 2013
Belle Turnbull: On the Life & Work of an American Master, David J. Rothman and Jeffrey Villines, Pleiades Press, 2017
Yellow Woman and a Beauty of the Spirit: Essays on Native American Life Today, Leslie Marmon Silko, Simon & Schuster, 1996
The World Doesn’t End, Charles Simic, Harcourt Brace & Co, 1985
The Engineer of Human Souls, Josef Skvorecky (tr. Paul Wilson), Chatto & Windus | The Hogarth Press, 1983
An Inexplicable Story, or The Narrative of Questus Firmus Siculus, Josef Skvorecky (tr. Káča Poláčková Henley), Key Porter Books Ltd, 2002
The World Shared, Dariusz Sośnicki (tr. Piotr Florszyk & Boris Dralyuk), Boa Editions Ltd., 2014
Worm-Eaten Time, Pavel Šrut (tr. Deborah Garfinkle), Phoneme Media, 2016
Outerbridge Reach, Robert Stone, Ticknor & Fields, 1992
The Rider on the White Horse, Theodor Storm (tr. James Wright), NYRB, 2009
A Year Unfolding, Debbie Strange, Folded Word, 2017
North Dakota Quarterly Vol. 83:4, Fall 2016, Kate Sweney, ed., U of North Dakota, 2016
A Skeleton Plays Violin, Georg Trakl (tr. James Reidel), Seagull Books, 2017
The Miracle Already Happening, Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer, Liquid Light Press, 2011
Even Now, Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer, Lithic Press, 2016
Goldboat, Belle Turnbull, Houghton Mifflin Company, 1940
Smooth-Talking Dog, Roberto Castillo Udiarte (tr. Anthony Seidman), Phoneme Media, 2016
With a Deepening Presence, Don Wentworth, Six Gallery Press, 2016
Something Crosses My Mind, Wang Xiaoni (tr. Eleanor Goodman), Zephyr Press, 2014
The Eclipses, David Woo, BOA Editons, Ltd., 2005
To the Lighthouse, Virginia Woolf, Harcourt, 1981
Slight Exaggeration, Adam Zagajewski (tr. Clare Cavanagh), Farrar Straus Giroux, 2017
Eternal Enemies, Adam Zagajewski (tr. Clare Cavanagh), Farrar Straus Giroux, 2008
Unseen Hand, Adam Zagajewski (tr. Clare Cavanagh), Farrar Straus Giroux, 2011
Multiple Choice, Alejandro Zambra (tr. Megan McDowell), Penguin, 2016
Sun Bear, Matthew Zapruder, Copper Canyon, 2014
Joseph Hutchison, Colorado Poet Laureate 2014-2019, has published 20 collections of poems and edited or co-edited three poetry anthologies. He currently directs two master’s-level programs for University College at the University of Denver: Professional Creative Writing and Arts & Culture Management. Joe lives with his wife, Melody Madonna, in the mountains southwest of Denver, Colorado, the city where he was born. 
Hey Joe, HNY. Thanks for the list. What a range. And thanks for putting Joanne’s novel on the list; I’ll let her know.
What a varied and wonderful list. Thanks for the tip last week about the James Wright book by the way. Got it. And mil gracias for including the In the Time of the Jacarandas in your master list. Honored, amigo.
Gracias for this list. I am so delighted and very honored to see the two Tameme chapbooks on your list– the poems by Jorge Fernández Granados, translated by John Oliver Simon, and my translation of the short story (a very poetic one) by Agustín Cadena. Ah, so many intriguing titles here! Here’s to 2018!