Steve Evans

On Monday, Steve Evans’ Attention Span – his annual collection of reading recommendations from a wide range of poets – included my first participation in the list. All of the works I recommended there are terrific, and I commend them to you as well. Plus this feature has always been a great way to get a sense of who is excited about what, much more focused & thus useful than, say, a steady trickle of Friday’s reading on Facebook or piecemeal via Good Reading-type compendia. Here is my list and accompanying remarks.

Of the 633 books, chapbooks,
songs, films, magazines, websites, exhibits,
“and other cultural phenomena”
cited in this year’s Attention Span survey,
just 78 were mentioned
by more than one of the
60 contributors.

Barbara Guest, Anne Boyer,
Yedda Morrisson & I
had more than one book
mentioned more than once.*

Works most often mentioned
included Jennifer Moxley’s Clampdown,
Rachel Loden’s Dick of the Dead,
Lisa Robertson’s Magenta Soul Whip,
Mel Nichols’ Catalytic Exteriorization Phenomenon
& the magazine Try!

Steve Evans
has now conducted this survey
for seven straight years,
proving each time
the incredible diversity
of contemporary verse.

 

*Rob Fitterman’s
collaboration with Vanessa Place,
Notes on Conceptualisms,
was multiply mentioned,
as was Rob the Plagiarist.

The other collaboration
cited more than once –
Clark Coolidge & Bernadette Mayer’s
The Cave –
was likewise cross-gender.