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Books I Read in 2022 (& a Jennifer Moxley poem)

by Parker

These are the books I read cover to cover in 2022. Titles marked “*” are saddle-bound pamphlets or chapbooks. I haven’t bolded favorites this year. Edit: I’ve bolded books that made an outsize impression and/or inspired me to try something new/different in my own writing. I have no problem putting books down halfway through (or maybe I do have a problem: putting books down halfway through), so if it’s here I probably liked it a lot.

January

  • First Figure, Michael Palmer (Green Integer)
  • The Plains, Gerald Murnane (Text Books)

February

  • Prepositions, Louis Zukofsky (University of California)
  • What Are Legends: A Clarification, Dick Higgins (Something Else Press)
  • Dictee, Theresa Hak-Kyung Cha [reread] (University of California)

March

  • Zong!, M. NourbeSe Philip (Wesleyan UP)
  • Golden State, Frank Bidart (Braziller)
  • A Promenade at Home, Sevinç Çalhanoglu (Bored Wolves)

April

  • The Years, Annie Ernaux (Seven Stories Press)
  • Austerlitz, W.G. Sebald
  • Human Achievements, Lauren Hunter (Birds, LLC)
  • Plans for Sentences, Renee Gladman (Wave Books)

May

  • Blood on the Fog, Tongo Eisen-Martin (City Lights)
  • Panorama, Dušan Šarotar (Peter Owen Books)
  • Acid Splash, Or, Into Blue Caves*, Terrence Arjoon (1080press)
  • Lethe*, Madeleine Braun (1080press)
  • The Arab Apocalypse, Etel Adnan [reread] (The Post-Apollo Press)

June

  • People Shouldn’t Have To Be The Ones To Tell You*, Zoe Goldstein
  • Noon, Cole Swenson (Sun & Moon Press NAP)
  • R’s Boat, Lisa Robertson (University of California)

July

  • Margerey Kempe, Robert Glück (New York Review of Books)
  • Eunoia, Christian Bök (Coach House Press)
  • I Look Divine, Christopher Coe

August

  • Pregrets, Anselm Berrigan (Black Square Editions)
  • Sleeping with the Dictionary, Harryette Mullen (University of California)
  • Calamites, Renee Gladman (Wave Books)
  • Leave Society, Tao Lin (Vintage)
  • A New Heaven and a New Earth*, Chariot Wish (Wonder)

September

  • Third State of Being*, Cassidy McFadzean (Gaspereau Press)
  • The Line, Jennifer Moxley (The Post-Apollo Press)

October

  • The New Sentence, Ron Silliman (Roof Books)
  • Rainbow Sonnets 20*, Anastasios Karnazes (The Song Cave)
  • New Poems*, Peter Gizzi (The Brother in Elysium)

November

  • The Cliches*, Ben Lerner (The Song Cave)
  • Meteoric Flowers, Elizabeth Willis (Wesleyan UP)
  • Orchid Stories, Kenward Elmslie (Nightboat Books)

December

  • A year and change*, Hannah Buonaguro (RATSTAR Press)
  • The Golden Age of Paraphernalia, Kevin Davies (Edge Books)
  • Heteronomy, Christopher Nealon (Edge Books)
  • A Queen in Bucks County, Kay Gabriel (Nightboat Books)
  • Of The War*, Robert Duncan (Oyez Press)

And here’s the poem I’ve picked to round out 2022, from Jennifer Moxley’s The Line:

Run Through

Here’s to a rhythm that follows the ear. Or rather, here’s to you, heavy genealogy, you’ve been making me hungry for years. Mimesis was your meal ticket. The bounty went right through you when it should have become a door. A door to where? To some place beyond these endless deserts of shoddy salvation.
    The legacy of your discomfort with loss and retention has made me the victim of my digestion. It’s all a matter of perspective, and I am, as the vehicle of these violent processes, completely ignorant of how they work. I must guess based on non-mechanical evidence and a total integration  of  the  senses.  They  shall  become  one  and  none.  Then the line inside my belly will show itself to my mind as it passes the boundary of my body’s calendar into an infinity of days. Though this hook-up may pain me, I suspect it necessary.