2018 was the year I dug deep into work of Susan Howe, spurred by this great piece by Emily LaBarge in BookForum.  I’m now using a line by Howe as an Epigraph for my new manuscript, Which Direction Home.  That line is:

“I am an American poet writing in the English language. I have loved watching films all my life. I work in the poetic documentary form, but didn’t realize it until I tried to find a way to write an essay about two films by Chris Marker.” – Susan Howe.  Sorting Facts, or Nineteen Ways of Looking at Marker.  1995.

Her term, poetic documentary form, applies to what I’m trying to do, I think.

Other favorite reads this year (not necessarily published this year):

Tapping the Source, by Kem Nunn.

Margaret the First and SPRAWL by Danielle Dutton.

Suite for Barbara Loden, by Natalie Léger.

These Possible Lives, by Fleur Jaeggy.

Catalogue of Unabashed Gratitude, by Ross Gay.  And also The Book of Delights by him (to be published in February 2019).

Jason Molina, by Erin Osmon.

House of Coates, by Brad Zellar and Alec Soth.

Time and the Crystal: Studies in Dante’s Rime Petrose, by Robert M. Durling and Ronald L. Martinez.

The Ghosts of Birds, by Eliot Weinberger.

To Float in the Space Between, by Terrance Hayes.

Your Duck is My Duck, by Deborah Eisenberg

Looking for Lorraine, by Imani Perry.

A Theory of Love, by Margaret Thornton.

Playing Changes, by Nate Chinen.