Poetry Readers Challenge discussion

As the holiday shopping season has gotten underway for some, I thought I'd start this thread a bit early this year. The question, as usual, is: what were your favorite reads this year?

My favorite English-language poetry book I read this year was Ashley M. Jones's brilliant and underrated Magic City Gospel. My favorite 2020 book of poetry in translation was the gorgeous and original Lean Against This Late Hour by Garous Abdolmalekian (translated from the Persian by Ahmad Nadalizadeh and Idra Novey). My favorite nonfiction titles of 2020 were Cathy Park Hong's Minor Feelings and Francis Su's Mathematics for Human Flourishing. Looking over the novels I read in 2020, I think I'll abstain from picking a fiction favorite this time. In comics, I especially enjoyed Nguyen Khoi Nguyen's Bittersweet. And it's hard to pick a favorite individual poem that I read for the first time this year, so I may have to mull on that a bit, although Natalie Diaz's "They Don't Love You Like I Love You," which I only read for the first time yesterday, would certainly be in the running.

How about you?

I really admire you for being decisive enough to choose favorites! Every time I start to proclaim a favorite, I derail myself with thoughts of " but I really loved .. " One of my easily identified nonfiction favorites was Natasha Tretheway 's memoir.

I have to make a favorite list. To chime in with Nina, though, Trethewey's poetry collection Thrall is on it.

Out of the twenty of so books of poetry I read this year, only one stood out: "Naked for Tea" by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer. It is the only one I would highly recommend.

Thanks for sharing, Nina, Sarah, and Jawanza! Nina, does one really have to be decisive to have favorites? You can pick two or three if you like :-)

Jenna wrote: "Thanks for sharing, Nina, Sarah, and Jawanza! Nina, does one really have to be decisive to have favorites? You can pick two or three if you like :-)"

Good. I can rarely choose a single one unless I'm acting as a contest judge.

Alarie's 2020 Favorite Reads (at least what she'd say right now)

I had an especially hard time choosing favorite poetry books since I enjoyed almost all of those I read this year and know many of the authors (awkward). But I'll give 3 books that were very different from each other the top spots in random order: Cadaver, Speak i> by Marianne Boruch, The Eden of Perhaps by Agnes Vojta, and Pretty Time Machine by Lorette C. Luzajic. Favorite novels were The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern and The Good Lord, Bird by James McBride. Favorite biography: A Woman of No Importance by Sonia Purnell.

Thanks for sharing your list, Alarie. A year where almost all books read are enjoyed is a rare blessing indeed.

Wishing everyone in this thread a 2021 filled beginning to end with wonderful poetry reading experiences.