Rain, Don Paterson The Scottish poet writes rhyming poems in regular forms, siphoning from Robert Frost an extreme nihilism that cancels almost any imaginable positive or affirmative claim. The skepticism is undermined by the gorgeousness of the forms; the forms are often there to show what heartbreakingly small difference beauty can make in the world. This is fascinating work, a poet having a brutal argument with his art in his art.
Nox, Anne Carson A book in a box, Carson’s elegy for her estranged brother folds out like an accordion. It’s a little sadness-trove, a commonplace book, an art-object, and a rich meditation on Catullus’s poem 101, his elegy for his own brother.
Transcendental Studies: A Trilogy, Keith Waldrop (2009 National Book Award) "...it is an extended philosophical meditation on what are, broadly, the major themes of all poetry: perception, the imagination, the body, and how the human inner life interacts with the larger world." (Publishers Weekly)
The Selected Poetry of Yehuda Amichai "Israel's best-known poet sifts centuries of Jewish experience in firsthand impressions of his troubled land..." (Publishers Weekly)
Versed, Rae Armantrout (2009 National Book Critics Circle Award) This collection "..comprises two sequences—Versed and Dark Matter—of loosely interlinked poems dealing with the prolific poet's usual subjects (the body, contemporary society, violence) as well as more personal explorations of illness and mortality, all relayed in Armantrout's concentrated, crystalline voice, with a predilection for skipping some steps along the way to sense." (Publishers Weekly)
The Best of It: New and Selected Poems, Kay Ryan (Poet Laureate) "I compare Kay Ryan's poems to Faberge eggs -- tiny, ingenious devices that inevitably conceal some hidden wonder -- don't think they're merely decorative. With aplomb and wit, Ryan sallies forth against quandaries as immense as the nature of nothingness and as petite as the mechanics of dewdrops rolling off a leaf." (Salon.com)
Selected Poems, Mark Strand "...this important book offers the first panoramic view of the ongoing career of a poet who has mattered deeply to poets and readers alike. Strand's is one of the contemporary voices that will not fade." (Publishers Weekly)
Ballistics: Poems, Billy Collins Notable collection of verse from the U.S. Poet Laureate, expressing love, joy, and death in his inimitable language.