Poetry Guide Bob Holman’s bookshelf of the best poetry books he encountered in 2010 is wide-ranging, truly various—an invitation to broaden your experience of poetry and to discover the poetry in all the corners and languages of the world, from movie screens to the dust zone of post-9/11 lower Manhattan, from bird-watching in New England to slouching down the Berkeley streets, from American hiphop to Estonian to Urdu. Last week’s installment gave you only the first 10 on Holman’s expansive list—we’ve added several more pages of books for you to explore:

• Sherwin Bitsui, Tom Clark, Kamau Brathwaite, Geoffrey Young, Shane Book, CAConrad and Frank Sherlock, Max Blagg, Jack Wiler, Tan Lin...
• Mahogany Browne, Ken Cormier, Alan Herman, Patricia Spears Jones, Gary Parrish, Edwin Torres, Afzal Ahmed Syed, Damien Rogers, Emily Dickinson...
• Charles Bernstein, Aharon Shabtai, Bill Morgan and Christine Timm

More about poetry books:
Notes on what to think about before you buy poetry books
Links to poetry publishers and online catalogs

January must be the peak of the poetic year, especially this year, in Scotland. For one thing, the vacant post of Scots Makar has been filled, to general acclaim, by Liz Lochhead, who modestly responded, “I am as delighted as I am surprised by this enormous honour, which I do know I don’t deserve! Nevertheless, I accept it on behalf of poetry itself, which is, and always has been, the core of our culture, and in grateful recognition of the truth that poetry—the reading of it, the writing of it, the saying it out loud, the learning of it off by heart—matters deeply to ordinary Scottish people everywhere.” It seems Lochhead is approaching the position as not so much a laurel for her own head, but a pulpit from which she can be a spokesman for the art as a whole, in the manner of so many American Poets Laureate.

The other reason, of course, for the prominence of January in the Scottish poetry calendar is Burns Night, the annual celebration of the life and work of Scotland’s most famous poet, Robert Burns, a cultural icon whose name is to this day synonymous with Scottish life and the Scots language. And this year, Burns Night (January 25th) is extra special, because the BBC has completed its huge new audio archive of Burns poems:

from BBC News, Scotland:
“BBC Scotland completes Robert Burns audio archive”
“Three years in the making, The Complete Works of Robert Burns features more than 700 poems recorded by some of Scotland’s best-known figures.... Contributors include Scotland’s new national poet Liz Lochhead, Robbie Coltrane, Robert Carlyle and Brian Cox....” plus “My Heart’s in the Highlands” and “My Love Is Like a Red, Red Rose” recited by Prince Charles.

Also, on the eve of Burns Night, an unpublished letter by Robert Burns was discovered at a castle in the Scottish Borders, and with it was an early draft of his anti-hunting poem, “On Seeing a Wounded Hare”:

from BBC News:
“Robert Burns letter found at Floors Castle”
“An unpublished letter written by Robert Burns more than 220 years ago has been found at Floors Castle in the Borders. Experts have called it a ‘remarkable discovery’ at the home of the Duke and Duchess of Roxburghe. The letter was found in a 19th Century autograph album containing a variety of historical documents.”

More on Robert Burns
Biographical Profile of Burns
Library: Poems by Burns

In the last month of his term as IBPC judge, Paul Lisicky has stayed true to form: he has chosen three lovely short poems and no honorable mentions as the December winners:

• First place: “Giant Cockroaches” by Mignon Ledgard, which he described as “A musical mind at work. Vivid language, unexpected turns, the manmade colliding with the natural. A beautiful poem.”
• Second place: “A New Cartography” by Mandy Pannett, cited for its “sense of swing, its richness of language. And the delicate force of its central metaphor.”
• Third place: “Run” by Cynthia Neely, a classically constructed sonnet which prompted him to remark, “Memory and bewilderment: so much life compressed in these four stanzas.”

More on the IBPC:
General information
Requirements for IBPC nominees
Anthology of the monthly IBPC winning poems
Archive of poems entered in the IBPC from our Poetry Forum
Background information page on January-March 2011 judge Kwame Dawes

Bob Holman is back with his annual “best-of” list, this year in memory of the great poets who passed on in 2010, among them Captain Beefheart, Tuli Kupferberg, Jim Carroll, Leslie Scalapino, Peter Orlovsky, Janine Pommy Vega. A lot of wonderful poetry was published last year, and it’s a long reading list, so we’ll give them to you in small bunches—among this first 10 choices you’ll find new books from Eric Drooker and Allen Ginsberg, Maggie Dubris and Scott Gillis, Doris Kareva, Ed Roberson, Chase Twichell, Michael Cirelli, Julie Sheehan, Gary Lenhart, Edward Hirsch, Jack Collom. Enjoy!

As usual, our poetry picks are heavily weighted to the small press and indie publishing scene. But we’re also interested in hearing about your favorites of the past year, whether newly published or old classics you just discovered. Share your choices and see what other folks have been reading on our reader response page.

More about poetry books:
Notes on what to think about before you buy poetry books
Links to poetry publishers and online catalogs

In this month’s Poetry, Daniel Handler (aka Lemony Snicket) has a charming essay on fitting poem-reading into his daily life: “Happy, Snappy, Sappy... There’s space in the living room for poetry.” Right up front, he announces, “I’ve never had any of the problems with poetry that most people do, i.e., that it’s boring and/or incomprehensible.... I find poetry actually has very little mystery compared to anything else....” Handler clearly has taken hold of the first principle in our list of attitudes and approaches to reading a poem: “Remember That a Poem Is a Communication,” i.e., don’t be intimidated.

For him, the problem was not how to read a poem, but where and when to do it, and the answer was: in his favorite chair in his living room on Saturday night, during the few minutes when he’s all ready to go out and and he’s waiting for his wife. It’s “a perfect slice of time,” just enough to pick up a slim volume, admire the cover, and read one or two poems, or reread one poem several times (another of the approaches we recommend to reading a new poem). So we’re curious about all of you—What’s your favorite place and time for poetry? Do you like to read in bed? Get a poem in email and take time out to read it on the computer? Read a poem on the bus on your way to work? Do tell!

Poets! Are you snowbound? Have you been woodshedding during the winter months, poring over your poems, trying to get them published in a magazine or put together a book manuscript? If you’ve decided that 2011 is your year to move toward publishing a poetry collection, now’s the time to send your poems off to be judged in a book or chapbook publication contest. Here’s a sampling of upcoming competition deadlines:

• “Discovery”/Boston Review Poetry Contest (mail receipt deadline January 14, no online submissions accepted)
• The Colorado Prize for Poetry, from Colorado State University (postmark/online submission deadline January 14)
• The John Ciardi Prize for Poetry, from BkMk Press at the University of Missouri, Kansas City (postmark deadline January 15)
• Grayson Books Chapbook Competition (postmark deadline January 15)
• Georgetown Review Poetry Manuscript Contest (postmark deadline February 1)
• Kundiman Poetry Prize with Alice James Books for Asian American poets (postmark or online submission deadline February 11)
• Cleveland State University Poetry Center Prizes, First Book competition and Open competition (postmark deadline February 15)
• Kathryn A. Morton Prize in Poetry from Sarabande Books (postmark deadline February 15)
• National Poetry Series, five book publication awards with HarperCollins Publishers, Coffee House Press, University of Georgia Press, Penguin Books, and Fence Books (postmark deadline February 15)
• New Women’s Voices Chapbook Competition from Finishing Line Press (postmark deadline February 15)
• The American Poetry Journal Book Prize from Dream Horse Press (postmark deadline February 28)
• Fence Modern Poets Series (online submissions only, deadline February 28)
• Tupelo Press Snowbound Series Chapbook Award (postmark or online submission deadline February 28)
• Omnidawn Chapbook Poetry Contest (postmark or Web site submission deadline February 28)
• Sawtooth Poetry Prize from Ahsahta Press (online submission deadline March 1)
• The Washington Prize from The Word Works (postmark deadline March 1)
• Lexi Rudnitsky/Editor’s Choice Award from Persea Books and the Lexi Rudnitsky Poetry Project (postmark deadline March 1)
• Lester M. Wolfson Poetry Award from 42Miles Press at the University of Indiana, South Bend (postmark deadline March 1)
• Bellday Poetry Prize from Bellday Books (postmark deadline March 15)
• Noemi Book Award for Poetry from Neomi Press (postmark deadline March 15)
• Four Way Books Levis Prize in Poetry (postmark or online submission deadline March 31)

Required Reading Before You Submit To any Contests:
“What’s Really Wrong with Poetry Book Contests?,” by David Alpaugh
How to Put Together a Poetry Manuscript for Publication
“A Word To the Wise: On Entering Your Poems in Competition,” by Kurt Heintz
“You Do It Because You Love It,” by S.A. Griffin

Related Resources:
More Contest Links

We applauded when Edwin Morgan was named the first Scots Makar in 2004: “In Scotland Makar = Maker of Poems = Poet.” When he died in August 2010, UK Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy said, “A great, generous, gentle genius has gone. He was poetry’s true son and blessed by her. He is quite simply irreplaceable...” —that last word proving prophetic:

from The Guardian (UK):
“Scotland stalls on new poet laureate,” by Severin Carroll
“Edwin Morgan was Scotland’s greatest living poet and the natural choice in 2004 to become the country’s first makar — its national poet laureate. In fact, the role was created for him.... Finding a successor, though, is proving a little more controversial. More than three months after Morgan’s death, confusion surrounds the post and who should fill it, leaving many in the arts community perplexed.”

Our Profiles of Recent U.S. Poet Laureates
W.S. Merwin (2010-2011)
Kay Ryan (2008-2010)
Charles Simic (2007-2008)
Donald Hall (2006-2007)
Ted Kooser (2004-2006)
Louise Glück (2003-2004)
Stanley Kunitz (2000-2001)
Robert Pinsky (1997-2000)

Judge Paul Lisicky has again selected three lovely short poems, no honorable mentions, in the November 2010 InterBoard Poetry Competition. His comments are listed below, to entice you to read the winning poems, each of which repays your attention quite beautifully in its own way.

November IBPC Winners

• First place: “Hush” by Jude Goodwin—“The music, the line breaks, the evocative description: everything in sync here.”
• Second place: “Doors Beneath Their Signs” by Larry Jordan—“The thinking is inventive from image to image; so much breadth suggested by compression.”
• Third place: “I Could Cry But I Won’t” by Billy Howell-Sinnard—“An elliptical and rich poem, energized by patterns of contrast.”

Our January Entries

• “Psalms” by T. Obatala (trkyounger)—a beautiful song that drew the ultimate compliment from another Forum poet: “I’m jealous and I wish I had written this.”
• “Half Moon Over Harlem” by Mapovia—also a musical piece that comes with a footnote for its title: “Henry Hudson who sailed for the Dutch entered the estuary which carries his name on a ship called The Half Moon. Harlem (Haarlem) was a Dutch settlement where the present Harlem exists.”

More on the IBPC:
General information
Requirements for IBPC nominees
Anthology of the monthly IBPC winning poems
Archive of poems entered in the IBPC from our Poetry Forum
Background information page on January-March 2011 judge Kwame Dawes
October-December 2010 judge Paul Lisicky

The turning of the calendar from one year to the next has always been a time for summing up past experience, bidding farewell to those we have lost, renewing old friendships, making plans and resolutions, and expressing our hopes for the future — all fit subjects for poems, like the four we’ve newly added to our anthology of classics on New Year’s themes:

• “A Song for New Year’s Eve” by William Cullen Bryant (1859)
• “New Year’s Chimes” by Francis Thompson (1897)
• “New Year: A Dialogue” by Ella Wheeler Wilcox (1909)
• “The Year” by Ella Wheeler Wilcox (1910)

Last month we shared our selection of the best contemporary CDs on which classic poems are set to music, and since then we’ve been browsing around at individual songs made from old poems that you can listen to online. We’d love to hear your thoughts on the best (and the worst) songs made from poems—here’s a listening list to get you started if you don’t already have favorites and most-hateds.