Carissa Green Reads
I read widely from many genres. Perhaps this blog will feature fewer ratings and reviews, but I certainly intend to write about my reading life - it's the subject I most find myself wanting to talk about.
Currently reading
The Business of Fancydancing
I've read Sherman Alexie's first collection, "The Business of Fancydancing," (1992, Hanging Loose Press) many times since I first picked it up in the early mid-'90s. I fell in love with it then and still consider it one of my favorite poetry collections. I dip in and out, I read it straight through, I read aloud. I put it aside and forget about it but come back to it and both remember it like a long-lost love and read it afresh every time.
The pieces range from the technically ambitious (sestinas!) to short prose in which narrative is the most important element. But the best thing about this collection is its vitality. The speaker lays bare his emotional life, and the pages exude passion, despair, fear, frustration, anger, love, remembrance, joy, and humor. The energy of a young man is here as obvious as a slam dunk on a rec basketball court.
Don't hold my feet to the fire over which might be my favorites, but the "Indian Boy Love Song" sequence is a great place to start with that question and a fine starting point for readers, even those who are unsure of themselves in the face of a poem (get over it).
-cg
1