Poetry Nation
    •  
  • Search
  • Join Now
  • Login
  • Home
  • About Us
    • Contact Us
    • Publishing Info
    • About the Team
  • Collections
    • Create a Collection
    • Latest Collections
    • Top Collections
  • Rate Poems
    • Start Rating!
    • Rating Guidelines
    • Latest Poems
    • Top Poems
  • Contests
    • Enter Poetry Contest
    • Contest Winners
    • Contest Info and Rules
    • Contest Judging
  • Reference
    • Articles
    • Workshop
    • Glossary
    • Greatest Poems
    • Senior Spotlight
  • News
    • The Professor’s Plug
  • Store
  • User’s Top Poems
  • Poems
  • Contest
  • Collections
  • Ratings
  • Workshop
  • Join
  • Search
« Previous
Next »

Summer Reading 2014

July 7, 2014

Summer is a magical time for reading—maybe because it’s vacation time, or the heat makes for the perfect excuse to sit still and get lost in a story, or it’s just an old habit repeated year after year—whatever the reason, here are top suggestions for your summer list.

The 2014 Notable Books List—an annual literary award identifying noteworthy fiction, nonfiction and poetry for adult readers—comes to us from the Reference and User Services Association (RUSA), a division of the American Library Association (ALA). The two winning titles in the poetry category are:

The Ogre’s Wife: Poems by Ron Koertge

“Armed with his trademark wit, Ron Koertge introduces readers to Little Red Riding Hood all grown up with a fondness for salsa and chips, explores the thorny relationship of Jackie Robinson and Pee Wee Reese, spies a Trojan pony and the children it bamboozles, and offers an alternate reading to the Icarus story. He meets Walt Whitman on the set of an X-rated movie, attends his gardener’s funeral, and goes to his beloved race track.” —Red Hen Press

Hum by Jamaal May

“In May’s debut collection, poems buzz and purr like a well-oiled chassis. Grit, trial, and song thrum through tight syntax and deft prosody. From the resilient pulse of an abandoned machine to the sinuous lament of origami animals, here is the ever-changing hum that vibrates through us all, connecting one mind to the next.” —Alice James Books

The 2014 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence, awarded by the ALA, went to these three titles of fiction:

Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

“A powerful, tender story of race and identity by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, the award-winning author of Half of a Yellow Sun. Ifemelu and Obinze are young and in love when they depart military-ruled Nigeria for the West. Beautiful, self-assured Ifemelu heads for America, where despite her academic success, she is forced to grapple with what it means to be black for the first time. Quiet, thoughtful Obinze had hoped to join her, but with post-9/11 America closed to him, he instead plunges into a dangerous, undocumented life in London. Fifteen years later, they reunite in a newly democratic Nigeria, and reignite their passion—for each other and for their homeland.” —Anchor

Claire of the Sea Light by Edwidge Danticat

“Just as her father makes the wrenching decision to send her away for a chance at a better life, Claire Limyè Lanmè—Claire of the Sea Light—suddenly disappears. As the people of the Haitian seaside community of Ville Rose search for her, painful secrets, haunting memories, and startling truths are unearthed. In this stunning novel about intertwined lives, Edwidge Danticat crafts a tightly woven, breathtaking tapestry that explores the mysterious bonds we share—with the natural world and with one another.” —Vintage

The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt

“Theo Decker, a thirteen-year-old New Yorker, miraculously survives an accident that kills his mother [and] is taken in by the family of a wealthy friend. Bewildered by his … new home on Park Avenue, disturbed by schoolmates who don’t know how to talk to him, and tormented above all by his longing for his mother, he clings to the one thing that reminds him of her: a small, mysteriously captivating painting that ultimately draws Theo into the underworld of art. As an adult, he moves silkily between the drawing rooms of the rich and the dusty labyrinth of an antiques store where he works. He is alienated and in love—and at the center of a narrowing, ever more dangerous circle. [This] is a mesmerizing, stay-up-all-night and tell-all-your-friends triumph, an old-fashioned story of loss and obsession, survival and self-invention, and the ruthless machinations of fate.” —Little, Brown and Company

Related

Category: Contemporary Poetry
This entry was posted on Monday, July 7th, 2014 at 12:00 am. Both comments and pings are currently closed.



Poetry Contest Poetry Contest

    RSS Web News

    • Former Virginia State Delegate Rob Krupicka Publishes Poetry Book - The Zebra
    • Hide and Seek - Art & Poetry - Chabad.org
    • Navio Negreiro trilingual poetry reading - Very Local New Orleans
    • Tofino author Christine Lowther calling for poetry about trees – Vancouver Island Free Daily - vancouverislandfreedaily.com
    • Amanda Gorman writes the world as she sees it. Toledo's young poets strive to do the same - Toledo Blade
    • POETRY: Revolutionary Encounters - southseattleemerald.com
  • PUBLISH YOUR OWN BOOK OF POETRY

    You can publish your own book of poetry for as little as $350! Click here to learn how.

  • Editor’s Note

    The number one question our editors receive is—what do the editors and judges look for when judging the contest? The number one answer we give is creativity. Unlike prose, writing composed in everyday language, poetry is considered a creative art and requires a different type of effort and a certain level of depth. Of the thousands of poems entered in each contest, the ones that catch our judges’ eyes are the ones that remove us, even just slightly, from the scope of everyday life by using language that is interesting, specific, vivid, obscure, compelling, figurative, and so on. Oftentimes, poems are pulled aside for a second look based simply on certain words that intrigued the reader. So first and foremost, be sure your poetry is written using creative language. Take general ideas and make them personal. In his infamous book De/Compositions: 101 Good Poems Gone Wrong, W. D. Snodgrass imparts, “We cannot honestly discuss or represent our lives, any more than our poems, without using ideational language.”

  • © 2021 Poetry Nation
  • All Rights Reserved
  • Terms Of Use
  • Disclaimer
  • Privacy Policy
  • Return Policy