As sort of an anecdote for the hard, experimental poems in the American and Modern Poetry MOOC, I refreshed my palate with some genre forms. Along the Chisholm Trail by George Rhodes is an self-published book that has won quite a few indie awards last year. It's a big book of 131 pages, half of them are cowboy poetry based on the Chisholm Trail, half are miscellaneous poems about aging in modern times.

At first I expected this book to be somewhat reactionary as cowboy poetry can sometimes be. But Rhoades is a former journalist and teacher. His point of view was balanced and his poems on cowboy mythology somewhat grounded in reality. In some poems like "The Cowboy Way," he even questions modern ideas about cowboy self reliance.

I was particularly interested in his book because I'm working on my own set of cattle trail poems.  Rhodes uses a consistent ballad form that might not appeal to everyone but his rhymes were pleasant and interesting and his endings had force to them.  But strangely, the poems petered out a bit toward the end and the last poem, as a final poem, was a definite flatliner.

After the Hunt is the first book of poems I've read by poetry colleague Devin McGuire who I met last year while he was promoting an anthology from Encirle Publications.  His more slender book of 30 pages is full of 1970s and 80s references that hit right at my age. The book deals with the themes of struggle: struggle in surviving loved ones, struggle in relationships, stuggle in weather, the struggle of waste and wastedness.

My favorite poem was "How to Kill a Fish" and in fact I really gravitated to the poems that mentioned fishing or hunting (although I am not a fisherman or hunter) even briefly. Hopefully we will continue to see more fish and game poems in forthcoming collections.

Recently finished  American Women Poets in the 21st Century: Where Lyric Meets Language edited by Rankine and Spahr. And although the title is meaningless and uncreative (typical language poetry like), the book was an interesting but difficult study of 10 female language poets and their relationship, sometime antagonistic or conflicted relationship, to lyric poetry. Each section includes sample poems by the poet, their artistic statement (such as they believe in that…some did more than others) and a long essay explicating their work and contributions to poetic thought. The poets included are:

• Rae Armantrout *
• Mei-Mei Breissenbrugge
• Lucie Brock-Broido
• Jorie Graham
• Barbara Guest *
• Lyn Hejinian *
• Brenda Hillman
• Susan Howe *
• Ann Lauterback
• Harryette Mullen

The essays deal with (mind) turns in poems, using space, associations, broken questions, mind failings, betweeness, abstractions, shifting syntax, fragmentation and the fallacies of reason, the typical things language poets grapple with.

The poets with asterisks are ones that were included in a recent MOOC (massive online open course) I participated in this fall, Modern & Contemporary American Poetry. I almost wish I had waited to read the book until after I had taken the course. I don't think I would have found it as slow-going. The MOOC discusses many of these topics but in a way more succinct and user-friendly way.

However, even without the class, my favorite sections were those on Jorie Graham who is more conflicted than dismissive of the lyric and Harryette Mullen who covers language poetry from a perspective of race and privileged literacies and whose poems felt the most young, modern and pop-culture inclusive.

I recently purchased a book by the Albuquerque Poet Laureate and slam poet champion, Hakim Bellamy.

Swear is divided into three parts: the first section contains political poems about the Occupy New Mexico/Occupy Wallstreet movement; the second section contains more general political poems; and the third section deals with Hip Hop and more personal poems. I particularly liked "Jamesetta" about Etta James and "Immortal Technique," a great poem about race.

Hakim also touches on issues in New Mexcio, the struggles of Genearation Y, the education system that fails poor kids. There's intimate heartache in his poems about poverty.

I have a degree
in sociology
and survival
and only one
is coming in handy.

Bellamy is great with a calm, angry diatribe and his poems have forceful endings. And is as much a comment on America as  "McDonald's apple pies."