Taking inspiration from Sina Queyras’s “most engaging books of 2010” blogpost, I thought I would throw my ring into the hat with a similar – though divergent – list of my own. There’s lots I haven’t yet read, but of what I have read so far this year, this is the cream of the crop….

THE TOP (Baker’s) DOZEN FOR POETRY

Backer, Heimrad. transcript. London: Dalkey Archive Press, 2010.

Ball, Jonathan. Clockfire. Toronto: Coach House, 2010.

Fiorentino, Jon Paul. Indexical Elegies. Toronto: Coach House, 2010.

Goldstein, Mark. Tracelanguage: A Shared Breath. Toronto: Bookthug, 2010.

Hajnoczky, Helen. Poets and Killers. Montreal: Snare, 2010.

Kennedy, Jake. The Lateral. Montreal: Snare, 2010.

Laliberte, Mark. brickbrickbrick. Toronto: Bookthug, 2010.

mcpherson eckhoff, kevin. Rhapsodomancy. Toronto: Coach House, 2010.

Murray, George. Glimpse: Selected Aphorisms. Toronto: ECW, 2010.

Place, Vanessa. Tragodia: 1. Statement of Facts. Los Angeles, Blanc Press, 2010.

Truscott, Mark. Nature. Toronto: Bookthug, 2010.

Wershler, Darren and Bill Kennedy. Update. Montreal: Snare, 2010.

Zolf, Rachel. Neighbour Procedure. Toronto: Coach House, 2010.

A COUPLE OF FICTION

Mason, Zackary. The Lost Books of the Odyssey. New York: FS&G, 2010.

Morris, Simon. Getting Inside Kerouac’s Head. York: Information as Material, 2010.

A COUPLE OF NON-FICTION/ THEORY

Dworkin, Craig. The Perverse Library. York: Information as Material, 2010.

Perloff, Marjorie. Unoriginal Genius: poetry by other means in the new century. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2010.

COLLECTIONS / SELECTEDS / COLLECTEDS

Bernstein, Charles. All the Whiskey in Heaven. New York: FS&G, 2010.

Walser, Robert. Microscripts. New York: New Directions, 2010.