These debuts are mostly off the beaten path of traditional prize or university-based first book publication, yet are vital, accessible and engaging. All will be released by this month.
Beth Anderson. THE HABITABLE WORLDInstance (SPD, dist.), $10 paper (80p) ISBN 0-9679854-1-2"Ready to admonish, fingers cocked,/ we wrote barter systems
in the minutes but did not follow up…./ your house is not/ your house but a group of stances taken together to indicate tenancy." In this set of lyrics, the Virginia-based Anderson delineates the outlines of a liveable, but not necessarily hospitable world, often in long lines that can recall Mei-Mei Bersenbrugge or Ann Lauterbach. "When you flipped over/ I declined to follow"—this book's resistence to dispossession is quiet, beautiful and firm.
