Mike Dillon's 3 favorite reads in 2024

Joseph Massey's Decades: Selected Poems is a career retrospective, assembling the best poems from Massey's seven critically acclaimed collections of poetry, including the previously unpublished long poem, "Prologue." . "Joseph Massey's poems do what poetry is called to do: they make us see with new eyes. Like the writers of classic haiku, Massey's currency is the detail of the world around him, and he employs both an enviable diction and acute observation in these poems. But his work also takes on enormous psychological and spiritual depth. Devoid of ego, concerned only with finding truth in neglected sights and spaces, this… show more.

Unknown beyond the avant-garde at the time of his death, Arthur Rimbaud (1854-1891) has been one of the most destructive and liberating influences on twentieth-century culture. During his lifetime he was a bourgeois-baiting visionary, and the list of his known crimes is longer than the list of his published poems. But his posthumous career is even more astonishing: saint to symbolists and surrealists; poster child for anarchy and drug use; gay pioneer; a major influence on artists from Picasso to Bob Dylan.

Connecting to your inner life through the transformative poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke.

In the Company of Rilke is a rare book about a rare poet. Rainer Maria Rilke was a giant of twentieth-century writing who remains a visionary voice for our own time, captivating readers not only with his brilliance but also his fearlessness about the "deepest things." Speaking through his own contradictions and ambivalences, he gives readers a profound understanding of the complex beauty of human existence.

Here, questions matter more than answers. Here, a poet can speak directly to God while also doubting God. Astonishingly, this is… show more.