The ABA has announced its "2009 Indie Next List Poetry Top Ten" based on "the enthusiastic nominations  of independent booksellers nationwide." A full pdf of the list, plus commentary, can be seen at www.bookweb.org/files/open/pdf/indiebound/nextlist/PoetryNext09.pdf.

The 2009 Indie Next List  Poetry Top Ten

1. Evidence: Poems by  Mary Oliver
(Beacon, $23, 9780807068984  / 0807068985)
"Simple and unadorned, Evidence invites the reader to pass through the  transcendent beauty of the natural world and the mysteries of life, love, and  death. Oliver lightly places uncomplicated images, unfastening a complex world,  inviting imagery that falls quietly onto the heart like the music of a summer  rain." --Dianne Bruhin, Colorado State University Bookstore, Fort Collins,  CO

2. Fire to Fire: New and  Selected Poems by Mark Doty
(Harper Perennial, $15.99  paper, 9780060752514 / 0060752513)
"This career-spanning collection showcases fleeting moments and fragile  memories, as Doty explores lights and bodies that touch fire and change. Tattoos  rewrite flesh, cities shine with surprising grace, and men hold hands at the  edge of an abyss. Read this and remember that poetry can change the angle of  your eyes and the reach of your gaze as you look out onto a kindled, golden  world made familiar and new." --Mark David Bradshaw, Watermark Books, Wichita,  KS

3. The Romantic Dogs: Poems  by Roberto Bolano, Laura Healy (trans.)
(New Directions, $15.95  paper, 9780811218016 / 0811218015)
"Roberto Bolano's star is so ascendant right now that there is no need  for me to point out anything but his name on the cover of this book. Let me  simply say that Bolano was a poet before he was ever a novelist, and it shows  here. The work is insouciant, literary, and historically nihilistic. It's been  one of my favorite books of the past year." --Dustin Kurtz, McNally Jackson  Books, New York, NY

4. Ballistics: Poems  by Billy Collins
(Random House, $24, 9781400064915  / 1400064910)
"I love the self-consciousness and humor Billy Collins brings to poetry.  His poems are alive with a friendly, kind regard for what it means to be human.  He has the great talent to not only craft memorable lines, but also to achieve  what all great poets do, to tug on us and remind us to appreciate the moment  we're in right now. A delight to read and read again." --Drea Firth, Maria's  Bookshop, Durango, CO

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