I keep an ever-growing stack of poetry and essay books on my coffee table. I try to look over one or two of them a day. It keeps me interested.

The stack as it stands, right now:

• Call Her by Her Name: Bianca Lynne Spriggs
• Southern Poetry Review
• Haint: Teri Ellen Cross Davis
• They Can’t Kill Us Until They Kill Us: Hanif Abdurraqib
• Set to Music a Wildfire: Ruth Awad
• Not for Art Nor Prayer: Darren C. Demarcus
• Common Threads 2017
• Pablo Neruda: Selected Poems
• De/Composition: W.D. Snodgrass
• Selected Poems of Carl Sandburg
• The Outlaw Bible of American Poetry
• Fire in the Sea

I try to get a few pages in a night. I don’t buzz through a bunch at once. I let the words sit with me and try to understand the artistry. As soon as I finish a book, I’ll add another to the pile. It keeps my reading life interesting, to say the least.