Top Ten Poets (at least for me) in 2009

I should be writing, and not doing this. And I hate lists, but how to resist? Here is my addition to the end of year lists; these are the poets who have spent the most time rattling around in my head. First they kept me up and then invaded my dreams. The books were not necessarily published this year. They are in no particular order.

1.) Patricia Young. Here Come the Moonbathers. Sensuous, raw, looping, fascinating, what words, what words.
2.) Norman Dubie. Selected and New Poems. A minimal Baroque genius. A story teller. Stunningly beautiful.
3.) Patrick Lane. Go Leaving Strange. A terrible genius who loves delicate flowers and delicate pain.
4.) Adam Sol. Jeremiah, Ohio. Playful, deep, masterful with the long poem and poetic story.
5.) Mahmoud Darwish. The Butterfly's Burden. Such longing, such delicacy.
6.) Zbigniew Herbert. Collected Works. Humanity reflected in all its disorderliness. Brilliant works.
7.) Lisa Robertson, The Weather. A storm of the heart and mind. Repetition like candy.
8.) John Ashbery. The System. You may not know what's happening but something sure is happening. That's really the point.
9.) Lucie Brock-Brodio. The Master Letters. The densest of the dense. Imagination goes leaping across wide chasms.
10.) Etel Adnan. The Indian Never had a Horse. Melancholic, sharp, mystical.