from The East Bay Express (Berkley)

Berkeley-based Small Press Distribution, which handles oodles of titles we might never know about otherwise, has issued its recommendations to start off the new year. Among them are Mommy Must Be a Mountain of Feathers (Action, $14), by Korean poet Kim Hyesoon, in which "horror is packed inside cuteness, cuteness inside horror." Excerpt: "Have you ever turned on the light inside your intestine? ... When the light is switched on inside my darkness, I buzz like a beetle pinned down, bung, bung, bung, bung, and shake my head wildly, my muzzle holding onto a black string." SPD also touts Johannes Göransson's poetry of "private genocide," A New Quarantine Will Take My Place (Apostrophe, $14). Excerpt: "Will you sooth my scarlet, will you wool my tool? ... did you maybe dream of babies who wheeze strangely? ... The Queen of Pork."

[Maybe because my favorite move in basketball is the East Bay Funk, a slam dunk created by Isiah JR Rider in the early 90s - it involved a shirt over the head while spinning around, putting the ball through his own legs, pretty much the kitchen sink]