Rattle.com as a blog is now one year old!  I thought it’d be fun to list the top 15 most-read poems since we launched the format. The number in parentheses are unique views to the poem’s individual page.  Note that views through the RSS feeds and on the main page are not recorded, so you could add a few thousand baseline “reads” to each poem.

June 26th, 2008 – June 26th, 2009

1. “Things My Son Should Know After I’ve Died” by Brian Trimboli (69,999)
2. “Death and Tacos” by Nathaniel Whittemore (47,745)
3. “Telemarketer” by Brett Myhren (43,221)
4. “The Lesson” by Lynne Knight (17,921)
5. “Barcelona” by Albert Haley (5,239)
6. “Poet and Audience” by Erik Campbell (2,360)
7. “After the Bowling Stopped” by Thadra Sheridan (1,762)
8. “Mahler in New York” by Joseph Fasano (1,292)
9. “Things Rich and Multiple and Alone” by Bob Hicok (643)
10. “How to Write an Erotic Letter” by Anthony Farrington (530)
11. “Lovely Day” by Bob Hicok (512)
12. “The End and the Aim” by Ruth Bavetta (487)
13. “How She Described Her Ex-Husband…” by Martha Clarkson (425)
14. “What Teacher Make” by Taylor Mali (408)
15. “Narrow Openings” by Francesca Bell (345)

Notes:

Social networking is such a crazy multiplier effect; the top 3 probably have more page views than all the rest of the poems from this year combined.

“Mahler in New York” was first posted on New Years Day, as is our tradition for the Rattle Poetry Prize winner, but click that link and today for the first time you can hear Joseph read the poem as well.

Six of the poems include audio of the poet reading.

Bob Hicok is the only poet to appear twice.

Ruth Bavetta sports the only visual poem.

I’ll post a new list every few months, as appreciable changes appear in the rankings.