Two of our books make it on New York Times’ list

Also independent from exhibitions but intimately bound to art, are three new books of poems by artists. The wildest of the collections by far is BODY SWEATS: THE UNCENSORED WRITINGS OF ELSA BARONESS VON FREYTAG LORINGHOVEN (MIT Press, $34.95), edited by Irene Gammel and Suzanne Zelazo. The baroness (1874-1927) was one of the outstanding lifestyle radicals of the early Dada era, or of any era, really; I'm not sure even a hard-core punk collective would have known quite what to make of her. In addition to being an artist and a personage, she was a furiously witty and aggressively erotic experimental writer, as this first published collection of her poetry demonstrates.

The prettiest-looking of the three books is CRYSTAL FLOWERS: POEMS AND A LIBRETTO (Bookthug, $18), by Florine Stettheimer, also edited, though for a different press, by Ms. Gammel and Ms. Zelazo. Stettheimer (1871-1944) was, like the baroness, a notable art world eccentric, though of a different kind: elusive, deeply private and withholding of her work. Her paintings of fantastically imagined avant-garde soirees have become American modernist staples since her death. Her poetry has been little seen and, published in this neat little book, with Stettheimer floating across the cover, it's a delight: whimsical but with surprisingly frequent and well-placed bites.