Poetry / American / General

Sometimes the most compelling landscapes are the ones where worlds collide: where a desert meets the sea, a civilization, no-man’s land. Here in Bonfire Opera, grief and Eros grapple in the same domain. A bullet-hole through the heart, a house full of ripe persimmons, a ghost in a garden. ...

In his new poetry collection, Chard deNiord explores the paradoxical nature of unknowing. I WEPT WITH JOY ABOVE THE RIVER I wept with joy above the river.I wept with sorrow above the river.My tears were clear, both sweet and bitter.One leaf cried out to another,“Empty me ...

Imperial Liquor is a chronicle of melancholy, a reaction to the monotony of racism. These poems concern loneliness, fear, fatigue, rage, and love; they hold fatherhood held against the vulnerability of the black male body, aging, and urban decay. Part remembrance, part swan song for the Compton, California of the 1980...

The Woman in the Corner keenly observes and gives voice to the ambiguities and astonishments that we often turn away from—in human relationships and in our own unruly hearts. In poems that speak fearlessly about sex and grief, mothers and daughters, and friendships and marriage, Krygowski examines the beauty ...

Poems that Consider the Disappearance of Language in an Age of Digital Communication

Winner of the 2018 Agnes Lynch Starrett Poetry Prize

“I recommend this poet to anyone listening for an original voice that is gentle as well as penetrating.”–George MacBeth

“His poetry strikes a hammer blow to the heart.”-James Deahl

Every Ravening Thing is the most exciting book I’ve read in a very long time.–Chase Twichell

Apt and tender and candid.–Donald Revell; A New Collection from the editor of THE BEST AMERICAN POETRY

“Astonishingly honest, bittersweet, hilarious, and heart-breaking: no time like now is a book you must read!”-Marjorie Perloff

Sidebend World explores with clarity and vividness a wide range of emotions—love to hate, tenderness to brutality

Winner of the 2017 Cave Canem Poetry Prize

Would Lie To You If I Could contains interviews with nine eminent contemporary American poets (Natasha Trethewey, Jane Hirshfield, Martín Espada, Stephen Kuusisto, Stephen Sandy, Ed Ochester, Carolyn Forche, Peter Everwine, and Galway Kinnell) and James Wright’s widow Anne, presents conversations with a vital cross section of poets representing a variety of ages, ethnicities, and social backgrounds.

Becker celebrates the interconnectedness of creatures and places—never losing sight that much will turn out precarious, illusory, provisional. These poems speak, in ardent voices, about our affinities: an articulate, black bear mourns habitat loss; a frail man and failing dog become one; a scientist and her African grey parrot research language acquisition for thirty years.