|9780822958352| There is a proverb in China, hu kou ba ya, literally “pulling teeth from a tiger's mouth,” used to describe any extremely difficult task. When Shao Wei first arrived in the United States at age thirty-one, her desire to write poems in English seemed almost impossible. Pulling a Dragon's Teeth, a first stop on the successful journey toward that goal, is filled with the rhythms and visions of this exciting young poet. Shuttling between her childhood in a small mountain city on the shores of the Yangtze River (soon to be flooded by the Three Gorges Dam Project) and…

|9780822958420|Bob Hicok’s poems are often edgy, brazen, and funny. They’re just as likely to be soulful, reflective, and provocative. Usually at the same time. As Hicok builds toward the punchline of a poem set up with his characteristic wit, he zigs into seriousness. A thoughtful meditation that builds to a moment of epiphany zags into comedy. Hicok’s fluid ability to shift moods, the richness of his visual palette, and his idiosyncratic use of language fill the pages of Insomnia Diary. The fourth collection of poetry from this former automotive die designer delivers more of the cunning brilliance that has become…

|9780822958406|Poems|Jesse Lee Kercheval writes with wit, vivid language, and devastating honesty in these autobiographical poems. Tracing the timelines of her life forward and backward, she offers a moving examination of the role of family and the possible/probable/hoped for existence of God—and how our perceptions of the divine can be transformed from a kindergartner’s dyslexically scrawled “doG loves U” to the ever-present but oft-ignored Dog Angel of the title. Ranging from a cross-country drive to bury her mother’s ashes at Arlington National Cemetery, to a family vacation in Spain, to an imagined final exam given by her children, Kercheval explores the…

|9780822958390|Poems| Death haunts the pages of Natural Causes, but so does compassion and love. There is little darkness here, and less despair, despite the abundance of cemeteries, loss, and ghosts—both real and imagined. Mark Cox’s youthful bravado has given way in these poems to an assured sense of understatement. The weight of fatherhood, the loss of a grandmother, the fear of loneliness—these are the details around which Cox plumbs the depths of mortality and memory. Fully comfortable with the domestic tableau from which he writes, this is a poet never complacent. The penchants for metaphor and the resonant turn of…

|9780822958444|Selected and New Poems|For nearly five decades, readers have been enthralled and enchanted by Peter Everwine’s calmly dazzling poems. He’s never been a writer clearly aligned with any single school or style, yet adherents of all schools and styles admire his graceful turns of phrase and intense vision. From the Meadow features selections from four previous collections, along with a group of new works. The poems, which include Everwine’s deft translations from Hebrew and interpretations from Nahuatl, vibrate with the intensity of small truths distilled to their very essences.| Peter Everwine| Pitt Poetry Series| Poetry / American / General Poetry…