Elisa Gabbert’s “On Poetry” column features a wonderful look at cloud imagery in poetry and the poems of Reginald Shepherd are featured, along with the cover of The Selected Shepherd. “Reginald Shepherd is also a cloud-spotter. Almost every poem in THE SELECTED SHEPHERD (University of Pittsburgh Press, $30) mentions clouds, the way almost every painting in a landscape gallery mentions clouds. (There are paintings of clouds, and those that only mention them in passing.) Shepherd isn’t quite writing “nature poems,” as we might say of Wright. But no poem about the world escapes nature, and clouds often enter as pure image:…

The Pitt Poetry Series at the University of Pittsburgh Press upholds a tradition of publishing distinguished contemporary poetry. The series is honored to continue that tradition in the Fall 2024 with the following collections:   Dragstripping by Jan Beatty (on sale September 3, 2024)  Still City by Oksana Maksmychuk (on sale November 5, 2024)  Querida by Nathan Xavier Osorio, winner of the 2024 Agnes Lynch Starrett Poetry Prize (on sale September 10, 2024)  Absent Here by Bret Shepard, winner of the 2023 Donald Hall Prize for Poetry (on sale October 8, 2024)  Purchase by Lyrae Van Clief-Stefanon (on sale October…

Nathan Xavier Osorio of Los Angeles, California, is the winner of the 2024 Agnes Lynch Starrett Poetry Prize for his collection Querida. Osorio’s debut collection was selected by poet Shara McCallum. The University of Pittsburgh Press will publish Querida as part of the acclaimed Pitt Poetry Series on September 10, 2024. “Memory is a guiding force in Nathan Osorio’s stunning debut, Querida,” states Shara McCallum. “From the opening, single-sentence tour-de-force of a poem to sonnet-sequences throughout, Osorio’s formal agility and singular voice takes hold of our attention and never lets it go.” Querida is a place-based lyrical meditation on the…

The Pitt Poetry Series at the University of Pittsburgh Press is pleased to announce the finalists for the 2024 Agnes Lynch Starrett Poetry Prize, selected by Shara McCallum: How We Keep Each Other Company by Talia Bloch The Living Sign by Colby Cotton What God in the Kingdom of Bastards by Brian Gyamfi Querida by Nathan Osorio The winner will be announced on December 18, 2023. Established in 1981, the Agnes Lynch Starrett Poetry Prize, named in honor of the Press’s first director, is awarded for a first full-length book of poems. The prize carries a cash award of $5,000…

The University of Pittsburgh Press is deeply saddened at the passing of Ed Ochester—poet, teacher, and editor—who served as series editor of the Pitt Poetry Series from 1978 until his retirement in 2021. Terrance Hayes, Nancy Krygowski, and Jeffrey McDaniel, who took over as Pitt Poetry Series editors after Ochester’s retirement said, “As the new Pitt Poetry Series editors, having taken up Ed’s role this past spring, we will be doubling our efforts to bring attention to all Ed Ochester did for us, Pitt poets, and contemporary poetry. His role in the career of poets such as Sharon Olds, Toi…