Modern and contemporary poetry

Book SynopsisMPT’s summer issue, ’The Previous Song: Focus on Somali Poetry’ includes new poems by Asmaa Jama and Hibaq Osman, translations of Amran Maxamed Axmed and Xasan Daahir Ismaaciil ‘Weedhsame’, an introduction to the lyrics of Qaraami - the popular music of Somali culture - and Ayan Salaad’s translations of Ali Osman Drog’s womens’ songs. Also: new translations of Tove Ditlevsen, Meret Oppenheim and Mona Kareem, poems in response to the invasion of Ukraine, and Olivia McCannon translates Louky Bersianik’s Cold War sequence ‘Ruins of the Future’. All this and more in the ground-breaking magazine dedicated to poetry in translation: for the best in world poetry read MPT.

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Book Synopsis‘Measureless Melodies’, MPT’s April issue, highlights Vietnamese poetry in translation, in a jam-packed issue including translations spanning centuries of verse, with work by Hồ Xuân Hương, Nguyệt Phạm, Hàn Mặc Tử, Quyên Nguyễn-Hoàng, Chế Lan Viên, and both a poem and essay by Nhã Thuyên, the latter speaking poetically to the resistances and resiliencies of the Vietnamese language. Plus: an interview with Najwan Darwish and Kareem James Abu-Zeid on ‘attunement’ in their collaboration, and winners of the Stephen Spender Trust Prize and the MPT/YPN Young Poets’ Challenge—Jonathan Bastable’s translation of Joseph Brodsky, and Kexin Huang’s poetic self-translation of her name, respectively. We also have a self-translation by Dzifa Benson, coincidentally centred on naming conventions, and translations of César Dávila Andrade by Jonathan Simkins, Barbara Gruszka-Zych by Halina Maria Boniszewska, Fabio Franzin by André Naffis-Sahely. This and much more in our new issue of the groundbreaking magazine dedicated to poetry in translation: for a poetry magazine belonging to the world, read MPT.

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Book SynopsisAlan Riach’s The MacDiarmid Memorandum is a work of epic, category-defying scope; blending biography and national history, poetry and prose; an intimate portrait of an old friend and mentor, and a political manifesto calling for revolution. Riach’s poems begin with MacDiarmid’s childhood in Langholm and his first attempts to navigate the Scottish landscape. We travel from the Borders to Shetland, from Edinburgh to rural Lanarkshire. The poems map a nation where nature is inseparable from political history. They explore a peculiarly Scottish kind of consciousness, willing itself to be free yet bowed under the weight of self-suppression. There is confrontation on various fronts. MacDiarmid experienced trauma, divorce, breakdown, wildness and later, domestic affection. At the same time, Scotland endured two world wars, each triggering a continuing renaissance of Scottish artists and intellectuals, struggling to regenerate international recognition and self-determination. Alongside Riach’s poems, the book includes reproductions of paintings by the artists Alexander Moffat and Ruth Nicol, focusing on some of the landscapes, friends and associates MacDiarmid knew most closely through his long life, plus a frontispiece portrait by William Johnstone and a song-setting by Ronald Stevenson.

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Book SynopsisThese poems were written to accompany the Los Caprichos images, originally published by Francisco Goya on February 6th, 1799. The images are part of the original `Prado' manuscript, republished by Dover Publications in 1969. Excerpts from this sequence first appeared in Ambit, Buenos Aires Poetry, Blackbox Manifold, Granta, The Common, Long Poem Magazine, Morning Star, Poetry Review and on University of Liverpool's `Citizens of Everywhere' blog. The author is grateful to the editors of these publications. A brief selection also appeared in Everything Broken Up Dances (Tupelo Press, 2015).

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Book SynopsisThese poems were written to accompany the Los Caprichos images, originally published by Francisco Goya on February 6th, 1799. The images are part of the original `Prado' manuscript, republished by Dover Publications in 1969. Excerpts from this sequence first appeared in Ambit, Buenos Aires Poetry, Blackbox Manifold, Granta, The Common, Long Poem Magazine, Morning Star, Poetry Review and on University of Liverpool's `Citizens of Everywhere' blog. The author is grateful to the editors of these publications. A brief selection also appeared in Everything Broken Up Dances (Tupelo Press, 2015).

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Book SynopsisFor younger years and ageless imaginations, this collection pulls together the most fitting pieces from Ash’s two Burning Eye releases, plus others. In 2018, Ash saw eighty-eight different schools, the majority of the pupils being too young for either Slinky Espadrilles or Strange Keys. This collection is for them.

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Book SynopsisOn Reflection: Moments, Flight and Nothing New attempts to grapple with the complexities of our present moment. Personal and imagined stories appear as fragments of everyday scenes forming a narrative of self-discovery. Vignettes accompanied by photography explore life's contradictions, trauma, and the ways in which we navigate the fluidity of cities. The poems move back and forth in time and across Europe, highlighting a range of experiences and perspectives of our modern society as a series of snapshots. In each, we catch a glimpse of ourselves, demonstrating how such moments and characters influence our journeys. Written from the consciousness of a British Ghanaian, the collection is a love letter to the lived and shared experience of those struggling and learning about the various intersections of their identity. Through the voice of Akos and other characters, Wiredu reaches to understand the significance of history, its effect on an evolving African diaspora in Europe, and finds hope in the present as she proposes an optimistic dialogue about the future.

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Book SynopsisA lyrically bardic first collection from accomplished poet, Sarah Lipton-Sidibeh; Spanning the ages across Britain's colonial landscape, Sidibeh explores not only the body, but the body politic. With unflinching intimacy, Sidibeh illustrates the vagaries of ageing and loving in a body caught by endless possibilities and boundaries. Through the same critical eyes, she undresses Britain's colonial past and criminal present, laying bare society's ills and inequities; A comprehensive collection of humanity's collective struggles and radiant joys, The First Collection is an ambitious accomplishment.

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Book SynopsisThis poetry collection explores the competing nature of the soldier's identity found in a civilization that worships and fetishize the myth of the warrior, serving as both an instruction manual for those with no military experience whatsoever and as confirmation for Soldiers the world over that their creation was inevitable, their use foreordained. Each poem and work of flash fiction elucidates the steps in which soldiers are created followed by their subsequent lives in the aftermath of their utilization as warfighters. The work demonstrates the ways in which society may turn a blind eye to the wars around them, to the destruction taking place in their name, to the layers of emotions that define the identity of the modern warfighter and his search for something more. The work gives voice to the struggle to understand actions before, during, and after combat both for the participant soldiers and for those far removed from the military fray while seeking to rewrite the ways in which we understand modern civilization and its continual march towards destruction.

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Book SynopsisNchéfù is Igbo for forgetting, misplacement. These are poems of a child born in the age of decolonization, and specifically in the very aftermath of the sort of destructive civil war colonial policy made inevitable in the exploited parts of the world. These are poems of a child who was raised as his parents were compelled through a whirlwind of global travel, who eventually came to realize he must first forgive himself his muddled identity before the great rivers of his bloodline will forgive him.

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Book SynopsisFrom the seclusion of the Scottish isles to the urban vigour of Manchester to the lowlands of East Anglia, Anna Percy observes an ever-changing world wherein change is sometimes imperceptible. This passionate and enticing meditation of ecopoetry also explores modern feminism and its societal perception, whilst thematically embracing sensuality, mental health and wellbeing, love and loss. Contains adult themes and strong language.Trade Review"A vivid evocation of place and a celebration of life and the body. Her work suggests the oneness of self and environment; that separation is an illusion." - Steve O'Connor, poet & educator; "Raw as a fresh cut, yet finely crafted as a Grecian sculpture, this collection fills the void unfilled by every pithy self-help book and half-baked love song. Anna's finest work to date." - Genevieve L. Walsh, spoken word artist; "A signature understanding of imagination and skill. I feel invited into a quiet place of crowds and their secrets, knowingly held and softly told." - Gerry Potter, poet & playwright; "Anna is a fabulous, feminist fighter whose new collection takes you on a journey into self-exploration and change. A wonderful addition to her poetry legacy." - Shirley May, poet & founding director of Young Identity

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Book SynopsisWinner of the 2018 National Jewish Book Award for Poetry Finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award for Poetry Erika Meitner’s fifth collection of poetry plumbs human resilience and grit in the face of disaster, loss, and uncertainty. These narrative poems take readers into the heart of southern Appalachia—its highways and strip malls and gun culture, its fragility and danger—as the speaker wrestles with what it means to be the only Jewish family in an Evangelical neighborhood and the anxieties of raising one white son and one black son amidst racial tensions and school lockdown drills. With a firm hand on the pulse of the uncertainty at the heart of 21st century America and a refusal to settle for easy answers, Meitner’s poems embrace life in an increasingly fractured society and never stop asking what it means to love our neighbor as ourselves.Trade Review“In her graceful fifth collection, Meitner (Copia) displays a sense of urgency informed by parenthood in this strange and particularly turbulent American moment.” —Publishers Weekly “Meitner has created a keen social record of, and commentary on, our persistent human atrocities, but she also admirably transcends the dire in a search for salvation.”—Booklist “This is a book that really is dealing with raising kids in difficult environments and also kind of facing down the epidemic of gun violence in this country — which makes it sound like it might be kind of a depressing book. But what really impressed me about it is how beautiful and tender it is. It's really just a live wire. She's a Jew in Appalachia raising an African-American adopted son. She is and isn't at home. She's kind of meditating on these things but she does so in this very incantatory, almost prayer-like way.” —Tess Taylor, NPR Books "Erika Meitner is the quintessential 21st century storyteller bearing witness from the vantage point of a social critic with heart, humor, and an incomparable voice. Holy Moly Carry Me is an urgent document of our complex ties with the past, and the dangers of letting histories, private and public, repeat themselves. She reminds us that “We are under the care of each other and sometimes we/ fail mightily to contain the damage.” This collection is Meitner at the height of her powers." —Carmen Giménez Smith "Holy Moly Carry Me is a triumph! In these formally dexterous poems Meitner vibrates wildly between the song & the document, exploding the shadowy space between history & memory. The opening poem tells us, “There are holes in all of these stories—open-mouthed gaps in the fence, a singing presence.” The voices in this books fill those gaps with a brilliant & difficult noise. In this necessary unprecedented book Meitner has assembled the materials of our apocalyptic present & past and invites us in to revel & quake with her." —sam sax “In the stunning, exact, and haunting book Holy Moly Carry Me, Meitner’s strong signature voice is on full display, but with a complex empathy for the violent, messed-up world. These are powerful poems that wonder, ache, fear, question, delve into history, and somehow never stop praising the human capacity for survival.” —Ada Limón "Reading one of Meitner’s poems feels like having an intimate talk with a close friend over dinner; revealing the details of romantic encounters, and musing about the value of poetry. She’s often wryly funny, and always tender."—Huffington Post

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Book SynopsisPoems that traverse and question the lines between human and animal behavior. Experimenting with time, language, and transgressing boundaries, the poems in absolute animal lean into Nabokov's notion that precision belongs to poetry and intuition to science. Rachel DeWoskin's new collection navigates the chaos of societal and mortal uncertainty. Through formal poetry, DeWoskin finds sense amid disorder and unearths connections between the animal and the human, between the ancient and the contemporary, and between languages, incorporating translations from poems dating as far back as the Tang dynasty. From sonnet sequences about heart surgeries to examinations of vole romance and climate change, absolute animal investigates and moves across boundaries and invites us to consider what holds life, what lasts, what dies, and what defines and enriches the experience of being human. Trade Review"DeWoskin’s second poetry collection, absolute animal, subtly exposes the thin line separating humans from other living things, those inarguable similarities to the earth and how they lead us to long for its connection. She has a way of questioning and erasing the distance we insist is there. . . . Throughout her persistent, startling collection, the poet also fuels meaning into womanhood, and everything that’s lost or gained from being female. . . . absolute animal is a graceful reminder of why links to other living things matter and why examining the human experience is one of our only respites from what we cannot change." * Chicago Review of Books *"The first poem of DeWoskin’s newest poetry collection absolute animal gets at the heart of our modern world. . . . A trio of sonnets about a father’s heart surgery, including the Newcity-published 'arrhythmia,' uses classic heartbeat iambic construction to force us to think about our own heartbeat, each our personal ever-present reminder of the thing both keeping us alive and whose malfunction promises our end. So much attention is paid to the ways we try to abstract and guard against this mortality, as in 'dressing,' in which DeWoskin’s speaker discusses the armor she chooses to wear before a meeting with an oncologist as if goth chains and locks could protect her from potentially terminal news. But the micro is macro in this collection, and the hubris in conquering our biology is as misplaced as it was in conquering our planet. The stint, staple, or wash station can forestall, but it can’t save us forever." * Newcity *"DeWoskin has helped me listen across registers. absolute animal is filled with sestinas, split sonnets, and translations of ancient Chinese poets; the variations are apt for a collection whose references span 'tick atari basement aliens' and Li Bai’s 'waving moon.' DeWoskin's gaze is one that listens. She brings each of her subjects into a 'moment of closeness' with the body, with beloveds, and with the often violent world. . . . Inside of DeWoskin’s sometimes frightening, often joyous poetic landscape, I can hear across epochs, language, and species. I am left feeling animal: vulnerable, 'crazed with light,' listening and full of song." * Arrowsmith Press *"This is no maudlin collection. The lists’ momentum serves a distinctive voice and humor, as does the order of poems: 'chemical peel' is followed by 'taxidermy'—both parenting poems of sorts. We learn that 'rodents have perfected monogamy'; the poem 'ways to love and leave you' begins, 'trick question: do prairie voles love?' . . . Yet what could be more 'animal' than our mortality, more human than our cognizance of it . . ." * Harriet Books *“An urgent, vulnerable time capsule into the future, DeWoskin is witness to the beauty here and now. She is asking, Why should we lose all the beauty we have witnessed along with ourselves? Does beauty get lost in extinguished memories? Where does beauty go to live? A response is that beauty lives in absolute animal, and DeWoskin’s gift to us is that beauty can live on in us too, if we choose.” -- Mukoma wa Ngugi, author of "Unbury Our Dead with Song"“The momentum of the poems in absolute animal sustains a fever pitch across the pages. A master of the switchback line, DeWoskin unleashes the ferocity, the poem’s heart matter, while harnessing tumult through form and rhyme. . . . These poems wrestle between what is feral and what is tame, what is unfettered and what is domestic. This is a ravishing book of poems that dazzle and shine.” -- Elise Paschen, author of The Nightlife“‘We’ve all been ancient before, aware of what we can’t know,' writes DeWoskin in absolute animal, a volume that grapples with the most critical issues of human existence and our current historical moment with a stunningly original imagination and a muscularity of language. Whether wrestling with the isolation of the pandemic, or climate change, or women’s health, or global relations, the poems speak with an elegant ferocity. The paradox of the volume’s title understands well how much animal inhabits us as humans and how much we resist that knowledge. Many of the poems reinvigorate the sonnet form in a kind of lyric scream that bears witness to and rages against both our mortality, and the ruin human presence continues to inflict upon our planet. And yet, all of the poems love fiercely, without reservation, beyond grief and the grave. DeWoskin’s brilliant collection celebrates living with tenacity, a deliberate joy that I find thrilling, consoling, and for which I am deeply grateful.” -- Robin Davidson, author of "Mrs. Schmetterling: Poems"“Tender, probing, philosophical and brilliantly wrought, DeWoskin’s poems meditate on boundaries and metamorphoses, on the gaps, real and imagined, separating us from our natural home. What does it mean to be the creature who creates the language by which we define our world? ‘While I was writing this, everything changed,’ notes DeWoskin as she explores impermanence, and the paradoxes of living in time: ‘we made time, time made us.’ Accepting the fluidity of being, however, liberates the imagination: ‘let me be not in a garden but wild, giant, omnipotent.’ Sestinas, sonnets and golden shovels are just a few of the containers DeWoskin deploys to suggest that shape-shifting and formal change may well be our only constants, and a clue to our essential nature. Haunting. Gorgeous.” -- Askold Melnyczuk, author of "The Man Who Would Not Bow: And Other Stories""In her ravishing second book of poems, absolute animal, DeWoskin collapses binaries: Mind/body, self/other, human/ animal, past/present blur and collide in lines both prescient and gripping. The opening poem, anthrosphere, aptly names the world ‘a map of small blue trouble.’ The poem demands an answer to the unanswerable, ‘ask anthro how it came to cover bio,’ The experience of reading the book ignites brain and body in the speaker’s urgent search for beauty in the midst of the horrors of the environment and the self. And the poet delivers in lines both surprising and quotidian, ‘bright broccoli in the trash, I cherished that first lie, / my baby, three: how did that get there anyway?’ Like the prairie vole, the ladybug, the turkey vulture, that appear in these pages, we’re trapped in our biology. Yet the body can connect; our minds terrify and betray us. In her poem ‘some girls’ she writes, ‘hush the tempting clatter of bone / that wants to be exposed for one slow moment let your body be home.’ The only certainty is that the ‘home’ of our flesh will vanish. Miraculously, Dewoskin eschews nihilism and relishes joy in verse of startling imagery, emotional depth, and precision.” -- Thea Goodman, author of "The Invented Mother"Table of Contentsanthrosphere attention the animal question sestina for the snake in a man-made lake ways to love and leave you social hour vole when we say they hunt unseasonable chemical peel taxidermy heathkit tv 1980 my dad’s socially distant heart surgery his meds arrhythmia feel it if these days i keep falling back estrangement poem on returning (by he zhizhang) on the eve of government exams to secretary zhang (by zhu qingyu) climbing white stork tower (by wang zhihuan) halfway (by li bai) drinking alone under the moon (by li bai) snapshots of what’s called for some girls dressing let me be vanity a surgeon sawed me open, sewed me up double body, hot lasagna taunting the turkey vultures with love tiny staples fear chance, chicago sunset/sonnet airplane landscape, 1992, true story landing dream view from above your death tenacity acknowledgments

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Book SynopsisCarol Shields received both the Pulitzer Prize and the Governor General’s Award for Fiction for her novel The Stone Diaries. Yet she also wrote hundreds of poems over the span of her career. This collection includes three previously published collections and over eighty unpublished poems, ranging from the early 1970s to Shields’s death in 2003.Trade Review"The Collected Poetry of Carol Shields will send Shields's followers back to her novels with a new understanding of their metaphoric and imagistic richness. Scholars and those familiar with her work will be grateful that the book has awakened them to another side of a writer of such renown." Lorna Crozier, University of Victoria and author of Through the Garden: A Love Story (with Cats)"The poems in this book are witty, sparked by Shields's signature interests in gender, class, and the frames of subjectivity; they are smartly formal and, like her novels, often subversively feminist. It is intriguing to see the kind of breadth that Shields brought to multiple projects throughout her poetic practice and this book has the ring of a well-kept secret." Tanis MacDonald, Wilfrid Laurier University and author of Mobile“Nearly twenty years after [Sheilds’] death, we have the welcome edition of her Collected Poetry. With the annotated addition of unpublished poems, Stovel’s volume reveals the intricate web of Shields’s humane creative intelligence.” British Journal of Canadian Studies

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Book SynopsisMaria Stepanova is one of the most powerful and distinctive voices of Russia’s first post-Soviet literary generation. The Voice Over brings together two decades of Stepanova’s work, showcasing her range, virtuosity, and creative evolution.Trade Review2021 is the year of Stepanova. * The Guardian *Stepanova's voice is a multipotent anthology of epic, lyric, and pure spell. She turns myth back into memory, heroes into humans, and her country’s rush from one catastrophe to another into language. No translator who reads Stepanova's work thinks, ‘I can do this.’ This is a book prepared by people who believed in a poetic miracle and this miracle happened—to the English language above all. -- Valzhyna Mort, author of Music for the Dead and ResurrectedA volume of Maria Stepanova’s work in English translation is long overdue, but this one, rendered by a dream team of the best translators and poets working today, has been worth the wait. The Voice Over offers a worthy tribute to Stepanova’s multiple achievements: a rich selection of texts from Stepanova’s poetry and translations of Stepanova’s essays, both illuminated by Irina Shevelenko’s expert introduction and commentary, framing Stepanova’s writing with sophistication and insight. -- Kevin M. F. Platt, founder of Your Language My Ear translation symposiumMaria Stepanova is among the most visible figures in post-Soviet culture. * Los Angeles Review of Books *[Stepanova's] work is defined by fluent phrases expressing complex thoughts, the fusing of different styles, a carefree command of all possible metrical feet, and a great sense of empathy. * Poetry International *Stepanova’s brilliance is matched only by her legendary difficulty. Rather than write in free verse, she sticks to the metric strictures of classic syllabotonic Russian poetry and fills traditional forms with a dizzying mix of references and registers, drawing on everything from Slavic folklore to social media. * Poetry Magazine *Stepanova is finally receiving the attention she deserves in the Anglophone world. Subtle and erudite in its treatment of politics and history, her work is a much-needed antidote to the crude depictions of Russia that have filled the English-language media in recent years. * Harper's Magazine *Each book [The Voice Over, In Memory of Memory, and War of the Beasts and the Animals] casts light on the others, revealing overlapping themes. Their simultaneous appearance gives English-speaking readers a singular opportunity to become familiar with a major Russian poet and thinker. * Times Literary Supplement *This ambitious collection provides English-language readers with a systematic introduction to the work of one of Russia’s most important contemporary poets . . . [The] explicit discussion of translation strategies within the volume will give readers a great deal to think about and highlights current trends and points of debate in literary translation. The translations included in this volume are of very high quality and might together make a wonderful primer for a course in literary translation. * World Literature Today *An exceptional introduction to [Stepanova's] work, the product of intensive collaboration, creative endeavour, and serious scholarship . . . essential reading for anybody interested in poetry today and in contemporary Russian culture. * Translation and Literature *Table of ContentsPrefaceBibliographic NoteIntroduction. “Speaking in Voices”: On Maria Stepanova’s Literary Creation, by Irina ShevelenkoPart I: The Here-WorldA Gypski, a Polsk I, a Jewski, a RusskiThe North of sleep. Head’s in a pillow cradleAhoy! Beyond the azure’s tempestAdieu, until one branched floor higherFor you, but the voice of the straitened MuseThe BrideThe PilotThe morning sun arises in the morningAs Danaë, prone in the incarce-chamberIt is certainly time to stopEven bluer than the toilet tiles(a birthday on the train)(half an hour on foot)July 3rd, 2004The Women’s Locker Room at “Planet Fitness”Sarah on the BarricadesThe Desire to Be a RibBus Stop: Israelitischer FriedhofZoo, Woman, MonkeyPart II: Displaced PersonAnd a vo-vo-voice aroseIn the festive sky, impassivable, tinfurledSaturday and Sunday burn like starsIn every little park, in every little squareMom-pop didn’t know himMama, what janitorA train rides down entire RussiaOrdnance was weeping in the openThe A went past, Tram-TraumWell I don’t sing Kupitye papirosnThe light swells and pulses at the garden gateIn the village, in the field, in the forestA deer, a deer stood in that placeThe last songs are assemblingMy dear, my little LibertyThere he lies in his new bed, a band of paper round his headDon’t wait for us, my darlingDon’t strain your sightFour OperasIn Unheard-of SimplicityDisplaced PersonPart III: SpoliaSpoliaWar of the Beasts and the AnimalsToday Before Yesterday (excerpt)After the Dead WaterIntending to LiveAt the Door of a Notnew AgePart IV: Over Venerable GravesThe Maximum Cost of Living (Marina Tsvetaeva)Conversations in the Realm of the Dead (Lyubov Shaporina)What Alice Found There (Alisa Poret)The Last Hero (Susan Sontag)From That Side: Notes on SebaldOver Venerable GravesNotes

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Book SynopsisMaria Stepanova is one of the most powerful and distinctive voices of Russia’s first post-Soviet literary generation. The Voice Over brings together two decades of Stepanova’s work, showcasing her range, virtuosity, and creative evolution.Trade Review2021 is the year of Stepanova. * The Guardian *Stepanova's voice is a multipotent anthology of epic, lyric, and pure spell. She turns myth back into memory, heroes into humans, and her country’s rush from one catastrophe to another into language. No translator who reads Stepanova's work thinks, ‘I can do this.’ This is a book prepared by people who believed in a poetic miracle and this miracle happened—to the English language above all. -- Valzhyna Mort, author of Music for the Dead and ResurrectedA volume of Maria Stepanova’s work in English translation is long overdue, but this one, rendered by a dream team of the best translators and poets working today, has been worth the wait. The Voice Over offers a worthy tribute to Stepanova’s multiple achievements: a rich selection of texts from Stepanova’s poetry and translations of Stepanova’s essays, both illuminated by Irina Shevelenko’s expert introduction and commentary, framing Stepanova’s writing with sophistication and insight. -- Kevin M. F. Platt, founder of Your Language My Ear translation symposiumMaria Stepanova is among the most visible figures in post-Soviet culture. * Los Angeles Review of Books *[Stepanova's] work is defined by fluent phrases expressing complex thoughts, the fusing of different styles, a carefree command of all possible metrical feet, and a great sense of empathy. * Poetry International *Stepanova’s brilliance is matched only by her legendary difficulty. Rather than write in free verse, she sticks to the metric strictures of classic syllabotonic Russian poetry and fills traditional forms with a dizzying mix of references and registers, drawing on everything from Slavic folklore to social media. * Poetry Magazine *Stepanova is finally receiving the attention she deserves in the Anglophone world. Subtle and erudite in its treatment of politics and history, her work is a much-needed antidote to the crude depictions of Russia that have filled the English-language media in recent years. * Harper's Magazine *Each book [The Voice Over, In Memory of Memory, and War of the Beasts and the Animals] casts light on the others, revealing overlapping themes. Their simultaneous appearance gives English-speaking readers a singular opportunity to become familiar with a major Russian poet and thinker. * Times Literary Supplement *This ambitious collection provides English-language readers with a systematic introduction to the work of one of Russia’s most important contemporary poets . . . [The] explicit discussion of translation strategies within the volume will give readers a great deal to think about and highlights current trends and points of debate in literary translation. The translations included in this volume are of very high quality and might together make a wonderful primer for a course in literary translation. * World Literature Today *An exceptional introduction to [Stepanova's] work, the product of intensive collaboration, creative endeavour, and serious scholarship . . . essential reading for anybody interested in poetry today and in contemporary Russian culture. * Translation and Literature *Table of ContentsPrefaceBibliographic NoteIntroduction. “Speaking in Voices”: On Maria Stepanova’s Literary Creation, by Irina ShevelenkoPart I: The Here-WorldA Gypski, a Polsk I, a Jewski, a RusskiThe North of sleep. Head’s in a pillow cradleAhoy! Beyond the azure’s tempestAdieu, until one branched floor higherFor you, but the voice of the straitened MuseThe BrideThe PilotThe morning sun arises in the morningAs Danaë, prone in the incarce-chamberIt is certainly time to stopEven bluer than the toilet tiles(a birthday on the train)(half an hour on foot)July 3rd, 2004The Women’s Locker Room at “Planet Fitness”Sarah on the BarricadesThe Desire to Be a RibBus Stop: Israelitischer FriedhofZoo, Woman, MonkeyPart II: Displaced PersonAnd a vo-vo-voice aroseIn the festive sky, impassivable, tinfurledSaturday and Sunday burn like starsIn every little park, in every little squareMom-pop didn’t know himMama, what janitorA train rides down entire RussiaOrdnance was weeping in the openThe A went past, Tram-TraumWell I don’t sing Kupitye papirosnThe light swells and pulses at the garden gateIn the village, in the field, in the forestA deer, a deer stood in that placeThe last songs are assemblingMy dear, my little LibertyThere he lies in his new bed, a band of paper round his headDon’t wait for us, my darlingDon’t strain your sightFour OperasIn Unheard-of SimplicityDisplaced PersonPart III: SpoliaSpoliaWar of the Beasts and the AnimalsToday Before Yesterday (excerpt)After the Dead WaterIntending to LiveAt the Door of a Notnew AgePart IV: Over Venerable GravesThe Maximum Cost of Living (Marina Tsvetaeva)Conversations in the Realm of the Dead (Lyubov Shaporina)What Alice Found There (Alisa Poret)The Last Hero (Susan Sontag)From That Side: Notes on SebaldOver Venerable GravesNotes

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Book SynopsisIn this debut collection from Jennie Malboeuf, we observe undercurrents of violence and power, the dynamics of memory, gender, marriage, and miscarriage. At times, God is brutal. At times, delicate. Through true stories of animal savagery, God Had a Body unravels human behavior and undoes the opaque and cryptic mysteries of faith.Trade Review"Salient and provoking, sensuous and cerebral, Jennie Malboeuf's poems locate holiness in the living, dead, partial and whole creations of this planet: among them a "cow's eye . . . so pretty I squinched hard/and wished it back to the socket"; a "redback spider [that] throws himself/into the hollow fangs of his beloved" ; a dead whale whose "mouth hung open/like a friendly doorway," until "that certain scent of ending" makes the human fantasy of welcome clear. Yes, we are like the animals—whether tiny or enormous—but make no mistake: they are themselves, worthy of our attention and our reverence, rarely reflecting us. As Malboeuf puts it, "the birds we kept/in cages fought any mirror." The poet laces her observant news of these encounters with a biblical re-envisioning, as well as with her own peculiar wit: for example, in "The Cow's Eye," Malboeuf notes that "Daddy picked it up from the stockyards . . . He said it'd help with my science project." In another encounter, the speaker's father has a run-in with a mosquito: "at the height of an anecdote, a mosquito, a female, / flew inside his head." The humor there is spiky and profound. At the doctor's office, the daughter gets to see "the mold of hot wax they poured to pull her—preserved in flight—right out." In "The Hydra," that organism is described as "a penis-shaped creature with a spider/topping its head." This poet thrives amid and among other bodies, observing, feeling, and listening, trying very hard not to cut life short or diminish its sacredness with fallible descriptions, while acknowledging with her striking wit our human-centric eye. I relish these poems and will return to them for their stories, their humor, and the ways they intertwine language and life."—Lisa Williams, author of Woman Reading to the Sea"There is a fierce spirituality and mordant wit in God had a body, Jennie Malboeuf's first book of poems. Here is a poet with a transformative vision of divine and earthly enterprise as well as a sharp eye for the repercussions of physical detail. Malboeuf's use of enactments and embodiments—actions and images—startle and awaken the reader to a powerful new voice in American poetry. What a glorious debut collection."—Stuart Dischell, author of Children with EnemiesTable of ContentsAcknowledgmentsThe GodheadPart IFirst Death Ever FilmedChrist is a Great Blue HeronThe Cow's EyeAnimals in the BibleFrog Gig, 1983Some Things Have Been Heard EnoughGracklesWildingRuthSacred HeartAnimalsThe Meaning of GodA Figure for the Holy GhostPart IIThe CountryOrreryThe LeonidsEarly Signs of the ApocalypseZoonosisSong of the CockMen in My Bed as Dead Animal in Dog Mouthal MealLandscape Where I Forget My FatherBlindfoldAnimals in CaptivityThe Nightjarphylum<\GRAY>::class::order::family::genus<\GRAY>The Giving AwayRepletionSnakehandlingFearWhat the Eclipse Does to AnimalsThe Miracle of the PigsLandscape Where I Miss My MotherPhobia, 1985lullabyGrandmothersThe MenIn the MythsKingdomHubrisThe WomenFirst MirrorThe ScrewwormMnemonicsOde to the CannibalMan, Beast, Lion, BirdGod-manInscapeThought Inventory with Rorschach and CaesuraLetting GoTopography of a BirdPart IIINewfound Star SystemDouble Star—OrbsThe GodwitTo Begin WithHeavy Animals, or Frustrated Attempts to See GodImmolationThe HydraEschatologyThe GospelsThe Lesser Water BoatmanOrgasm as LapwingErectionValentineThe QuickeningWedding NightElflandNestingflying changeStrawberry MoonHonest SignalsReasons We Should Be TogetherThe Night We Decided Was a Day

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Book SynopsisIn this brilliant book, ?Abdulwa?id Lu'lu'a translates and introduces eighty poems from one of the pioneers of modern Arabic poetry, Buland Al-?aidari.Buland Al-?aidari might fairly be considered the fourth pillar holding up the dome of modern Arabic poetry. Alongside his famous contemporaries Nazik al-Mala''ika, Badre Shakir Al-Sayyab, and Abdulwahhab Al-Bayyati, Al-?aidari likewise made significant contributions to the development of twentieth-century Arabic poetry, including the departure from the traditional use of two-hemistich verses in favor of what has been called the Arabic free verse form.A few of Al-?aidari's poems have been translated into English separately, but no book-length translation of his poetry has been published until now. In Buland Al-?aidari and Modern Iraqi Poetry, ?Abdulwa?id Lu'lu'a translates eighty of Al-?aidari's most important poems, giving English-speaking readers access to this rich corpus. Lu'lu'a's perceptive introductioTrade Review“Long overdue, this highly competent translation fills a major gap in our understanding of Arab literary history. No Middle East studies collection will be complete without it.” —Hussein N. Kadhim, author of The Poetics of Anti-Colonialism in the Arabic QaṣīdahTable of ContentsFrom Clay Throb (1947) 1. Semiramis 2. Autumn Echo 3. Whimper 4. Dreaming Silence 5. Boredom 6. Clay Throb 7. Shades 8. Closed Lips From Songs of the Dead City (1951) 9. Barrenness 10. Depths 11. Postman 12. Image 13. Three Signs 14. The Hypocritical Wound 15. At Night 16. Here You Are 17. Roads 18. Old Age 19. Dream 20. An Old Love 21. Slavery 22. O My Friend 23. Deceit 24. Lost Step 25. Loss 26. Where To From Steps in Exile (1965) 27. Secret 28. Old Image 29. Judahs’ Repentance 30. You Came with the Dawn 31. Bitter Land 32. I Want To 33. Tomorrow Here 34. And Tomorrow I Return 35. He Said Something to Us 36. Return to Hiroshima 37. In a Few Hours 38. A Talk for Next Saturday 39. The Eighth Journey 40. At Forty 41. To My Town 42. Steps in Exile From The Journey of Yellow Letters (1968) 43. To a Negro from Alabama 44. Disappointment of the Man of the Past 45. Desolation 46. Genesis 47. Dreaming of Return 48. Two Faces 49. Message of the Small Man 50. The Paling Salt 51. Age of Rubber Stamps 52. I Wish If 53. Short Laugh 54. The Waiting Sails 55. Suffocation 56. Call of a Nation 57. Dream of the Snow 58. At the Crossroads 59. A Child of the First War 60. Night, Cold and Wardens 61. Journey of the Yellow Letters From Songs of the Tired Guard 62. Sleeping Pills 63. Indicted, Though Innocent 64. A Call for Stupor 65. A Dream in Four Scenes 66. Expulsion 67. The Killed Witness 68. Apology 69. Between Two Points 70. Dialogue in the Bend 71. Confessions from 1961 72. Hey… You are Indicted 73. Dialogue in Three Dimensions 74. Procession of the Seven Sins 75. Call of the Seven Sins 76. Stolen Frontiers 77. Sindbad’s Eighth Journey 78. On the Verge of the Fallen World 79. Two Voices Late at Night 80. I’ll Stay Here

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Book SynopsisTrade Review“These poems capture the quandary of being Cuban-American, a liminal space of being where one is haunted by the exile condition beyond the possibility of resolution or even the anodyne of forgetting. Castells confronts the agonies of exile, the relentless gravity of memory, and the deterioration of Cuba under communism with disquieting surrealism and stark emotion.” —Orlando Ricardo Menes, author of The Gospel of Wildflowers and Weeds"Ghosts flow through the gulf stream waters of Victoria María Castell’s gorgeous poems. Caught in the storms of geopolitics, the natural world, and intergenerational memory, this lyric narrative of a Cuban-American family contemplates the complexity of exile and home. Readers of this book will be long haunted by its beauty." —Amy Fleury, author of Sympathetic Magic"These are mature and mesmeric poems. Hurricanes, exiled family, the devastating migrations to a new country and landscape, it's all here and so visceral and so well orchestrated. Each poem works an indelible impact on the reader. This book is a necessary catharsis for all of us who've lived and survived this history. A brilliant addition to our literary canon." —Virgil Suárez, author of The Painted Bunting's Last Molt and Amerikan Chernobyl“This debut collection by a Cuban American poet from Miami centers on questions of exile, immigration and memory, evoking Cuba as ‘this pearl/erupted from Earth, island/of dew and Communist tide.’” —New York Times Book Review * New York Times Book Review *"The Rivers Are Inside Our Homes is a poetry collection you can read in small sips or down in one large gulp. For a double reward, try it both ways. It’s an amazing collection." —Tweetspeak * Tweetspeak *"Castells’ ability to vividly portray different experiences makes the circumstances of the speakers relatable. Her collection of work could serve as a guide and possibly a comfort for the individual who becomes displaced or uprooted. The author uses her writing to hone in on how many Cuban women have no choice but to participate and yearn to migrate to a better place even when the journey is debilitating. Despite these obstacles, Castells celebrates these women for their resilience and tenacity. They truly take on a mythical energy under her literary guise."—Southern Review * Southern Review *"Victoria María Castells forges fierce, fresh mythology with The Rivers Are Inside Our Homes, a portrait of Cuban exile that is also an excoriation of power." —Poetry Foundation * Poetry Foundation *"Told in three parts, this compelling debut from Castells examines Cuba, family, hurricanes, and migration. Bursting with fairy tales and interrogating 'paradise,' images and lines continue to haunt me long after reaching the last page... When you hopefully revel in this, some standouts I highly recommend include 'Rupture, Alternating,' 'A Liking, Somewhat,' and 'Hot Season.'" —Book Riot * Book Riot *Table of ContentsI. Trilocation February Fifteenth MDCCCXCVIII Necropolis To Make a Balsa Because You Have To Hurricane Advice from Your Sister Guardian Andrew Wishing Game Migration A Short Journey CSS Stonewall Stationed in Havana Harbor On Both Sides, Water Che in Technicolor Cuba, Boasted Rival of Swiss Chocolate Go to the Smallest Room Right Now Mothers’ Warnings II. Rupture, Alternating Las Princesas Bailarinas María Antonia Homemaking Tintagel Caretaker A Liking, Somewhat On a Husband’s Next Family Hot Season Emergency If the Water is Hot and Does Not Warm You Maiden Without Hands in the Exile III. Key to the Indies Camelot Cajas de Muerto Superpowered A Ruler is Poseidon The Pirate How Can You Make a Communist Flower? Diagnosis in Exile Metamorphism And for the Head, a Crown Antilles Formation The Rivers Are Inside Our Home Shelter in Place Havana Syndrome Trump Meeting Kim Jong-Un Abuelas

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Book SynopsisThe Rivers Are Inside Our Homes handles themes of loss and exile, aging generations, fable and fairy tale, marriage and hurt, with the island of Cuba at its heart.These incandescent poems by Cuban American poet Victoria María Castells explore how we can salvage our notion of paradise in an overspent Eden. In thwarted homes located in Havana and Miami, Rapunzel and her prince, persecuted nymphs, Morgause, and Bluebeard's wife speak to us directly, all in need of returning to safety. Confronting machismo, illness, heartbreak, and isolation, the poems depict how women are at the mercy of men, either husband or oligarch. Yet all generations of Cubans are bombarded with this need to return or to leave, to have both, to have neither.Meanwhile, hurricane seasons add further instability to shelter and family, growing fiercer every year. Exile and displacement are accepted as permanent conditions. Latin America will mirror Cuba's violent struggles as conquered lanTrade Review“These poems capture the quandary of being Cuban-American, a liminal space of being where one is haunted by the exile condition beyond the possibility of resolution or even the anodyne of forgetting. Castells confronts the agonies of exile, the relentless gravity of memory, and the deterioration of Cuba under communism with disquieting surrealism and stark emotion.” —Orlando Ricardo Menes, author of The Gospel of Wildflowers and Weeds"Ghosts flow through the gulf stream waters of Victoria María Castell’s gorgeous poems. Caught in the storms of geopolitics, the natural world, and intergenerational memory, this lyric narrative of a Cuban-American family contemplates the complexity of exile and home. Readers of this book will be long haunted by its beauty." —Amy Fleury, author of Sympathetic Magic"These are mature and mesmeric poems. Hurricanes, exiled family, the devastating migrations to a new country and landscape, it's all here and so visceral and so well orchestrated. Each poem works an indelible impact on the reader. This book is a necessary catharsis for all of us who've lived and survived this history. A brilliant addition to our literary canon." —Virgil Suárez, author of The Painted Bunting's Last Molt and Amerikan Chernobyl“This debut collection by a Cuban American poet from Miami centers on questions of exile, immigration and memory, evoking Cuba as ‘this pearl/erupted from Earth, island/of dew and Communist tide.’” —New York Times Book Review * New York Times Book Review *"The Rivers Are Inside Our Homes is a poetry collection you can read in small sips or down in one large gulp. For a double reward, try it both ways. It’s an amazing collection." —Tweetspeak * Tweetspeak *"Castells’ ability to vividly portray different experiences makes the circumstances of the speakers relatable. Her collection of work could serve as a guide and possibly a comfort for the individual who becomes displaced or uprooted. The author uses her writing to hone in on how many Cuban women have no choice but to participate and yearn to migrate to a better place even when the journey is debilitating. Despite these obstacles, Castells celebrates these women for their resilience and tenacity. They truly take on a mythical energy under her literary guise."—Southern Review * Southern Review *"Victoria María Castells forges fierce, fresh mythology with The Rivers Are Inside Our Homes, a portrait of Cuban exile that is also an excoriation of power." —Poetry Foundation * Poetry Foundation *"Told in three parts, this compelling debut from Castells examines Cuba, family, hurricanes, and migration. Bursting with fairy tales and interrogating 'paradise,' images and lines continue to haunt me long after reaching the last page... When you hopefully revel in this, some standouts I highly recommend include 'Rupture, Alternating,' 'A Liking, Somewhat,' and 'Hot Season.'" —Book Riot * Book Riot *Table of ContentsI. Trilocation February Fifteenth MDCCCXCVIII Necropolis To Make a Balsa Because You Have To Hurricane Advice from Your Sister Guardian Andrew Wishing Game Migration A Short Journey CSS Stonewall Stationed in Havana Harbor On Both Sides, Water Che in Technicolor Cuba, Boasted Rival of Swiss Chocolate Go to the Smallest Room Right Now Mothers’ Warnings II. Rupture, Alternating Las Princesas Bailarinas María Antonia Homemaking Tintagel Caretaker A Liking, Somewhat On a Husband’s Next Family Hot Season Emergency If the Water is Hot and Does Not Warm You Maiden Without Hands in the Exile III. Key to the Indies Camelot Cajas de Muerto Superpowered A Ruler is Poseidon The Pirate How Can You Make a Communist Flower? Diagnosis in Exile Metamorphism And for the Head, a Crown Antilles Formation The Rivers Are Inside Our Home Shelter in Place Havana Syndrome Trump Meeting Kim Jong-Un Abuelas

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Book SynopsisThese tour-de-force poems simultaneously capture an impression of emptiness and pleasure, of existing in a liminal space filled with both hollowness and potential.Table of Contents Acknowledgments Ravine Part 1. Women Who begat the earth? 80 to 90 percent of my awareness When I was 13 there was a girl I knew My gravestone The mother should be as stunning With pleasure the young men Initially I was a beautiful woman A naked woman is perched in the window The doves were moaning crying cooing calling A map is a picture that shows where things are Part 2. Money My husband fidgets with the inner mechanism of the country The culture oriented itself toward shopping In my childhood The economy is synchronized and delicate In this house we loved My darkest thoughts In the middle of the disaster nothing bad had happened to me My new blue kitchen cabinets painted blue Is the wind so dirty? Our house (among all the homes in the city) Part 3. Children A ghost is what you call a woman The new mothers The unbearable can actually be borne My pregnancy was a long and happy nightmare Nothing could be sweeter than JoaquÍn is my favorite child Statues or knotted ropes or scored stone I ask JoaquÍn if he likes the music AndrÉs said Woe was the sentiment Part 4. Ghosts Sitting at the lip of the tunnel to the past It is sad What is your ideal life I am going to make a poem We each of us carry Neptune is a place we’ll never go All the time art is falling It is turbulent to be a person Hypothetical Painting

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Book SynopsisPoets have been writing about love for centuries, so it is thrilling when a new voice comes along capable of breathing new life into old structures. In (At) Wrist, Tacey Atsitty melds inherited forms such as the sonnet with her Dine (Navajo) and religious experiences to boldly and beautifully seek a love that can last for eternity.Trade ReviewAs formally seductive as it is subversive, Tacey Atsitty’s (At) Wrist is a poetry of deep longing and praise, of loss and the courage of resilience. Anchored in an intimate vision of connectedness, her syntax works its way beyond thought’s limit, setting its hook in the terrain of memory and dream. This is a book I will return to for what no other poet I know delivers with such daring and vulnerability, a poetry wherein time, body, and the natural world are presented as a singularity otherwise known as love." - James KimbrellTable of Contents A February Snow Sonnet for My Wrist Bird Dance Round Our Wrists Out of Star Sang Over Chafe Apricot Lament Hole through the Rock Querido Apu Lace Sonnet Still Life Morrow River Silt The Night My Wrist Broke Last Night, Bleeding A Blood Letting On Innocence When It Was Time Scaling the Black It’s Hard to Write a Love Poem When Candy Dish Sonnet Into Rain Of Ribbon The Warbler Night Portrait with Cannon Fire Pollenback Portrait of a Gray Room ) ( Lacing Acknowledgments

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Book SynopsisVenezuelan poet Juan Calzadilla (b. 1931) is considered one of the most influential poets of the Spanish language. But while his books have appeared in Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Cuba, and Spain, his work has not been widely available in English until now.Trade Review“Calzadilla addressed his poems to a specific audience during a momentous time; and yet his poems feel as though they were written last week precisely for us. Unvarnished, unimproved, shamanistic, his poems exude a raw, tumultuous energy that legendary translator Katherine Hedeen and her savvy co-translator Olivia Lott catch every drop of. But be careful, reader. Don’t start this book at night; you not only won’t sleep a wink, but you may find yourself far from home—as far as the Caracas of your imagination—rushing through ill-lit streets in a frenzy.”—Forrest GanderTable of Contents Foreword by VÍctor RodrÍguez NÚÑez Introduction by Katherine M. Hedeen and Olivia Lott Dictado por la jaurÍa / Dictated by the Pack (1962) DICTADO POR LA JAURÍA / DICTATED BY THE PACK vivo a diario / i live day by day funcionario que celebra un ritual / a civil servant celebrates a ritual escorpiÓn / scorpion vecindad del buitre / vulture neighborhood esperando salvaciÓn / waiting for salvation gracias al barniz / thanks to the varnish mingitorio / urinal una sala de juego / a cardroom me reconozco / i see me los mÉtodos necesarios / the necessary methods he sido otro / i have been another golpeando el abismo / hitting the abyss CON MALOS MODALES / WITH BAD MANNERS con malos modales / with bad manners cuarzo / quartz el magma debe retornar / the magma must return en memoria del Ángel / in memory of the angel los horizontes son nuestros brazos / the horizons are our arms EL INVISIBLE SALE DE LA CASA / THE INVISIBLE MAN LEAVES THE HOUSE “una vez que se toma el sombrero. . .” / “once a hat’s been picked up. . .” DESCENDIENTE DE AHAB / DESCENDENT OF AHAB “para un pÚblico enfermo. . .” / “for a sick public. . .” fin del acto / end of the act el doble hace su entrada / the double enters the scene mi vocaciÓn de actor / my vocation as an actor la venganza / revenge poste / post escalÓn / step cadena sola / single chain cuento / story un hilo sobre el abismo / a thread above the abyss sÓlo comer es una empresa / only eating is a business me levanto / i get up jonÁs siempre / always jonah Malos modales / Bad Manners (1965) “Ciudadano libre a un palmo por encima. . .” / “Free citizen just an inch above. . .” CONTANDO HASTA CERO / COUNTING TO ZERO Contando hasta cero / Counting to Zero “Mis decisiones se encuentran demasiado cerca. . .” / “My decisions are too close. . .” “Despierto Sigo vivo por ese solo instante. . .” / “Awake I am still alive for that one moment. . .” “Todas mis preocupaciones son el hilo de donde cuelgo. . .” / “All my worries are the thread I hang from. . .” Las armas invisibles / The Invisible Arms Hago un alto / I Take a Break S u b s i s t o / I S u b s i s t Requisitoria de los trajes vacÍos / Interrogation of the Empty Suits RELEVO DE GUARDIA / CHANGING OF THE GUARD Relevo de guardia / Changing of the Guard Paisajes subterrÁneos / Subterranean Landscapes Bajo nuevo aviso / Under New Notice Ciudad sola / Lonely City Una coincidencia / A coincidence “Los espectÁculos banales. . .” / “Banal spectacles. . .” CACERÍA / HUNT “Me llevan como una bestia domÉstica. . .” / “Like a tamed beast. . .” El prisionero de su conciencia / The Prisoner of His Conscience Órbitas separadas / Separate Orbits “Si he avanzado hacia adelante. . .” / “If I have made any progress. . .” Debo decir / I Should Say De transformaciones / On Transformations “Demandas clemencia. . .” / “You demand clemency. . .” Las contradicciones sobrenaturales / The Supernatural Contradictions (1967) RELEVO DE GUARDIA / CHANGING OF THE GUARD Decisiones / Decisions Corona de reyes / Crown of Kings Ases / Aces LegÍtima defensa / Legitimate Defense Tomas el pavimiento por la forma exacta de tu piel / You Take Pavement as the Precise Shape of Your Skin Las apuestas / The Wagers Arco de silex / Arc of Silex SISTEMA DE CONDUCTA / BEHAVIOR SYSTEM Por partida doble / Double Entry Jaula para occisos / Cage for the Slain Bestia I Bestia II Bestia III / Beast I Beast II Beast III “Suelo tomar extraÑas determinaciones. . .” / “I tend to make strange determinations. . .” Otra direcciÓn / A Different Direction Órdenes / Orders Imagen humeante / Smoking Image CARNET DE ENUMERACIONES / ENUMERATIONS CARD MÁscara de papel / Paper Mask Cubrir la duda con un mantel de fiesta / To Cover Doubt with a Fancy Tablecloth Cuidado frÁgil / Warning Fragile “La mirada quiere claraboyas. . .” / “The glance wants skylights. . .” Fuerza bruta / Brute Force “Salud. . .” / “To your health. . .” “La contrariedad nacida. . .” / “The opposition born. . .” ABISMO PÚBLICO / PUBLIC ABYSS HÁbitos / Habit Dentro de la roca vacÍa / Inside the Empty Rock De los reos / On Prisoners Setencia / Sentence Mandamiento / Commandment C14 / C14 UN OJO DE CONTRAPESO / AN EYE AS COUNTERWEIGHT Piedra sobre piedra / Stone upon Stone “Sumiso” / “Submissive” “De una caja de asfÓdelos empujada contra la corriente. . .” / “From a box of asphodels pushed against the current. . .” “Pon atenciÓn Date cuenta ConcÉntrate. . .” / “Pay attention Realize Focus. . .” La quinta parte del espÍritu es el deseo de huir / The Fifth Part of the Spirit Is the Desire to Flee “Entre jaulas de occisos. . .” / “Among cages of the slain. . .” Appendix: An Interview with Juan Calzadilla by VÍctor RodrÍguez NÚÑez, translated by Katherine M. Hedeen and Olivia Lott Acknowledgments

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Book SynopsisGrief fractures and scars. In Afterlife Michael Dhyne picks up the shattered remains, examining each shard in the light, attempting to find meaning - or at least understanding - in the death of his father.Trade ReviewHeartbreaking and brilliant in its delicacy and its depths, and in the many ways it reaches from interior drama to range far out into the wider world. The spell cast by this book ties our adult ways of moving through our lives to the primitive child-need for magic and reassurance: the longing we all know for order amid the terrors of random events, and the search, in the welter of our days, for the place or person or state of mind in which self can feel held." - Debra NystromTable of Contents To My Father, the Light Kara Insomnia Afterlife Living Room In Love with a Girl Eating Strawberries God’s Eye Self-Portrait with Sky Left Over Memorial Arizona The Window New Mexico 4 a.m. Texas A Beginning Louisiana Without End Tennessee Last Words to My Husband Virginia Like a Gift Passed Between Us Nothing Blackout Self-Portrait on the Beloved’s Body On Silence 95 South Sonogram Portrait of My Father as a Young Man Tell Me a Story Father’s Day Untitled (Say Goodbye, Catullus, to the Shores of Asia Minor), Cy Twombly, 1994 Heaven Is Empty and We’re All in It Notes Acknowledgments

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Book SynopsisThe 115th volume of the Yale Series of Younger Poets is a lyrical and polyvocal exploration of what it means to fight for yourselfTrade ReviewFinalist for the 2021 National Book Award for Poetry, sponsored by The National Book FoundationLonglisted for the 2022 OCM Bocas PrizeFinalist for the 2022 Kate Tufts Discovery Award, sponsored by the Claremont Graduate SchoolNamed One of the Best Books of 2021 by the New York Public LibraryLonglisted for the 2022 Dylan Thomas Prize, sponsored by Swansea University“Bailey invites us to see what twenty-first-century life is like for a young woman of the Black diaspora in the long wake of a history of slavery, brutality, and struggling for freedoms bodily and psychological.”—Carl Phillips, from the Foreword“Desiree C. Bailey sings true in her debut What Noise Against the Cane. Wherever this voice goes a Caribbean sun travels with it transfiguring what a maroon might overhear—a call awaiting response.”—Yusef Komunyakaa

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Book SynopsisIn highly charged, dazzling language, 4:30 Movie explores a sister's death and the ways movies shape our imaginations.

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Book SynopsisThe extraordinary Swahili poetry collection Sauti ya Dhiki, in English Voice of Agony, is a collection of prison poems composed by Abdilatif Abdalla between 1969 and 1972. Imaginative Vision is the first complete literary translation into English of one of the most esteemed and influential collections of Swahili poetry of the twentieth century.Table of Contents Editor’s Introduction by Annmarie Drury Preface to the Translationby Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o Translator’s Introduction by Ken Walibora Waliaula Voice of Agony Sauti ya Dhiki Translated by Ken Walibora Waliaula I Won’t Compromise N’shishiyelo ni Lilo Go and Console Him Kamliwaze Worry Not Tuza Moyo The Boil Jipu I’ll Never Let Go Siwati Crocodile Mamba I Remember You Nakukumbuka Human Perfection Ukamilifu wa Mja What Has Offended You? Lilokuudhi ni Lipi? Coconut Palm: A Tug-of-War Mnazi: Vuta N’kuvute This Speaking Out Kuno Kunena Slipperiness Telezi Speak Out, You Who Dare Semani Wenye Kusema Even a Clever Guy Can’t Shave His Own Head Muwerevu Hajinyowi It Will End Yatakoma Alas, My Friend! Ah! Mwenzangu Be Gone, Anxiety Wasiwasi Enda Zako What a Bad Fellow! Mja Si Mwema What Will Happen? Lipi Litakalokuwa? Our Mother Africa Mamaetu Afrika Yesterday and Today and Tomorrow Jana na Leo na Kesho A Precious Thing Can’t Last Chema Hakudumu Be Patient, My Heart Moyo Iwa Na Subira Don’t Kill Me! Usiniuwe! Things Have Their Own Ways Mambo Yana Mambo Yake Don’t Listen to Them Watiliye Pamba Pampering Tendekezo I Wouldn’t Be Here Today Leo N’singekuwako Cockadoodle-do! Kokoiko! Don’t Cling to Silence ’Sikakawane na Kimya Travelers, Let’s Wake Up Wasafiri Tuamkeni Come to Your Senses Zindukani Goodbye Kwa Heri The Town Cockerel and the Country One La Mjini na La Shamba Wash Him Muosheni I’m Coming Naja Crossroads Ndiya Panda A Thing Can’t Be Human Kichu Hakiwi Ni Uchu Tit for Tat Kutendana I’m Back N’sharudi Critical PerspectivesSauti ya Dhiki: Its Place in Swahili Literature and East African Literature by Ann Biersteker Abdilatif and I: Reflections on Comparative Experiencesby Alamin Mazrui Rhymed, Metrical Translations of Four Poemsby Meg Arenberg This is What I Hold Fast N’shishiyelo ni Lilo Crocodile Mamba I Remember You Nakukumbuka Which Will It Be? Lipi Litakalokuwa? Textual Backgrounds: Voice of Agony in Its Historical MomentKenya: Twendapi? Kenya: Where Are We Heading? by Abdilatif Abdalla, Translated by Kai Kresse Introduction to the 1973 edition by Shihabuddin Chiraghdin, Translated by Ann Biersteker Author’s Preface to the 1973 editionbyAbdilatif Abdalla,Translated by Ann Biersteker Bibliography Notes on Contributors

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Book SynopsisThe extraordinary Swahili poetry collection Sauti ya Dhiki, in English Voice of Agony, is a collection of prison poems composed by Abdilatif Abdalla between 1969 and 1972. Imaginative Vision is the first complete literary translation into English of one of the most esteemed and influential collections of Swahili poetry of the twentieth century.Table of Contents Editor’s Introduction by Annmarie Drury Preface to the Translationby Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o Translator’s Introduction by Ken Walibora Waliaula Voice of Agony Sauti ya Dhiki Translated by Ken Walibora Waliaula I Won’t Compromise N’shishiyelo ni Lilo Go and Console Him Kamliwaze Worry Not Tuza Moyo The Boil Jipu I’ll Never Let Go Siwati Crocodile Mamba I Remember You Nakukumbuka Human Perfection Ukamilifu wa Mja What Has Offended You? Lilokuudhi ni Lipi? Coconut Palm: A Tug-of-War Mnazi: Vuta N’kuvute This Speaking Out Kuno Kunena Slipperiness Telezi Speak Out, You Who Dare Semani Wenye Kusema Even a Clever Guy Can’t Shave His Own Head Muwerevu Hajinyowi It Will End Yatakoma Alas, My Friend! Ah! Mwenzangu Be Gone, Anxiety Wasiwasi Enda Zako What a Bad Fellow! Mja Si Mwema What Will Happen? Lipi Litakalokuwa? Our Mother Africa Mamaetu Afrika Yesterday and Today and Tomorrow Jana na Leo na Kesho A Precious Thing Can’t Last Chema Hakudumu Be Patient, My Heart Moyo Iwa Na Subira Don’t Kill Me! Usiniuwe! Things Have Their Own Ways Mambo Yana Mambo Yake Don’t Listen to Them Watiliye Pamba Pampering Tendekezo I Wouldn’t Be Here Today Leo N’singekuwako Cockadoodle-do! Kokoiko! Don’t Cling to Silence ’Sikakawane na Kimya Travelers, Let’s Wake Up Wasafiri Tuamkeni Come to Your Senses Zindukani Goodbye Kwa Heri The Town Cockerel and the Country One La Mjini na La Shamba Wash Him Muosheni I’m Coming Naja Crossroads Ndiya Panda A Thing Can’t Be Human Kichu Hakiwi Ni Uchu Tit for Tat Kutendana I’m Back N’sharudi Critical PerspectivesSauti ya Dhiki: Its Place in Swahili Literature and East African Literature by Ann Biersteker Abdilatif and I: Reflections on Comparative Experiencesby Alamin Mazrui Rhymed, Metrical Translations of Four Poemsby Meg Arenberg This is What I Hold Fast N’shishiyelo ni Lilo Crocodile Mamba I Remember You Nakukumbuka Which Will It Be? Lipi Litakalokuwa? Textual Backgrounds: Voice of Agony in Its Historical MomentKenya: Twendapi? Kenya: Where Are We Heading? by Abdilatif Abdalla, Translated by Kai Kresse Introduction to the 1973 edition by Shihabuddin Chiraghdin, Translated by Ann Biersteker Author’s Preface to the 1973 editionbyAbdilatif Abdalla,Translated by Ann Biersteker Bibliography Notes on Contributors

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Book SynopsisTrade Review"West finds inspiration for his gorgeously detailed poems in the figures and likenesses of nature: a eucalyptus twists ‘like wrist joints in an artist’s portfolio,’ new growth catches ‘the light like a crowd / of scimitars in the breeze.’ The Australian poet’s formally engaged, often rhyming verse—sonnets, couplets—reveals a mind nurtured in a Mediterranean climate of classicism."---David Woo, Literary Hub

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Book SynopsisTrade Review"West finds inspiration for his gorgeously detailed poems in the figures and likenesses of nature: a eucalyptus twists ‘like wrist joints in an artist’s portfolio,’ new growth catches ‘the light like a crowd / of scimitars in the breeze.’ The Australian poet’s formally engaged, often rhyming verse—sonnets, couplets—reveals a mind nurtured in a Mediterranean climate of classicism."---David Woo, Literary Hub

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Book SynopsisPoems that give voice and agency to marginal figures in rural places and cityscapes.Trade Review"'Intensify' is the Rilkean injunction that Harold Hoefle both declares and practises in this propulsive first collection of poems. I admire equally the energy of his lines and the range of his sympathies." Steven Heighton, 2016 Governor General's Poetry Award winner for The Waking Comes Late"The Night Chorus sings of a private world that spans from Lac La Pêche to the British Museum, from a rural ditch to the city bus. These poems access memories, intimate conversations, and seemingly ordinary moments that Harold Hoefle discerns with the bright precision of a jeweller. To read The Night Chorus is to drive along a road that, in Hoefle's words, "climbs, dips, arcs, cup[s] the world in a curve." Where you stop to rest is often where you will want to linger for a while longer." Gillian Sze, author of Panicle

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Book SynopsisDavid Sanders’s second book of poems mixes free and formal verse to search for wisdom in life’s quiet moments as well as in those jolting times when our fragility is most apparent.Trade Review“The poems in David Sanders’s beautifully balanced new collection, Bread of the Moment, reach as deeply as any I know, achieving the emotional clarity of poets like Robert Hayden, Robert Hass, and W. S. Merwin. This is wise, expertly crafted work, facing mortality with humor sufficient to the need and with reverent attention to memory, nature, and the poet’s art. I am profoundly moved and instructed by this lucid book.” -- Kathy Fagan, author of Sycamore: Poems“David Sanders’s second collection of poems, Bread of the Moment, contains an astonishing breadth of emotional and physical landscapes in poems beautifully realized and forcefully felt. It is a book haunted by memory—understood as a ‘selective, mythic thing, a lie’—and alive with strikingly memorable images, like the French king’s hunting trophies, ‘sprouting enormous racks, / like dozens of arms, hands, / reaching out to me from the stone blocks, / frozen, locked in place.’ Bread of the Moment is an evocative book, a dynamic expression, and expansion, of Sanders’s art.” -- Ernest Hilbert, author of Last One Out“‘Every time/ is the last time. That’s what the world keeps teaching.’ Bread of the Moment’s truths are hard won, but its delights are palpable. It is night swimming in cold lake water full of stars.” -- Jason Gray, author of Radiation King“David Sanders peers into the psychology of a charged or puzzling moment, in most of these poems. Living through such moments can be painful and yet the pondering of them brings a kind of nourishment. In ‘So, I Tell Myself’ he contemplates an odd confluence of small misfortunes, and the poem enables him to escape from a paranoid interpretation of that confluence. ‘Matinée’ notices how a mood of inflated pride (as when you see yourself as Cary Grant or Gregory Peck) inevitably must come down to street level—though a poised account of this humbling descent allows for the more sustainable stardom of poetic insight.” -- Mark Halliday, author of Losers Dream OnTable of ContentsOne Politics (A Walk through the Woods) The Blue Danube Waiting to Happen Wedding Day (Bird Trapped in a Flue) Matinée Chatelaine The Break-In The Slide Exercise (Cul-de-sac) Abandoned Nests Exposed by Winter Meal of Dreams The House on Fire across the Street Self-Portrait as a Fly on the Wall of Modern History Morning Frost along the River The Luxury of Light Horses Another Poem Beginning with the Weather: An Elegy Art Lessons from the Past Particulates Self-Portrait with Antlers Banking and Turning Full Moon, Dow Lake, July Two Election-Day Raccoon The Two of Us After Learning of the Death of a Roommate I Hadn’t Seen in Forty Years Holiday Party with Roses Talking to Old People Emanation So, I Tell Myself Autumn and the End of Autumn In His Defense Wood Frogs Letter to the Editor Utility My Books What We Don’t Know Common Wisdom A Kind of Proof Dear Vulture Early March, with Horses Reasons Not to Leave To an Old Friend Whose Politics Have Changed [Enter ghost] Morning Sleet

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Book SynopsisOffers a celebration of the natural environment that also bemoans its mistreatment at the hands of humans. The collection's long sequence, “A Field Guide to People”, is an alpha-bestiary of twenty-six sonnets, each a meditation on a species of flora or fauna that is thriving, endangered, or extinct.

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Book SynopsisThe latest collection from award-winning poet Vievee Francis, The Shared World imagines the ideas and ideals and spaces of the Black woman. The book delves into inherited memories and restrictions between families, lovers, and strangers and the perception and inconvenient truth of Black woman as mother.Trade Review“Vievee Francis is, undoubtedly, one of the most compelling poets alive and writing today. In her fourth book, The Shared World, she charts a course of how entangled all of our lives are in today’s world. Who do we share the world with? Who do we ignore? What does it mean to live so closely in proximity to each other and to have such deeply complicated histories? At the heart of this book is this truth: what is the telling, and how do we go about the ways of doing so? With bravery, Francis peels back the layers, not leaving a simple understanding but instead, by the telling, examining the complications of what it means to tell.” —Fatimah Asghar, author of If They Come for Us: Poems“When I say Vievee Francis is one of the finest living American writers, I say it without hyperbole. Each of her poems is a revelation. They embody Lorca’s idea that duende is about self-discovery, of excavation through image and the imaginary. Not for the self, but from the self. Few poets can write with her earned grace.” —Adrian Matejka, author of Somebody Else Sold the WorldTable of Contents To Forget A Call to Arms Break Me and I’ll Sing Finding Myself in the Market of Accra Another Attempt at the Telling 1965 The Shared World Honey Given to Rust On the Piney Woods, Death, Bobby Frank Cherry and Me The Keening The Poets Who Are Our Enemies When Your Brother Dies You Want I’ve Worn It Three Days in a Row Ugly Fruit Everything is Berlin Dead or Alive, The Rats Ignore Us Juneteenth(#3) The Smell Accidental City Provincetown, MA You Prefer Us Dead Alright, I Am the One You Prefer Dead The Quiver Tree Marvin Gaye: Mercy I Have Been Witness and Victim Yes, Among Them I’ve Been Thinking About Love Again I Know That Music Birdsong Like a Child’s Marvin Gaye: Sugar Uncle Sonny Bless the Kindling World Brother of Skulls Room for One Omnivore The Fisherman Speaks Again of his Days The Lie And Upon That Pale Horse a Paler Woman Emmett, I said Wait The Marsh King Without End Reading Neruda at 2:00 AM The River Shivers as Much as I The Winter Kingdom Small Reprieve To Be Touched as Sophia The Sound Epiphany: Parable of the Tongue Cut by Strings That Cat Returns The Wheel of the Bus: A Fiction Relevance An Unkindness Of Landscape My Dolls Were Just That Meat Eater Goat Heart I Am the Only One I Know Who Can Cook Them Br’er Rabbit’s Hole What The Fat Man Taught Mother Tongue Why I Don’t Wait The Company of Wolves The Shore Nouvea Slim The Morning I Miss Such Devotion Everywhere and Here Too Canzone in Blue, Then Bluer Muleskinners The World Contracts Moan Soft Like You Wanted Somebody Terrible Cannibal In A Lesser Paradise Goat Fantastica Melancholia The Dead Horse The Cannibal Myth Ota Benga’s Case Dark Horse

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Book SynopsisIn Hazo’s latest collection, The Less Said, the Truer, he brings together new poems as well as selections from three previous books. The author’s poignant reflections on life and death, love and loss, and age and memory allow the poems to be deeply personal while also connecting with the everyday experiences of readers.

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Book SynopsisIn this powerful debut, Capista traverses earth and ether to yield poems that elucidate the space between one’s life and one’s livelihood. While its landscapes range from back-alley Baltimore to the Bitterroot Valley, this book remains close to unbidden beauty and its capacity to sway one’s vision of the world.Trade Review“Both wry and ardent, Intrusive Beauty is an immensely accomplished book. Readers have all the pleasures of great poetry here—nuanced syntax, a musician’s harmonious ear, and a remarkably deft and varied handling of form.… Nothing is precious here—even the poems about fatherhood and nature, those baited traps, are leapt over by Capista’s nimble speaker.”“Capista’s choice to write about unglamorous aspects of his life is consistently surprising and offers multiple opportunities for readers to connect with his poems’ narratives and the philosophical predicaments he uses those narratives to explore…[t]he book is powerful in the humility it strikes as it bears witness to the often underwhelming and still splendid life of an artist. I see myself everywhere in its breath.” * Iron Horse Review *“Capista doesn’t shy away from the joys of rollicking through language’s innate richness of sound and meter. In his debut collection … little gems of insight and deep reflection [sparkle] throughout. [Capista] has the ability to see beauty in all places, and through his keen observations, he allows us to see this beauty, too." * Baltimore Magazine *“Capista has his hand on all aspects of this art. His craft is impeccable, often witty, and always refreshing…[t]he poet expresses essential goodness in daily acts, and takes on this art to prove it to us. This is a reward for the writer and the reader.” * Washington Independent Review of Books *"Contemporary poetry rarely has a melodic cadence, as rhythmic poetry is somehow considered unsophisticated. But Joseph J. Capista doesn’t shy away from the joys of rollicking through language’s innate richness of sound, as he weaves narratives about Baltimore, life as a husband and father, and the elegance of the natural world. The Towson University professor has the ability to see beauty in all places, and through his observations, he allows us to see it, too.“ * Baltimore Magazine *“(Intrusive Beauty demands a reader willing to talk back and engage with its sometimes troubling depictions of violence without setting the book down too long. Making that commitment to reading and rereading offers a significant reward. Some books you reread because you want to get another hit of dopamine. I reread Intrusive Beauty because I wanted a second round with it, to go back for a rematch. Which was, I have to say, more rewarding.” * Barrelhouse Reviews *

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a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.

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a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.

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a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.

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Book SynopsisShows the reader both the closeness of the enemy and the poet's inherent courage, inventiveness, and joy.

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a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.

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a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.

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Book SynopsisPoems exploring understandings of belonging - from places and histories, to ways of knowing, loving, and grieving.

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Book SynopsisA rebuttal to Aeschylus’ Oresteia, Every Form of Ruin posits the Erinyes’ fury as righteous, understanding Clytemnestra’s rageful response to loss, and refusing Iphigenia’s relegation to a footnoted sacrifice.

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a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.

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