Toxicon and Arachne, the recent poetry collection by Joyelle McSweeney, depicts the short human lifespan with an unconventional consistent darkness. Uniquely refreshing in its morbidity, this work is scattered with the bitterness of losing a child, and McSweeney portrays her grief “the way a crane / dances for its mate / the awkward body / […]
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The third collection from Leslie Contreras Schwartz, Who Speaks for Us Here, is both a question and answer for silenced women. These poems are both a warning and a guide about how to hush the haunting of trauma, how to master the art of carrying multiple selves inside of us. The women in these lyrical […]
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Mónica de la Torre’s marvelous work of art and language, Repetition Nineteen, weaves its way into the world this month to make our lives a little brighter. A vivid and thoughtful bilingual book, this work inspires readers to consider the misunderstandings and reliability of translating and code-switching, and gives us permission to fill in the […]
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Meena Alexander has a conversation with literary ghosts in her posthumous poetry collection, In Praise of Fragments. The writings and drawings in this book depict nonlinear, speculative bits about what it means to be alive, present, and home. She invites us on her exploration of the soul in her last few years of life. Many […]
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Emily as Sometimes the Forest Wants the Fire by Darren C. Demaree is exactly the bright, crackling ode that its title suggests. Emily is a dynamic shapeshifter, assuming nature’s many forms, from human to flower to debris. The poems in this collection are certainly heavy with the stumbling navigation of love and vulnerability, but they […]
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Awe-inspiring, thoughtful and honest, Gillian Conoley’s selection of poems in A Little More Red Sun on the Human engages us in observation and conversation about the wild state of the world. Her work encourages analysis of the meaning of our lives as humans, our place in constructed society and forced imposition on nature. The weight […]
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Speech, a reflective and well-timed new work by Jill Magi, is quite possibly the delicate walkthrough of life that so many of us secretly wish we had. The speaker serves as a flawlessly observant guide on a linguistic journey, giving us both foresight and hindsight as we wander along a path that is at once […]
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Slingshot by Cyrée Jarelle Johnson is a turbulent debut collection that should be on every fall reading list. His poems demonstrate skillful navigation of what it is like to see the world through queer black eyes, opening all other eyes to the alternate visibility and invisibility of this existence, the dangers of being seen by […]
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Hannah Cohen’s poetry collection Bad Anatomy shows us how our world looks when we hold it in vine-wrapped hands, at once a fragile ball and a strong snare. Read this book to be inspired to look at the world through new eyes, with a fresh stop-to-smell-the-roses vision. Cohen’s very first poem is about everything she […]
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Marlena Chertock stunned us once before with her poems in “On that one-way trip to Mars,” and now she returns with another astronomical collection, “crumb-sized.” Familiar topics return with new flair and detail, teaching us more about blackbodies and exoplanets, and imparting more awareness on personal issues like dysplasia and queer life. One of her […]
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What are the constructs we’re born into, and how do we conform to or evade them? How does being a woman today dictate the way we move through the world, as we’re taught from an early age how to be: to always be smiling, to have thigh gap, to be apologetic, to comply with conventional […]
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You may stumble upon Alain Ginsberg if you’re trying to find Allen Ginsberg, but there’s no need to be disappointed by this poet mix-up. Alain’s writing is a melancholy autobiography of what it means to not only survive, but also to live, and how hard it can be for queer individuals to do the bare […]
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There’s nothing like finding a book that is so open and honest, you feel as if you’ve found a window into the author’s psyche. That’s how it feels to read Marianne Apostolide’s latest, Deep Salt Water (BookThug), a powerful memoir about abortion and the experience of loss as it evolves over time. It’s a beautifully […]
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JR Mahung’s literary creation, “Like Waters,” is both a tidal force and a gentle flow. It is teaching someone how to dance and not caring if they step on your feet, just wanting to twirl in some comfortable space with them. It is a lesson that if you keep searching for perfection, you’ll miss all […]
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Taylor Steele is a rare triple-Taurus. She’s a triple threat too—poet, screenwriter, and essayist—and it seems there’s very little that isn’t in her wheelhouse. You’ll find this is true almost instantly upon cracking Dirty. Mouth. Kiss. open. This is a collection of poems that roots for protection of the self, that’s wrought with newfound […]
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