Varley O’Connor Scribner ($25) by Erin Lewenauer Varley O’Connor’s dynamic and remarkable portrait of Tanaquil “Tanny” Le Clercq investigates the cost of being a muse. The novel, O’Connor’s fourth, follows the interior life of Tanny, a student at the School of American Ballet who quickly ascends to principal dancer for the New York City Ballet […]
Kim Stanley Robinson Orbit ($15.99) by William Alexander Kim Stanley Robinson’s 2312 is a love story and a solar-system-spanning travelogue. It performs magnificently in both roles. The book is also a synthesis of “hard” and “soft” science fiction, one that engages with the most haunting and important questions poised by both genres. “Hard SF” is based solidly […]
Carole Maso Counterpoint ($26) by Laura Winton Carole Maso’s work to date has been characterized by a lush, almost otherworldy writing, a style in which the reader experiences everything more deeply—the beauty of the world as well as heartbreak and longing. On top of this, her writing constantly folds back on itself. Maso’s work often […]
edited by Bhisham Bherwani Atlanta Review ($8) by Graziano Krätli In 1963, the prominent Bengali writer and critic Buddhadeva Bose voiced some speculation as to why Indians, “who have always had a firm poetic tradition in their own languages," attempt to write verse in English. Like others at the time (but more derogatorily than most), […]
Lew Welch City Lights ($17.95) by Maria Damon Making things with words—that is what Lew Welch did. Early in his career, recently graduated from Reed College (where his friends were the poets Philip Whalen and Gary Snyder), he worked in advertising. The famously laconic and extremely effective four-word slogan “Raid Kills Bugs Dead” is attributed […]
Stephen Motika Alice James Books ($15.95) by Gillian Conoley Stephen Motika’s first full-length collection, Western Practice, sets itself firmly at the edge of a tradition of Western American innovation: the book’s two sections begin with epigrams by Lyn Hejinian and Leslie Scalapino, the poem “Night, in the Oaks” is dedicated to David Bromige, and early on […]
Natalie Diaz Copper Canyon Press ($16) by James Naiden For 102 pages, Natalie Diaz stretches poems into visual shapes, working with the left and right margins as well as the center of the page. This writhing ramps up with anger directed at the culture Diaz was born into, which her parents and brother barely survived. […]
Samuel Amadon Cleveland State University Poetry Center ($15.95) by Chris Vola Unbeknownst to many, Hartford enjoys one of the richest and longest literary traditions of any American city. Connecticut’s capital was the longtime home and workplace of Mark Twain and Harriet Beecher Stowe, and served as a major formative influence for later poets and writers […]
Juan Sweeney translated by Chad Sweeney Forklift Books ($14.95) by Jeff Alessandrelli If ever a man could “think in English” but “speak in Spanish,” “dream in Gaelic but . . . curse in Russian,” it is Juan Sweeney. He was “born in an orphanage of fire” and thus considers himself “what the night coughed up […]
Pamela Uschuk Wings Press ($16) by Sean Thomas Dougherty In her new collection’s opening poem, “Ode to Federico Garcia Lorca,” Pamela Uschuk evokes the ghost of the great Andalusian poet in sinuous imagistic lines, calling him to assuage the presence of death that is visiting her: Federico, when you come to me, the unbearable longing […]