The Essential June Jordan June Jordan Edited by Jan Heller Levi and Christoph Keller Copper Canyon Press ($18) The Jean-Michel Basquiat Reader Writings, Interviews, and Critical Responses Edited by Jordana Moore Saggese University of California Press ($34.95) Universal Tonality The Life and Music of William Parker Cisco Bradley Duke University Press ($29.95) by Patrick James […]
Anne Garréta Translated by Emma Ramadan Deep Vellum Publishing ($15.95) by Jeff Bursey In Concrete has a simple plot: parents of two precocious children purchase a concrete mixer to restore a hovel in the country inherited by the father from a long-ago acquaintance and, in the course of the renovations, someone ends up encased in […]
Simone Muench and Jackie K. White Black Lawrence Press ($7.95) by Lydia Pejovic In their collaborative chapbook Hex & Howl, Simone Muench and Jackie K. White take a firm stance on feminism and women’s empowerment by detailing suffering, self-care, and rebirth. Muench and White set the pace at a slow crawl, growing from patriarchal representations […]
Rebecca Morgan Frank Carnegie Mellon University Press ($15.95) by John Bradley People have long been fascinated by mechanical reproductions of animals and humans. Thomas Edison, for example, created a “mechanical Eve,” a doll that would “talk” using a small phonograph. In her new collection Oh You Robot Saints! Rebecca Morgan Frank offers a poetic response: […]
by Andrew Mossin The first time I encountered Tod Thilleman was because of a book he’d published through the press he’s been running out of his Brooklyn apartment since the mid-’90s, Spuyten Duyvil. The book was poet Peter O’Leary’s Watchfulness (2001), printed on gorgeous heavy stock with an irresistible cover and irresistible poems to go […]
William Gay Livingston Press ($28.95) by Chris Via When he died in early 2012, William Gay left behind an attic full of unpublished writing in his Tennessee home. Thankfully, a group of friends culled several novels from this bounty, the last of which is Fugitives of the Heart. Gay’s previous novels—among them The Long Home […]
Ian Dreiblatt Ugly Duckling Presse ($18) by Stephen Whitaker Poet, translator, and correspondent for The Believer Ian Dreiblatt plumbs the American dystopia in his new collection, forget thee. With equally sharp satire and earnest longing, Dreiblatt’s speakers wander a cultural wasteland so cluttered with inherited ideas, distractions, and intoxicants that all meaning is lost in […]
by Allan Vorda Richard Powers was born in 1957 in Evanston, Illinois, and enrolled at the University of Illinois as a physics major before switching to English as his chosen field. Upon receiving his B.A. and M.A., he moved to Boston where he worked as a computer programmer and a night watchman in a museum, […]
Anuja Ghimire Unsolicited Press ($20) by Carlos A. Pittella If you think Anuja Ghimire’s Kathmandu will transport you to Nepal, it will—but it will do so as an interrogation of home and the languages we use to define it, and the journey will be equal parts amazement and awareness. The opening poem recalls the 1991 […]
Divya Victor Nightboat Books ($17.95) by Greg Bem & you put the pieces back together on the dining table—to make a map for a country made of vein & sinew with hands pulled clean of wedding bands & raw rice, a map for a country of two. True to its history, the United States today […]