Aunt Bird is an astonishing, hybrid poetry of witness that observes and testifies to social, political, and historical realities through the recovery of one life silenced by the past. Within these pages, poet Yerra Sugarman confronts the Holocaust as it was experienced by a young Jewish woman: the author’s twenty-three-year-old aunt, Feiga Maler, whom Sugarman never knew, and who died in the Krakow Ghetto in German-occupied Poland in 1942.
In lyric poems, prose poems, and lyric essays, Aunt Bird combines documentary poetics with surrealism: sourcing from the testimonials of her kin who survived, as well as official Nazi documents about Feiga Maler, these poems imagine Sugarman’s relationship with her deceased aunt and thus recreate her life.
In this timely and timeless collection, remarkable poets—both emerging and established—bring myriad traditions, styles, and vital perspectives to pressing questions, such as how poetry can help us to overcome obstacles to empowerment, compassion, social change, and educational opportunity. Drawing from the work of teachers, artists, and activists, Stronger Than Fear moves us into sudden and startling awareness. These poems arrive at their truths with insight and generosity, with courage and spirit.
A Sky Full Of Wings is a compelling and heartwarming collection that delves into the themes of journeying, home, ancestral land and circle of life. Personal experiences are interwoven with family history, highlighting journeys -- both physical and psychological -- that are encountered along the way. Individual poems received honorable mentions in the 45th New Millennium Writing Awards and the Rochester Writers Margo Lagattuta Award Contest. The book was selected as a finalist in the 2020 New Women's Voices Chapbook Competition.
On the brink of climate catastrophe, a mother grappling with her choice to bring children into an apocalyptic world sends her daughters into the woods of fairy tale as a rite of initiation. The woods carry her fears of extinction--devastating fires, rising seas, and the predatory dangers of girlhood--but also contain the transformative magic of love, interdependence, and renewal. AND IF THE WOODS CARRY YOU roots into the wild heart of motherhood, where worry and wonder intertwine.
Pine maps a secret relationship between two women in the South, where certain kinds of desire--queer desire, in particular--have historically been hidden and feared. Creating new landscapes of identity by reimagining form, modifying villanelles, sonnets, elegies, thank-you notes, and dictionary entries, Pine's imagistic and metaphorical associations between the body and the natural world form a queer ecology of longing and loss.
Clouds: love poems from above the fray has been a project of over four decades, containing poems influenced by Meyer’s traveling to 5 continents, giving lectures, and witnessing beautiful vistas in towns, cities, and above all, in nature. Thousands of the resulting photos are now contained in Meyer’s archive. He wrote over 700 five-line quintain poems down, from which he paired 64 with these photos for Clouds. The style evolved into short, post attention span poetry, i.e. quintains, that illustrate the inner and outer states of our environment. Opposite the poems, Meyer notes the adventure of finding the visual image.
Grandfather’s Mandolin is a collection of poems deeply rooted in family and what has come before. David Keplinger notes that “in these poems languages and names and articles of clothing seem to have lives, hats are thought to be alive, and names deserve elegies and memorials because they are breathing things that can pass away from this world, if we do not take care. Poem by poem, Markover creates a rich landscape of lives remembered, honored and loved.”
This collection of Jessica Mehta's powerful, beautiful, vulnerable work spans "from dates so long ago I can't even recall" to her most current poetry in the midst of a pandemic. Her poems call our attention to the unsung disappearance of Indigenous women, the cultural genocide that still continues, the eating disorders that consume us from within, and to love, family, and the courageous choice to see the world from a different angle in the face of death.
A cancer diagnosis in March 2018 prompted Douglas Wyant to write the prayer-poems collected in A Pilgrim's Prayers. His short, sincere prayers were written in response to the Scripture he read during his recuperation from surgery and chemotherapy.
Wyant says, "I hope A Pilgrim's Prayers will encourage my fellow pilgrims in their walk with the Lord, especially through adverse circumstances."
Clerk of the Dead is an appreciative treatment of the boundaries and intersections of love and loss delivered in concise poetry. Its language is universal and relates to ordinary, imaginary and extraordinary words that describe how we feel at the moments when we are most observant and potentially, most vulnerable. Through its tenderness and acuity, the book respects and admires the entire range of emotions we have for those we know, those we love, and those we miss.
Jessica D. Thompson, a native of Kentucky, lives in a stone house on twenty-five acres at the edge of a classified forest in Southern Indiana. Most of the poems in Daybreak and Deep were written in the nearby village of New Harmony, Indiana, the site of an early Utopian settlement.
For many years, Jessica worked as a Human Resource professional while simultaneously serving as a crisis office volunteer, as well as a hospital and legal advocate for a battered women’s shelter.
Head of a Gorgon is a narrative in poems that reimagines the myth of Medusa, transporting this ancient tale of sexual violence into contemporary times and examining it through a survivor-centric, feminist lens. Via persona poems that enable readers to hear this story primarily and directly from a protagonist often sidelined or silenced in other tellings, this devastating collection brings the visceral physical and psychological experiences and effects of sexual trauma out of the shadows and into the spotlight, revealing a path along which survivors might reimagine themselves within the societal structures that work against them.
Finalist Poetry: Contemporary 2022 Best Book Awards
For award-winning poet James Fujinami Moore, the past is never past. In this brutal debut, sensual, political, and imagined worlds collide, tracing a history of diaspora and trauma that asks: what do we do in the aftermath of violence, and why do we long to inflict it? From Vegas boxing rings and the restless sands of Manzanar to the scrolling horrors of a Facebook feed, Moore’s poems trace over intimate details with surprising humor, fierce eroticism, and a restless eye.
An Emotionally Raw Portrait of Transformation That is Absolutely Inspiring!
Prepare to be whisked away on a colorful and imaginative journey of self-love, transformation, inner-strength, and healing, as poet Kyli Santiago details her inspiring, heartfelt story of survival that will leave every reader feeling uplifted and empowered with a sense of hope for the future.
Expressed in a lively combination of free-verse, rhyme, and rhythmic-flow, Healing Yesterday’s Tears gives you firsthand witness to Kyli’s silent struggle with mental health and her ultimate triumph over this lifelong battle -- undoubtedly affecting you on the deepest level, as feelings of liberation, renewal, power, and strength ignite within you.
Finalist Poetry: Anthologies 2022 Best Book Awards
This anthology of poems on Marilyn Monroe, one of the all-time greatest iconic figures of beauty and femininity, addresses questions about gender roles and their enactment, and the ways in which women attempt to negotiate the differences between their private and public personae.
The idea for the anthology was sparked by a December, 2020 reading that Susana and Margo gave, in which both poets read poems that mentioned Marilyn Monroe. The first publisher they approached, Milk & Cake Press, signed onto the project.
Dustin Brookshire, a finalist for the 2021 Scotti Merrill Award, is the founder/editor of Limp Wrist and curator of the Wild & Precious Life Series, a Zoom based poetry reading series. He is the author of the chapbooks Love Most Of You Too (Harbor Editions, 2021) and To The One Who Raped Me (Sibling Rivalry Press, 2012). Dustin’s work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and been published in Assaracus, Whiskey Island, Mollyhouse, The West Review, Oddball, Gulf Stream Magazine, Redheaded Stepchild, SubtleTea, Ocho, Oranges & Sardines, Ouroboros, Qarrtsiluni, Blue Fifth Review, and other publications. He has been anthologized in Divining Divas: 100 Gay Men on their Muses (Lethe Press, 2012) and The Queer South: LGBTQ Writes on the American South (Sibling Rivalry Press, 2014).
A mug of beer. A tumbler of whiskey. Relish the results of one poet’s reflections during his never-ending journey to the bottom of his glass.
When the status quo seems overwhelmingly bleak, a shooter of something strong can lift the mood. So it’s no surprise that this tome brimming with honesty is best served alongside the hair of the dog that inspired it. And down its path through darkness toward low-key revelation, this book for adult readers inspires laughter to ease the pain and peculiarities that accompany ordinary existence.
May describes the magical journey of adolescence against the background of Holland’s flowery dunescapes. In strokes of wonder-filled impressions a stunningly unspoiled girl, May, explores the promise of springtime and the intense spiritual life of youth. However, the cycle of life always moves on, and as May matures and returns to earth, she finds it readying for summer.
When Herman Gorter published May (Dutch: Mei) in 1889, this spontaneous and vibrant epic poem was immediately recognized by his peers as a landmark of Dutch literature. Inspired in part by John Keats' Endymion (1818), May was perhaps an inevitable product of the artistically revolutionary and highly lucid spirit in The Netherlands of the 1880s. While Gorter’s contemporary, Vincent van Gogh, had just completed the groundbreaking Sunflowers series of paintings, Gorter succeeded with May in composing his own monument of colourful and innovative power.
"My Body Lives Like a Threat "is a deep exposition of gender and color-based discrimination, sexual and reproductive rights violations, body politics, immigration, and the impact of a toxic political environment on the country and its people. The full length has been divided into five sections namely "Black Truth", "War and Peace", "My Body is Not an Apology", "A Just Immigration Policy" and "My Body Lives Like a Threat" that deals with the poems reflecting the blatant violation of human rights and the systemic oppression of the people of color in this country and around the world. The book reflects how body politics never remains at an individual level but molds and morphs into a social monster birthing problem like human rights violation, immigration, gun violence, and racial discrimination.
Finalist Poetry: Anthologies 2022 Best Book Awards
Finalist Poetry: Urban 2022 Best Book Awards
No Unpaid Passengers is an exploration of what it means to truly live the decision to "choose yourself." Told through a collection of poems, Johnson Davis explores themes such as childhood trauma, divorce, Blackness, church politics, and more in these heartfelt pieces. This body of work imagines the first three decades of the author's life as a long train ride where she takes readers on a journey from thought to thought and memory to memory while letting the people, places, and things that have been extra baggage off at various stops along the way.
This book is “PG-13” and contains some adult language. Some of the aforementioned themes may be sensitive for certain audiences. There are also themes of joy, friendship, love, home, flowers, and butterflies. Enjoy the ride!
Rewriting Eden, Victoria Redel interrogates the idea of paradise within the historical context of borders, exile, and diaspora that brought us to the present global migration crisis. Drawing from a long family history of flight and refuge, the poems in Paradise interweave religion and myth, personal lore and nation-building, borders actual and imagined. They ask: What if what we fell from was never, actually, grace? What is a boundary, really? Redel navigates geopolitical perimeters while also questioning the border between the living and the dead and delineating the migrations aging women make in their bodies and lives.
PRESENT TENSE COMPLEX by Suphil Lee Park won the third annual Marystina Santiestevan First Book Prize awarded by Conduit Books & Ephemera. Bob Hicok, the final judge, offered: "Suphil Lee Park's poems investigate, tear at, and adore physical and emotional dislocations, separations, and losses. She has a way of combining tones that should never fit together --lush austerity, calm fury --even peaceful unrest. I'd even say that she seems at ease...with unease, in large part because she recognizes her own nature and is not afraid to give her poems over to it."
An introspective lyric on how the opiate crisis alters families and futures. In her debut collection, Reliquary, Abigail Wender addresses losing a brother to prison and, ultimately, opiate addiction. The text also considers womanhood, motherhood, and marriage in lyric poems that confront the complicated nature of grief, the effects of illness on family, and how love-even bliss-figure into grief's equation. The collection suspends time, as the speaker weaves between flashbacks and the present, assembling fragments and vignettes of her childhood and marriage.
Finalist Poetry: Contemporary 2022 Best Book Awards
Author Esteban Rodriguez writes, "In SCALE MODEL OF A COUNTRY AT DAWN, John Sibley Williams illuminates a world that while filled with tragedy and ruin is likewise blooming with life and celebration.... Although in the course of this collection we may come to realize that there are 'far fewer gods' than we thought before, Williams's poems are a gift that offer us something to believe in again and again."
Finalist Poetry: Contemporary 2022 Best Book Awards
Scarlet Secrets is Christie Leigh’s second collection of poems. This is a book about desire, heartbreak and times of metaphorical wilderness in our lives, and those dreams kept private in the deepest part of the soul. This collection echoes the longing to continually live your life passionately in a bright red: Scarlet to be exact!.
With lines that carry the musicality of a city jazz club at night and soulful love songs playing on your stereo, Scarlet Secrets is also about the greatest aspects of this life we live and what gets many of us up for that bright sunrise each morning.
Finalist Poetry: Contemporary 2022 Best Book Awards
The Land of the Dead Is Open for Business is an extended elegy for Jacob Strautmann’s home state of West Virginia and its generations of inhabitants sold out by the false promise of the American Dream. Throughout the book, voices rise up from the page to describe a landscape eroded and plundered by runaway capitalism—its mountain tops leveled by the extractive industries, its waters polluted by runoff from mines—and the fallout from that waste. Those who remain are consigned to life in a ravaged land denuded of nature where birds die and “Sheep / birth limp two-headed things and some / that speak like men if they speak at all.”
Finalist Poetry: Contemporary 2022 Best Book Awards
In The Newest Employee of the Museum of Ruin, poet Charlie Clark interrogates masculinity, the pastoral, the lasting inheritance of one’s lineage, and the mysterious every day. His speaker, ever aware of impending ruin, experiences a landscape colored by anxiety. But his speaker is also self-aware, curious and trying to refrain from too much self-judgement: “I am sorry / for this cruel wish, but I want my life to outlast / bitterness.” The speaker turns over and over the materials of culture, asking what pleasure it creates, replicates, diminishes, or destroys.
The White Colossus evinces nature and cosmic energies, the relationship between gods and humans, the annoying essentials of life, and the exploration of death through chilly imaginations. The twenty poems in The White Colossus make up Baker's first collection and present refined craftsmanship in their imagery and vast meanings.
Inspired by the works of Maya Angelou, Tupac Shakur & Langston Hughes, Through Blood & Becoming is a raw, and authentic poetry collection about a woman's experience with childbirth, postpartum depression, and motherhood. This collection takes you on a journey through fear, sadness, and depression to relief, resilience, and becoming. In this collection, author/poet Rae Scott shares her birth stories and tackles important but unconventional topics such as postpartum depression, miscarriage, and stillbirths from a black woman's perspective in an effort to advocate for advancements in the maternal health care system.
"Like a siren’s sultry song haunts the sailor, a mysterious woman floats in and out of the speaker’s life. Trozzolo takes us on a poetic journey through a salacious love affair that has such a hold on him that he still sees her everywhere. Every bar. Every blonde. The poems deftly echo the brief, dangerousmoments the two lovers shared. Reader’s will certainly feel the urge to follow, as a distant but familiar pulse beckons you to the end." —Shawn Aveningo Sanders, author of What She Was Wearing
Voices of Diversity is a collection of poetry that encapsulates the features of social interactions. Each poem tells a story of the struggles, pains, challenges, and victories we record in our daily lives in our quest for love, inclusion, and acceptance.
This compilation seeks to help every young adult identify their voice and personality in a constantly evolving society. It endeavors to encourage this unique set of individuals to discover themselves, know where they belong in the world, and learn how they can contribute their significant quota and desired changes wherever they find themselves.
