New Books in Poetry
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Erica Wright, “Instructions for Killing the Jackal”
As I waded into Erica Wright‘s first books of poems, I immediately became not only aware of my gender, but the event that is female, woman, girl, and child. In fact, gender – that construction site where culture and biology come together to play out their destructive and creative collaboration – seems at first to [...]
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Kevin Goodan, “Upper Level Disturbances”
Kevin Goodan‘s latest book of poems, Upper Level Disturbances (Center for Literary Publishing at Colorado State University, 2012), directly challenges modern society in at least one respect: the poems exist as a result of humility, the opposite of boasting which our culture rewards. In the poems, we’re introduced to a speaker whose daily experiences – [...]
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Matthew Pennock, “Sudden Dog”
In Sudden Dog, the voice we encounter is a moody one to say the least. We find a poet who at times seems to believe the entire human project is stupid – and I mean all of it. While at other times we meet a speaker so desperate for an authentic experience that he claws [...]
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Samuel Amadon, “The Hartford Book”
To read Samuel Amadon’s latest book of poems, The Hartford Book (Cleveland State University Poetry Center, 2012), is to know for the rest of your life what it feels like to be punched in the nose. In these poems, we are introduced to a band of misfits who turn deviant behavior into a sublime activity. [...]
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Lucas Klein (trans.), “Xi Chuan’s Notes on the Mosquito:...
[Cross-posted from New Books in East Asian Studies] First things first: this is a book of amazing, beautiful poetry, and you should read it. In translating Xi Chuan’sNotes on the Mosquito: Selected Poems(New Directions, 2012),Lucas Kleinhas given readers access to a bilingual journey through more than two decades of the Xi Chuan’s evolution as a [...]
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Curtis Crisler, “Pulling Scabs”
[Cross-posted from New Books in African American Studies]Curtis L. Crisleris a prolific poet, novelist, and mix-genre author who writes about the American experience. In his work, Crisler turns a particularly keen eye toward the Midwest, masculinity, and jazz. It seems he has published a book a year since 2007, gaining the attention of critics and [...]
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Cosima Bruno, “Between the Lines: Yang Lian’s Poetry...
[Cross-posted from New Books in East Asian Studies] Cosima Bruno’s new book asks us to consider a deceptively simple question: what is the relationship between a poem and its translation? In the course of Between the Lines: Yang Lian’s Poetry through Translation (Brill, 2012), Bruno helps us imagine what an answer to that question might [...]
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Nancy Hargrove, “T.S. Eliot’s Parisian Year”
[Cross-posted fromNew Books in Biography]When it comes to writers and artists, biography plays a provocative role—yielding insight into both artistic influences and origins. This is especially true with the modernists, in particular T.S. Eliot.After graduating from Harvard University in 1910, the young Eliot spent a year in Paris, a year that had a lasting and [...]
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Makalani Bandele, “Hellfightin’”
[Cross-posted from New Books in African American Studies] There is no better description of poetMakalani Bandele’s debut bookHellfightin’(Willow Books, 2012) than the one found on his comprehensive website: “Derived from the nickname the French Army gave the all-Black 369th Infantry Regiment in World War I, the Hellfighters . . . is a tour de force [...]
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Helen Vendler on Emily Dickinson
[Re-posted with permission from Jenny Attiyeh'sThoughtCast] WhenHelen Vendlerwas only 13, the futurepoetry critic and Harvard professormemorized several ofEmily Dickinson’smore famous poems. They’ve stayed with her over the years, and today, she talks withusabout one poem in particular that’s haunted her all this time. It’s called “I cannot live with You.” According to Vendler, whose authoritativeDickinson: [...]
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