In FRANK DARK, philosophical and psychological investigation plumb many forms of tangible and visceral experience. The collection engages the environmental crisis, the pandemic, and historical and current turmoil. At once a death story and a love story, it probes the darker corners of seasons, dreams, and journeys through various landscapes among creatures of the earth, sea, and air. Massimilla frankly confronts the scourges of alienation, blindness, blight, injury, addiction, sickness, suicide, death, grief, and underworld ghosts. Out of this deeply unsettled night come vision, compassion, love, and conscious reflections on the nature of perception, identity, reality, and writing itself.
In the U.S., the congressionally mandated Fifth National Climate Assessment (NCA5) report is currently in development, and groups of scientists from all over the country and Caribbean are overseeing the synthesis of published research for regional and topic-specific chapters. Dear Human at the Edge of Time: Poems on Climate Change in the United States is offered as a companion to NCA5, and an additional opportunity to participate in the urgent conversations on environmental justice. Edited by Academy of American Poets Laureate Fellows Luisa A. Igloria & Aileen Cassinetto and NCA5 Chapter Lead Dr. Jeremy S. Hoffman, the anthology's 70+ contributors include Union of Concerned Scientists director Erika Spanger and U.S. Poet Laureate Ada Limón, with Foreword by Claire Wahmanholm and Afterword by Dr. Sam Illingworth.
In Tracking the Fox, Rosalie Sanara Petrouske weaves a tale of family ties and history. The poems are steeped in her Native American heritage and in the natural lore her Ojibwe father taught her. Skilled in descriptive writing, she allows the readers to see waterfalls, hear winds howling, and smell delicate flowers in full bloom. They will walk with her and her father through fields of native grasses, along snowy animal tracks, and down wooded paths. As you read these poems, Tracking the Fox, draws you into Rosalie's story and leaves you a little closer to the natural world.
The 19th recipient of the Philip Levine Prize for Poetry, Maya Pindyck's Impossible Belonging weaves personal and family histories with contemporary events and politics in the U.S. and Israel/Palestine, asking what it means to belong ? to our bodies, cultures, histories, and each other. In vivid and lyrical language, Pindyck explores how we lay claim to and surrender identities shaped by historical trauma, diaspora, motherhood, statehood, and the Anthropocene.
Delving into complicated relationships between Jewishness and whiteness, the poems reckon with feelings of cultural belonging and visualize shared hopes and longings. In this collection, everything is interrelated and spiritually equal: human, moth, pear, linoleum tile, language, memory.
At once profound, playful, and rebellious, Impossible Belonging collapses distances between people, species, times, and places, opening up difficult questions and fresh, revelatory connections.
Deeply rooted in respect and compassion for Appalachia and its people, these poems are both paeans to and dirges for past and present family, farmlands, factories, and coal.
Kari Gunter-Seymour’s second full-length collection resounds with candid, lyrical poems about Appalachia’s social and geographical afflictions and affirmations. History, culture, and community shape the physical and personal landscapes of Gunter-Seymour’s native southeastern Ohio soil, scarred by Big Coal and fracking, while food insecurity and Big Pharma leave their marks on the region’s people. A musicality of language swaddles each poem in hope and a determination to endure. Alone in the House of My Heart offers what only art can: a series of thought-provoking images that evoke such a clear sense of place that it’s familiar to anyone, regardless of where they call home.
“REAP,” by Mara Adamitz Scrupe, proceeds in fragments and asides and elliptical flights, working through an associative maze. And we, as readers, are drawn into the intense thickets of this playful and lingual dance, wading into language’s dense undergrowth. Fierce, staccato lines and startling juxtapositions create a kaleidoscope of the lush interior world: “we dreamt our self-made asylum.” This is a richly generous book about the devastated flora of the personal, the poet taking us on an insightful, botanical tour of memory and the human psyche. —Doug Ramspeck, author of “Blur.”
Connecting with Allah is a treasury of 50 poems on Allah swt’s names and attributes.
Perfect for reading aloud and sharing with all the family, these poems – together with sources from the Qur'an and hadith – serve as a starting point for discussions on who Allah is and how to draw nearer to Him in love and worship.
This book contains poems about many, but not all, of Allah swt’s beloved names.
"A troubled, working-class teen struggles to survive on the streets of Hollywood in the turbulent 1960s"
1960s Rock And Roll is on the rise in this extraordinary coming-of-age chronicle, exploring the yearnings and angst of a troubled, working-class teen struggling to survive on the streets of Hollywood. It is a captivating exploration into what the '60s and '70s were about on the city streets and beaches of Southern California for the teens growing up in those times.
In the heart of the turbulent 1960s, Steven is an ordinary teenager trying to find his place in the world until, at the awkward age of 15, his family disintegrates. He leaves the life he has known and moves with his mom to Hollywood, where he becomes a regular dancer on American Bandstand and lands a job as a DJ and doorman at a famous teenage nightclub on the Sunset Strip, working alongside iconic L.A. bands like The Doors, Buffalo Springfield, and Sonny & Cher. He finds himself at the epicenter of the blossoming Hippie Counterculture movement. This is his personal, unvarnished story of youth speaking truth to power while struggling through the heartbreak that only love and betrayal can bring.
WINNER Poetry: Narrative 2023 American Fiction Awards
The epic of Gilgamesh: A poetic Version offers a readable edition for this ancient tale that is seldom read. One of the earliest examples of literature, The Epic of Gilgamesh remains timeless because the tale speaks to the soul about human conditions and the desire to have purpose in life. The author set out to write this edition primarily for younger students, who have been generally excluded from those who study this epic tale.
WINNER Poetry: General 2023 American Fiction Awards
A Sense of You is a collection of photographs narrated by poetry. At times, peaceful, and at other times, haunting, the stunning images weave together the ethereal love story of the poet and the muse. Photography by John ReidPoetry by L. Midnight
WINNER Poetry: Chapbook 2023 American Fiction Awards
"What happens to the rhythms of life when the body fails us? In Broken Metronome Connie Post composes using the erratic and irreducible language of loss. In this elegy to her brother's death by Parkinson's, she engages the medical language she must maneuver as she works through her brother's condition: "Hypokinesia/ slow or diminished movement/ I try to move slowly with you/ like when we practiced for the/ seventh-grade dance." These poems are written in the space between direct care and memory. Post's poems talk to us, confide in us, even confess in us when the most that can be asked is "less suffering." She offers us a contemplative nuanced ear tuned to the lyric turn. This is a powerful portrait of the love of a sister for a brother. A slim chapbook but a significant book in the genre of going on."—Sean Thomas Dougherty, author of The Dead are Everywhere Telling Us Things
WINNER Poetry: Contemporary 2023 American Fiction Awards
Gentle Shadows Fierce Wings is a collection of thought-evoking poems written with a touch of innocence and infused with inspirational snippets of courage & wisdom that demonstrate the depth of the author's innate poetic sensibilities. Beautiful art pieces are paired with the poems that visually express their spirit and make this book an even more enjoyable read.
WINNER Poetry: Anthologies 2023 American Fiction Awards
"I Thought I Heard A Cardinal Sing" - Ohio's Appalachian Voices is an anthology focused on the unique culture of Ohio's Appalachian population. A one-of-a-kind collection, sponsored by the Academy of American Poets and Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
Editor Kari Gunter-Seymour writes: "Within these pages you will find a lavish mix of voices-Affrilachian, Indigenous, non-binary and LGBTQ; from teens to those creatively aging; poets in recovery, some with disabilities or developmental differences; emerging and well established; some living in the state, others from assorted locations throughout the country-all with a deep connection to Appalachian Ohio. The work speaks honestly and proudly as it represents Ohio's Appalachian population, providing examples of honor, endurance, courage, history, love of family, the land; and provides evidence of how even against the odds our people continue to thrive, to work hard to build awareness and overcome mainstream America's negative response to those with a strong Appalachian heritage."
WINNER Poetry: Anthologies 2023 International Book Awards
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.
WINNER Poetry: Contemporary 2023 International Book Awards
The words are already there. All you have to do is find them. The words are lurking, refracted, shredded, retrieved by a miner of meaning, a literary gangster, my good fellow, Mike Maggio, Master of the found poem. Where Maggio rules, he combs. He creates poetic mayhem. He has a genius for extracting meaning from rubble. For finding the Poem lurking on the toothpaste tube, the road sign, in the computer’s 0s and 1s. He doesn’t write with his computer. He paints with it. Think fluxus. Think surrealism resurged. Think dada and its dangerous delights. There are echoes of Yoko Ono here and just a hint of John Cage. Yeats is here somewhere as well, closing in to the process of rebirth, for Maggio knows his literary heritage. Beauty slips in, as does funny, creative rip rap, politics, and graphic choice. Barth is somewhere here too. And Riverrun, past Eve and Adam’s, may or may not be served with a jigger of Joyce.
WINNER Poetry: General 2023 International Book Awards
Words in Passing contains poems originally published in literary reviews from around the world including The American Scholar; The Antigonish Review (CA); Chariton Review; Chicago Review; The Dalhousie Review (CA); The Dark Horse (UK); The Deronda Review (IL); The Fiddlehead (CA); Gallery (UK); The Hudson Review; Kansas Quarterly; Margie; The New Welsh Review (UK); North American Review; Orbis (UK); Outposts (UK); Oxford Poetry, Magdalene College (UK); Poetry Salzburg Review (AT); The Southern Humanities Review; The Southern Review; The Southern Poetry Review; The Texas Review; Trinacria; The Wallace Stevens Journal; and The Yale Review, among others.
Schorb's Murderer's Day was awarded the Verna Emery Poetry Prize and published by Purdue University Press; his collection, Time and Fevers, was the recipient of the Writer's Digest International Self-Published Award for Poetry and also an Eric Hoffer Award. Other works include 50 Poems, Hill House New York, The Journey and Related Poems, Aldrich Press, The Ideologues and Other Retrospective Poems, Aldrich Press, and The Poor Boy, Dragon's Teeth Press, Living Poets Series.
WINNER Poetry: Narrative 2023 International Book Awards
Oxblood, Nicole Caruso Garcia’s debut poetry collection, testifies unflinchingly about the short- and long-term effects of a college student's rape by her fiancé. As the poet engages with this serious topic, her arsenal includes wit, wordplay, and even humor. The diverse structures of traditional received forms—the sonnet, the sestina, various French repeating forms, the Afghan landay, blues tercets—form interesting contrasts with free verse poems in this collection.
WINNER Poetry: Religious 2023 International Book Awards
In Listening Devices, James Dennis brings a near- Renaissance breadth of vision to bear on a dizzying array of topics—murder hornets, the Fibonacci sequence, reincarnation, Gandhi, the dreariness of January, even an ill-behaved dog. While much of his work probes spiritual mysteries or confronts societal ills like the death penalty, U.S. immigration policy, and Covid-19, he still finds room for humor, vigorously defending “the cowardice of (his) convictions.” Dennis is as much at home with the sonnet or ghazal as with free verse, and this command of craft, coupled with his deep music and arresting imagery, transforms the seemingly ordinary into the breath-taking. No doubt about it: James Dennis is a poetic wizard, and at least some of that magic is sure to rub off on his readers. How lucky they are.
