The Miro Worm and the Mysteries of Writing
Sven Birkerts
Arrowsmith Press (October 2024)
184 pp.

Birkerts talks about how the very act of writing distances us from what we’re writing about. Memories change when we capture them in words; they become stories we’ve crafted rather than moments we’ve lived.

Dancing Backwards Towards Pluperfect
Koss
Diode Editions, October 2024

One immediately thinks about placing Koss in the company of the poet, Anne Sexton…

New and Selected Poems
Glyn Maxwell
Arrowsmith Press, 2024
201 pp.

We are all invited on a labyrinthine journey, one that is, at times, both daunting and mystifying, but at others, the pain, the sarcasm, and the flippancy that underscores the text shows us what Maxwell is up to—and he forces us to gaze unflinchingly at the real, the iconic, and the unlovely as they are revealed to us.

SILICONE
Amalie Flynn

These poems could not be timelier, given our country’s battles over the subject of abortion.

Feeding the Ghosts
Rahul Mehta
University Press of Kentucky

His tangible lines go back and forth with the braiding of his past and his understanding of a brown, queer man’s life in Appalachia, India and in universities.

The First Law of Holes
Meg Pokrass
Dzanc Books

Existential themes appear in her work again and again, with everyday routines contrasted with deep reflections on life, illness, and personal struggles.

The Weeping Degree: How Astrology Saved Me from Suicide
Kelly Watt
Wild Rising Press (August 2024)
110 pp

With a writerly deftness that calls to mind an artist suggesting a complete image in a few pencil strokes, Watt manages to tell us just enough of her now-remembered childhood that we can carry the knowledge without it weighing us down. In free verse, shape poems and micro essays, Watt gives us just enough of where she’s been and where she’s going.

The Princess of Las Vegas
Chris Bohjalian
Doubleday (2024)
378 pp.

This is where things go wildly off the rails. Vegas, often called Sin City, is all that and more. Include some very dangerous mob-style characters, an ultra-conservative female US Senator, and a whole lot of money and guns…

Beowulf: A New Translation
Maria Dahvana Headley
MCD x FSG Originals
Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2020
136 pp.

Wait. Chain mail? Bar? Yes, this is the diction employed by Maria Dahvana Headley for her rollicking, glory-filled translation of the timeless epic, Beowulf.

The Ill-Fitting Skin
Shannon Robinson
Press 53 (May 2024)
242 pp.

This collection explores relationships through the lenses of surrealism and magical realism, presenting a series of tales that are as imaginative as they are reflective.

Devout, a Memoir of Doubt
Anna Gazmarian
Simon and Schuster
178 pp

“The message was clear: Doubt was an enemy…[In] a live action Christian TV show called Bibleman…Doubt is a personified villain with a cape, the archnemesis of the show’s hero, who has a six-pack.”

Away, Away
Mark Pawlak
Arrowsmith Press, 2024
97 pp.

We are on a road trip, a purposeful meander, one that focuses on the esoteric and the sublime found on strange road signs, restroom notices, and other evidence of human habitation.

Daybreak
By Matt Gallagher
Simon & Schuster/Atria Books (February 20, 2024)
256 pp.

Coming to Ukraine had been Lee’s idea: “What else you got going on?”

So as Not to Die Alone
By Lisa Johnson Mitchell
Finishing Line Press (January 2024)
70 pp.

Mitchell navigates the strains and tensions within families with sensitivity, delving into themes of resentment, grief, and the weight of responsibility. Through moments of humor and honesty, she deftly balances the complexities of these relationships, offering readers a nuanced portrayal of human connection.

Hereverent by Katie Manning
Agape Editions
78 pp.

What have we always done with ancient scripture but read into it, seeking old answers that still hold true?

Adieu
By Gail Hosking
Main Street Rag (February 2024)
40 pp.

There is breathing room along this journey for us to relive memories “stored for some upcoming storm” …

Gridlock
By Brett Beibel
Cornerstone Press (April 2024)
190 pp.

The characters in these stories exist in a world shockingly similar to ours… but slightly off. There are names dropped in ways you’d never expect, like meeting Karl Rove at a bar in Iowa or smoking weed with Eugene McCarthy.

Dual
Matthew Minicucci
Acre Books ( 2023)
102 pp.

The speaker considers the notion of duality, how it is the “not singular, not plural of things.” This idea controls the collection; we are charged with contemplating the two-ness of things, how they fit, the interplay between them, but as both separate and distinct parts.

the wild delight of wild things
by Brian Turner
Alice James Books
100 pages

Like a series of book reports on essays out of Scientific American, we begin to learn in a haphazard way that we learn to trust, about the world we walk on, the water we swim in, the clouds we pass through as we course across this blue and green planet. But in each mode of transit Turner returns us again and again to our own water, air, fire, and light—to our own eyes and to seeing.

A Brief Natural History of Women
By Sarah Freligh
Small Harbor Publishing (2023)
55 pages

With many stories framed as “brief natural” histories, this book explores women’s love, loss, pain, and desire.