You have to love a poet that writes about the Eagles (the football team not the band). Graber's book covers much ground over a host of subjects, but she never loses focus of a tight, beautiful line matched with a roving, critical mind. This is excellent poetry done well, simple as that.
We fell in love with this book when we heard Catherine read from it at Farley's very first writing workshop where she was the teacher. She is a fine poet, with a strong ear and a gorgeous line. She is playful and humorous and can be deadly serious as well. The breadth and life of these poems is wonderful.
Like Bourdain's writing on food? Then Agudelo is perfect for you. Agudelo's book looks into the body and soul of kitchen workers across the globe. Told with gritty authenticity by someone with true life experience working "the back of the house," Agudelo leads us by the mouth and nose on a one of a kind experience. This is the gritty and hard world of restaurants where heartbreak is as common as a burn.
Centered on two characters, Walter B. and Beatrice, Tsim Tsum explores what happens at the heart of the immigrant experience: survival, testimony, and belonging. Prose-poetry told as narrative, Mark's work is like reading parable or a fairy tale written by Kafka.
Eighteen poets come together to remind us that poetry can be subversive, dangerous, smart and fun. Here's an ode to the days when the Beats were kings, or when punk was dangerous and you couldn't get your hair dyed at the mall. Like a good beer on a hot day.
You've seen Silano's work in Best American Poetry, so the gorgeous music here should not come as a surprise. For the uninitiated Little Office, bears and deepens the hallmarks of Silano's best: humor, insight, wild cosmic-consciousness. She's as gifted as she is smart and these poems hit right at home.
Other Romes gathers together an eclectic range of influences to confront the awkward but inevitable relationship between the personal and the public. And like the title city that haunts much of this work, Mong refuses to settle on any one voice or form. Restrained at times as a Latin ode, or expansive as Whitman, these poems weave a subtle magic.
Ladies & Gentlemen is a journey through the spectacle of American life, where the plugs of ordinary billboards are as probable as the horrors suffered by people under siege. These are lyrical poems that remind one of Stevens and at times Jeffers, Robins' book is a gorgeous and tough look at modern America.
Kuan's collection couldn't be more pertinent for our socio-political climate: her poems center on the collision of opposites--American and foreign cultures, internal and external worlds. These are tight, forward thinking poems that reward again and again.
Larkin's collection looks at the ways in which we self-desruct. Larkin opens up the myths we create for ourselves and then shows how we set out to destroy out own fantasies. Profound work.
