Poetry Archive

Little Big Bully by Heid E. Erdrich

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Heid E. Erdrich’s new collection is more than a healing of past wounds. Rather, it is remarkable precisely because it posits the act of speaking as liberatory practice, a difficult action that will project us into a different and less abusive future together.

Conjure by Rae Armantrout

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Conjure offers a magic of its own, with sly and unforgettable juxtapositions of the minute and the exceptional, elevated by the intellect, flair, and confidence of a poet at the top of her game.

Mad World, Mad Kings, Mad Composition by Lisa Fishman

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Lisa Fishman’s new collection is an honest and ongoing wrestling with the vocation of poetry itself.

Obit by Victoria Chang

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The emotional power of Chang’s new collection comes from the grace and honesty with which she turns this familiar form inside out to show us the private side of family, the knotting together of generations, the bewilderment of grief.

Postcolonial Love Poem by Natalie Diaz

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Natalie Diaz’s new collection is a withering critique of conditions faced by Native peoples past and present.

Frolic and Detour by Paul Muldoon

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Like Ashbery in his final collections, or Cohen in his final albums, Paul Muldoon has nothing left to prove, and can take delight simply in doing what he inimitably does. And his delight is ours.

Love and I by Fanny Howe

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In the wilds of associations that Howe’s poems produce, readers are sure to find both niches of rest and, simultaneously, calls to action.

SoundMachine by Rachel Zucker

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In her new book, Rachel Zucker questions if her family is a distraction from her poetry, or if her poetry is a distraction from her family.

Be Recorder by Carmen Giménez Smith

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Carmen Giménez Smith’s newest collection records the monolith, deconstructs it, and reassembles it as a world that looks a little more like one we can bear.

The Last Love Poem I Will Ever Write by Gregory Orr

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The crystalized, perfectly-clear articulations of grief that begin the collection ring through it, making it impossible to read even the simplest lyric as light.