Poetry

From the Instagram poet and author of the exquisite Please Don't Go Before I Get Better comes a gorgeous poetry and prose collection that explores the meaning of "home" and the profound discovery of finding it within oneself--perfect for fans of Rupi Kaur and Amanda Lovelace.

In this stunning third collection from Madisen Kuhn, Madisen eloquently analyzes some of life's universal themes within the framework of a house. Whether it's the garden, the bedroom, or the front porch, Madisen takes you into her own "home," sharing some of the most intimate parts of her life so that you might also, someday, feel free to share some of yours.

Filled with beautiful hand-drawn illustrations from Melody Hansen, this boldly intimate, preternaturally wise, and emotionally candid collection encourages you to consider what home means to you--whether it's in the lush, green-lawned suburbs or a city apartment--and, more importantly, explores how you can find it even when home feels like it's on the far-off horizon.

In his debut collection, chosen by Mary Karr as a winner of the 2005 National Poetry Series, Tryfon Tolides weaves together poems that speak of desire, loss, and small joys. Tolides was born in a tiny village in Greece and his work is rooted in the mountains and wind and the deep interior of that place; his poems express a longing and a searching for peace, for home, for beauty, for escape. These poems constitute a lament, whether they concern themselves with the difficulties of assimilation or the question of whether it is possible for people to live with one another in a spirit of true understanding. They prove that the physical and the metaphysical can share residence, can even be one and the same.

In her highly ambitious second collection of poems, Katrina Vandenberg takes her inspiration from the alphabet.

A meditation on the hump of a camel, and what it hides. A reminder that tomatoes belong to the nightshade family, and a vision of the plant as Adam's downfall. The Book of Kells, gold-leafed and extravagantly decorated by monks. Titled for letters of the Phoenician alphabet, and employing such innovative forms as the ancient ghazal, these poems are richly grounded in objects both humble and exotic. Vandenberg explores the intersection of power and forgiveness, and deciphers the seemingly indecipherable in emotionally poignant ways. "What will protect us?" one poem asks. "The words will be our weapons. In the end."

Moving between the physical and the abstract, the individual and the collective, The Alphabet Not Unlike the World unearths meaning--with astonishing beauty--from the pain of loss and separation.

Always Danger offers a lyrical and highly imaginative exploration into the hazards that surround people's lives--whether it's violence, war, mental illness, car accidents, or the fury of Mother Nature. In his second collection of poems, David Hernandez embraces the element of surprise: a soldier takes refuge inside a hollowed-out horse, a man bullies a mountain, and a giant pink donut sponsors age-old questions about beliefs. Hernandez typically eschews the politics that often surround the inner circle of contemporary literature, but in this volume he quietly sings a few bars with a political tone: one poem shadows the conflict in Iraq, another reflects our own nation's economic and cultural divide. Always Danger parallels Hernandez's joy of writing: unmapped, spontaneous, and imbued with nuanced revelation.

Outsider poetry inspired by Ainsworth Rosewell, self-professed genius and con man who committed suicide in 1996 by jumping from the seventh floor of the Water Tower Mall. Subjects include relationships, death, sex, drugs, dogs, immortality, and Chicago, all exploding with nontraditional humor and vibrant characters, both real and imagined.

Following the manic journey of a man stripped of memory, the poems in American Amnesiac confront the complexities of being American in an age of corruption, corporations, and global conflict.

I am a man missing a nation and a wife, strung up between a past
I may not want and a present in which I cannot make myself at ease.

Diane Raptosh has published three books of poems. The recipient of three literature fellowships from the Idaho Commission on the Arts, she teaches creative writing and literature at The College of Idaho. She was named Boise's first ever Poet Laureate in 2013.

A book of contemporary poetry exploring the fine, shifting line between faith-secular and spiritual faith-and fanaticism in an insecure age, American Fanatics is a lyrical, pop-culture inflected meditation on democracy, morality, beauty, commerce, and the cost of falling dreams.

A landmark anthology envisioned by Tracy K. Smith, 22nd Poet Laureate of the United States

American Journal

presents fifty contemporary poems that explore and celebrate our country and our lives. 22nd Poet Laureate of the United States and Pulitzer Prize winner Tracy K. Smith has gathered a remarkable chorus of voices that ring up and down the registers of American poetry. In the elegant arrangement of this anthology, we hear stories from rural communities and urban centers, laments of loss in war and in grief, experiences of immigrants, outcries at injustices, and poems that honor elders, evoke history, and praise our efforts to see and understand one another. Taking its title from a poem by Robert Hayden, the first African American appointed as Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress, American Journal investigates our time with curiosity, wonder, and compassion.

Among the fifty poets included are: Jericho Brown, Natalie Diaz, Matthew Dickman, Mark Doty, Ross Gay, Aracelis Girmay, Joy Harjo, Terrance Hayes, Cathy Park Hong, Marie Howe, Major Jackson, Ilya Kaminsky, Robin Coste Lewis, Ada Límon, Layli Long Soldier, Erika L. Sánchez, Solmaz Sharif, Danez Smith, Susan Stewart, Mary Szybist, Natasha Trethewey, Brian Turner, Charles Wright, and Kevin Young.