New Books in Poetry

Valerie Chepp, "Speaking Truths: Young Adults, Identity, and Spoken Word Activism" (Rutgers UP, 2022)

16 Mar 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In Speaking Truths: Young Adults, Identity, and Spoken Word Activism (Rutgers UP, 2022), sociologist Valerie Chepp goes behind-the-scenes to uncov...

Tom Sleigh, “Last Cigarette” and “Apology to My Daughter,” The Common magazine (Fall 2021)

11 Mar 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Tom Sleigh speaks to managing editor Emily Everett about his poems “Last Cigarette” and “Apology to My Daughter,” which appear in The Common...

75* Sean Hill Talks about Bodies in Space and Time with Elizabeth Bradfield

17 Feb 2022

Contributed by Lukas

This conversation, first aired in July 2021, features Brandeis poet Elizabeth Bradfield, and the poet Sean Hill, author of Blood Ties and Brown Liq...

Olive Senior, "Pandemic Poems: First Wave" (2021)

04 Feb 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Early in the first wave of the Covid-19 pandemic, Olive Senior began posting her series of Pandemic Poems on social media. The project was a way of ...

74 George Kalogeris on Words and Places

03 Feb 2022

Contributed by Lukas

John and Elizabeth had the marvelous fortune to talk with George Kalogeris about his new book Winthropos (LSU Press, 2021). The title comes from the...

Mary Soon Lee, "The Sign of the Dragon" (Jaberwocky, 2020)

21 Jan 2022

Contributed by Lukas

First place winner of the 2021 Elgin Award, The Sign of the Dragon by Mary Soon Lee (Jaberwocky, 2020) is an epic fantasy about a young king who mus...

E. H. Rick Jarow, "The Cloud of Longing: A New Translation and Eco-Aesthetic Study of Kalidasa's Meghaduta" (Oxford UP, 2021)

23 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

The Cloud of Longing: A New Translation and Eco-Aesthetic Study of Kalidasa's Meghaduta (Oxford UP, 2021) is a translation and full-length study of t...

Best Books of the Year 2021, Booksellers Edition

20 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

A conversation with booksellers from three of the most dynamic, exciting, and community-oriented independent bookstores in the country. Lisa Swayze of...

Gloria Maité Hernández, "Savoring God: Comparative Theopoetics" (Oxford UP, 2021)

16 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Gloria Maité Hernández's Savoring God: Comparative Theopoetics (Oxford UP, 2021) compares two mystical works central to the Christian Discalced Ca...

Kate Rigby, "Reclaiming Romanticism: Towards an Ecopoetics of Decolonisation" (Bloomsbury, 2020)

10 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

The earliest environmental criticism took its inspiration from the Romantic poets and their immersion in the natural world. Today the “romanticising...

Marianne Worthington, "The Girl Singer" (Fireside Industries, 2021)

10 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

In The Girl Singer (Fireside Industries, 2021), her latest collection of poems, Marianne Worthington weaves together nature writing, feminism, and c...

Rani Jaeger, "Abraham the Hebrew Believer: Secularism and Religion in the Work of Avraham Shlonsky (1900-1973)"

01 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

How can it be that deeply religious poetry is being written by a committed socialist, literary revolutionary and modernist? How sacredness appears in ...

Charlie Louth on Rainer Maria Rilke

19 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Charlie Louth’s illuminating recent book, Rilke: The Life of the Work (Oxford University Press, 2021) examines why Rilke’s poems have exercised ...

Jessica Romney, "Lyric Poetry and Social Identity in Archaic Greece" (U Michigan Press, 2020)

17 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Jessica Romney's book Lyric Poetry and Social Identity in Archaic Greece (U Michigan Press, 2020) examines how Greek men presented themselves and th...

Adam Lehrer, "Communions" (Hyperidean Press, 2021)

12 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

[This episode contains explicit content.] Artists from Kurt Cobain to Amy Winehouse command fascination not only for their work but also for their dru...

Aubrey L. Glazer, "Mystical Vertigo: Contemporary Kabbalistic Hebrew Poetry Dancing Over the Divide" (Academic Studies Press, 2013)

03 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Aubrey L. Glazer's Mystical Vertigo: Contemporary Kabbalistic Hebrew Poetry Dancing Over the Divide (Academic Studies Press, 2013) immerses readers ...

Ana Castillo, "My Book of the Dead: New Poems" (High Road Books, 2021)

25 Oct 2021

Contributed by Lukas

“My poetry captures a moment,” remarked Dr. Castillo when asked about the process of writing her most recent collection of poems My Book of the D...

Ricardo Wilson, "nigrescence" (The Common magazine, Spring, 2021)

08 Oct 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Ricardo Wilson speaks to managing editor Emily Everett about his poem, “nigrescence,” which appears in The Common’s spring issue. In this conve...

Shachar-Mario Mordechai, "Make Room for the Rain" (Pardes, 2019)

22 Sep 2021

Contributed by Lukas

The poet Shachar-Mario Mordechai was born 1975 in Haifa and he currently lives in Tel Aviv. He has published four volumes of poetry, all of which att...

Shlomit Naim Naor, "The Things We Are Not Talking About" (2020)

13 Sep 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Shlomit Naim Naor’s poetry is a unique voice in Israel. She is inviting the readers to delve deeper and engage in a dialogue with the Jewish religio...

Rachel Zolf, "No One's Witness: A Monstrous Poetics" (Duke UP, 2021)

07 Sep 2021

Contributed by Lukas

In this episode, I interview Rachel Zolf—a poet whose “interdisciplinary practice explores questions about history, knowledge, subjectivity, respo...

Maria Stepanova, "The Voice Over: Poems and Essays" (Columbia UP, 2021)

27 Aug 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Is it just a coincidence that three books by the major Russian writer Maria Stepanova have appeared in English in 2021? Why does Maria Stepanova depl...

Robert Lashley, "Green River Valley" (Blue Cactus Press, 2021)

20 Aug 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Green River Valley, Robert Lashley's third book of poetry, is a moving and complex tribute to the Hilltop neighborhood of Tacoma, Washington. Whether...

Ariana Brown, "We Are Owed." (Grieveland Press, 2021)

16 Jul 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Poet Ariana Brown searches for new origins in her debut book We Are Owed. (Grieveland Press, 2021). Brown has had over ten years of experience wri...

Carl Marcum, "A Camera Obscura" (Red Hen Press, 2021)

07 Jul 2021

Contributed by Lukas

A Camera Obscura (Red Hen Press, 2021) by Carl Marcum is a lyrical exploration of external and internal worlds. The heavens described in these poem...

Wyatt Townley, “Instructions for the Endgame" The Common magazine (Spring, 2021)

02 Jul 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Wyatt Townley speaks to managing editor Emily Everett about her poem “Instructions for the Endgame,” which appears in The Common’s spring issue....

Kevin Quashie, "Black Aliveness, Or a Poetics of Being" (Duke UP, 2021)

30 Jun 2021

Contributed by Lukas

In Black Aliveness, or A Poetics of Being (Duke University Press, 2012), Kevin Quashie imagines a Black world in which one encounters Black being ...

Anahid Nersessian, "Keats's Odes: A Lover's Discourse" (U Chicago Press, 2021)

11 Jun 2021

Contributed by Lukas

In this episode, I interview Anahid Nersessian, professor of English at UCLA, about her book, Keats’s Odes: A Lover’s Discourse (University of C...

Nicole Danielle, "Broken Ballads: A Poetry Collection" (2019)

08 Jun 2021

Contributed by Lukas

For as often as it may seem to be the case, life doesn’t exist in extremes. Whatever pain, love, desire, or hurt, moving through life is a balancing...

Bethany Hicok, "Elizabeth Bishop and the Literary Archive" (Lever Press, 2020)

08 Jun 2021

Contributed by Lukas

What more can we learn about legendary American writer Elizabeth Bishop (1911-79), dubbed by Bethany Hicok “the most stunning poet of the twentieth...

KC Trommer, “The Couple,” The Common magazine (Fall, 2020)

04 Jun 2021

Contributed by Lukas

KC Trommer speaks to managing editor Emily Everett about her poem “The Couple,” which appears in The Common’s fall issue. In this conversation, ...

Kevin M. Jones, "The Dangers of Poetry: Culture, Politics, and Revolution in Iraq" (Stanford UP, 2020)

02 Jun 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Poetry has long dominated the cultural landscape of modern Iraq, simultaneously representing the literary pinnacle of high culture and giving voice to...

Association of Asian American Studies Book Awards 2021: Benjamín Naka-Hasebe Kingsley and Jan-Henry Gray

01 Jun 2021

Contributed by Lukas

This is the second episode of a four-part series featuring the winners and honorable mentions of the 2021 Book Awards for the Association of Asian Ame...

Jennifer Jean, “California” The Common magazine (Fall 2020)

21 May 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Jennifer Jean speaks to managing editor Emily Everett about her poem “California,” which appears on The Common online, in a special portfolio of w...

Muhyiddin Ibn 'Arabi, "The Translator of Desires: Poems" (Princeton UP, 2021)

21 May 2021

Contributed by Lukas

In this ground-breaking work, Michael Sells (the Barrows Professor Emeritus of the History and Literature of Islam and Professor emeritus of comparati...

Mehr Afshan Farooqi, "Ghalib: a Wilderness at My Doorstep: A Critical Biography" (Allen Lane, 2021)

20 May 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Mirza Ghalib is one of the most celebrated poets in the Urdu literary canon. Yet, at the time, Ghalib was prolific in both Urdu and Persian. His outpu...

Stephanie Burt, "After Callimachus: Poems" (Princeton UP, 2020)

17 May 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Callimachus may be the best-kept secret in all of ancient poetry. Loved and admired by later Romans and Greeks, his funny, sexy, generous, thoughtful,...

Eleni Kefala, "The Conquered: Byzantium and America on the Cusp of Modernity" (Dumbarton Oaks, 2021)

10 May 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Eleni Kefala's book The Conquered: Byzantium and America on the Cusp of Modernity (Dumbarton Oaks, 2021) probes issues of collective memory and c...

Danielle Rose, "At First & Then" (Black Lawrence Press, 2019)

19 Apr 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Alina Stefanescu posits that At First & Then by Danielle Rose is a collection in which “the feminine is reclaimed.” And it is. It is also a coll...

Joshua Bennett, "Owed" (Penguin, 2020)

19 Apr 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Owed (Penguin, 2020) is the second collection of poems by Dr. Joshua Bennett, poet, professor, and artist. This volume is a wide-ranging, celebrator...

Sarah J. Sloat, "Hotel Almighty" (Sarabande, 2020)

13 Apr 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Visually arresting and utterly one-of-a-kind, Sarah J. Sloat's Hotel Almighty (Sarabande Books) is a book-length erasure of Misery by Stephen King, ...

James Hadley and Nell Regan, "A Gap in the Clouds: A New Translation of Ogura Hyakunin Isshu" (Dedalus Press, 2020)

19 Mar 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Compiled around 1235, the Ogura Hyakunin Isshu, or Ogura's 100 Poems by 100 Poets, is one of the most important collections of poetry in Japan. Though...

Anna Veprinska, "Empathy in Contemporary Poetry after Crisis" (Palgrave, 2021)

04 Mar 2021

Contributed by Lukas

In this episode, I interview Anna Veprinska about her book Empathy in Contemporary Poetry after Crisis (Palgrave Macmillan, 2021) recently publishe...

Juliane Okot Bitek, "100 Days" (U Alberta Press, 2016)

12 Feb 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Juliane Okot Bitek, of the Emily Carr University of Art and Design and writer-in-residence at Simon Fraser University, has written a terrific book of ...

Sharon Olds, "Arias" (Knopf, 2019)

04 Feb 2021

Contributed by Lukas

This episode covers a range of topics from Old’s use of line breaks (enjambment that runs contrary to the tedious, end-stopped rhyming lines of hymn...

Lauren Russell, "Descent" (Tarpaulin Sky Press, 2020)

12 Jan 2021

Contributed by Lukas

In 2013, poet Lauren Russell acquired a copy of the diary of her great-great-grandfather, Robert Wallace Hubert, a Captain in the Confederate Army. Af...

Tara Skurtu, "Offering," The Common magazine (Spring, 2020)

18 Dec 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Tara Skurtu is an American poet and writer, writing coach, and public speaker. She speaks to managing editor Emily Everett about “Offering,” her p...

Roy G. Guzmán, "Catrachos" (Graywolf Press, 2020)

02 Dec 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Roy G. Guzmán’s Catrachos (Graywolf Press, 2020) is a stunning debut collection of poetry that immerses the reader in rich, vibrant language. Des...

Shakira Croce, "Leave It Raw" (Finishing Line Press, 2020)

20 Oct 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Like a storm waiting to break over a plain, Shakira Croce pulls at tensions and heartstrings in a debut collection filled with longing, wit, and intel...

Kelly Harris-DeBerry, "Freedom Knows My Name" (Xavier Review Press, 2020)

05 Oct 2020

Contributed by Lukas

In Freedom Knows My Name (Xavier Review Press, 2020), Kelly Harris-DeBerry creates the world anew from scraps of memories and rhythm. She bounces betw...

Matty Weingast, "The First Free Women: Poems of the Early Buddhist Nuns" (Shambhala, 2020)

14 Sep 2020

Contributed by Lukas

A radical and vivid rendering of poetry from the first Buddhist nuns that brings a new immediacy to their voices. The Therigatha ("Verses of the Elde...

Yehoshua November, "Two Worlds Exist" (Orison Books, 2016)

04 Sep 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Yehoshua November's second poetry collection, Two Worlds Exist (Orison Books), movingly examines the harmonies and dissonances involved in practicing ...

Pamila Gupta, "Portuguese Decolonization in the Indian Ocean World: History and Ethnography" (Bloomsbury, 2020)

17 Aug 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Pamila Gupta’s Portuguese Decolonization in the Indian Ocean World: History and Ethnography (Bloomsbury Academic Press, 2020), takes a unique approa...

Chelsea Wagenaar, "The Spinning Place" (Southern Indiana Review Press, 2019)

24 Jul 2020

Contributed by Lukas

In The Spinning Place (Southern Indiana Review Press, 2019), Chelsea Wagenaar explores the power of language—in terms of its possibilities and what ...

Honorée Fanonne Jeffers, "The Age of Phillis" (Wesleyan UP, 2020)

02 Jul 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Jennifer J. Davis speaks with Honorée Fanonne Jeffers, Professor of English at the University of Oklahoma, about The Age of Phillis (Wesleyan UP, 202...

Sarah M. Sala, "Devil's Lake" (Tolsun Books, 2020)

29 Jun 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Devil's Lake (Tolsun Books, 2020), the debut collection by Sarah Sala, is an amalgam of American life. The poems move deftly within a world that is eq...

Brian Greene, "Until the End of Time: Mind, Matter, and Our Search for Meaning in an Evolving Universe" (Random House, 2020)

02 Jun 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Brian Greene is a Professor of Mathematics and Physics at Columbia University in the City of New York, where he is the Director of the Institute for S...

Kathryn H. Ross, "Black Was Not a Label" (Pronto, 2019)

28 May 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Kathryn H. Ross has found a balance. Between past and present. Between self and ancestors. Between self-discovery and continuous growth. In her hybrid...

Steve Zeitlin, "The Poetry of Everyday Life: Storytelling and the Art of Awareness" (Cornell UP, 2016)

25 May 2020

Contributed by Lukas

This is a book of encounters. Part memoir, part essay, and partly a guide to maximizing your capacity for fulfillment and expression, The Poetry of Ev...

Leslie M. Harris, "Slavery and the University: Histories and Legacies" (U Georgia Press, 2019)

28 Apr 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Slavery and the University: Histories and Legacies (University of Georgia Press, 2019), edited by Leslie M. Harris, James T. Campbell, and Alfred L. B...

Archana Venkatesan, "Endless Song: Tiruvaymoli" (Penguin, 2010)

27 Apr 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Endless Song (Oxford University Press, 2019) is Dr. Archana Venkatesan’s exquisite translation of the Tiruvaymoli (sacred utterance), a brilliant...

Sarah Adleman, "The Lampblack Blue of Memory: My Mother Echoes" (Tolsun, 2019)

23 Apr 2020

Contributed by Lukas

The Houston Chronicle’s review of Sarah Adleman’s The Lampblack Blue of Memory: My Mother Echoes (Tolsun 2019) praises that the book “dissects t...

Great Books: Maureen McLane on Wordsworth's Poetry

21 Apr 2020

Contributed by Lukas

The British romantic poet William Wordsworth is best known for his moving evocations of nature, his celebration of childhood, and his quest to find a ...

Octavia Cade, "Mary Shelley Makes a Monster" (Aqueduct Press, 2019)

14 Apr 2020

Contributed by Lukas

In Octavia Cade's brilliant collection of poetry Mary Shelley Makes a Monster (Aqueduct Press, 2019), the famous author of Frankenstein crafts a creat...

Great Books: Amir Eshel on Paul Celan's Poetry

31 Mar 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Paul Celan's poetry marks the end of European modernism: he is the last poet of the era where the poetic "I" could center a subjective vision of the w...

Carl W. Ernst, “Hallaj: Poems of a Sufi Martyr” (Northwestern UP, 2018)

13 Mar 2020

Contributed by Lukas

“I am the Real,” is the ecstatic statement often associated with the early Sufi poet Mansur al-Hallaj. In popular narratives about Hallaj this dec...

Eliza Griswold, "If Men, Then" (FSG, 2020)

02 Mar 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Eliza Griswold writes in Snow in Rome, "we hate being human,/depleted by absence." In her latest poetry collection, If Men, Then (Farrar, Straus and ...

Franny Choi, "Soft Science" (Alice James Books, 2019)

25 Feb 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Franny Choi’s book-length collection of poetry, Soft Science (Alice James Books 2019), explores queer, Asian American femininity through the lens o...

Phillipa Chong, “Inside the Critics’ Circle: Book Reviewing in Uncertain Times” (Princeton UP, 2020)

25 Feb 2020

Contributed by Lukas

How does the world of book reviews work? In Inside the Critics’ Circle: Book Reviewing in Uncertain Times (Princeton University Press, 2020), Philli...

Great Books: Glenn Wallis on Gibran's "The Prophet"

04 Feb 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Kahlil Gibran’s 1923 The Prophet is book that’s changed people’s lives. It is a deceptively simple book, but it contains a radical insight. “O...

Becca Klaver, "Ready for the World" (Black Lawrence Press, 2020)

16 Jan 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Becca Klaver writes in the poem 'Hooliganism Was the Charge,' It offered reassurance which said, “You are not alone; I can hear you.” Her forthcom...

Joyce Ashuntantang, "A Basket of Flaming Ashes" (African Books Collective, 2010)

20 Dec 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Joyce Ashuntantang talks about her experiences as a traveler and a poet, from her childhood Cameroon to her years studying in Great Britain and the Un...

Emily Skaja, "Brute" (Graywolf Press, 2019)

15 Nov 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Winner of the Walt Whitman Award, Emily Skaja’s Brute (Graywolf Press, 2019) is a stunning collection of poetry that navigates the dark corridors o...

Kathryn Conrad on University Press Publishing

03 Nov 2019

Contributed by Lukas

As you may know, university presses publish a lot of good books. In fact, they publish thousands of them every year. They are different from most trad...

Tamara J. Madison, "Threed, This Road Not Damascus" (Trio House, 2019)

31 Oct 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Tamara J. Madison, both on the page and in voice, is magical. In her most recent collection, Threed, This Road Not Damascus (Trio House, 2019), she se...

Deborah L. Davitt, "The Gates of Never" (Finishing Line Press, 2018)

20 Sep 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Drawing on the author’s deep knowledge of classical literature, Deborah L. Davitt’s book of poetry The Gates of Never (Finishing Line Press, 2018)...

Lady Dane Figueroa Edidi, "For Black Trans Girls Who Gotta Cuss A Mother F*cker Out When Snatching An Edge Ain’t Enough"

19 Aug 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Inspired by Ntozake Shange’s for colored girls who considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf Lady Dane Figueroa Edidi has written her own beautifu...

jayy dodd, "The Black Condition Ft. Narcissus" (Nightboat Books, 2019)

16 Jul 2019

Contributed by Lukas

If the prompt is “respond to a myth of Narcissus using thoughtful, meditative poems,” then jayy dodd gave us a beautiful answer. In The Black Cond...

Dean Anthony Brink, “Japanese Poetry and its Publics: From Colonial Taiwan to Fukushima” (Routledge, 2018)

09 Jul 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Is classical Japanese poetry something to be enjoyed in private, an object of study for scholars, or an item of public life teeming with hints about h...

John Sibley Williams, "As One Fire Consumes Another" (Orison Books, 2019)

21 Jun 2019

Contributed by Lukas

John Sibley Williams’ As One Fire Consumes Another (Orison Books, 2019) presents a familiar world full of burnings carried out on both the grand and...

Sally Wen Mao, "Oculus" (Graywolf Press, 2019)

22 May 2019

Contributed by Lukas

In Oculus (Graywolf Press, 2019), Sally Wen Mao explores exile not just as a matter of distance and displacement, but as a migration through time and ...

J Mase III, "And Then I Got Fired: One Transqueer’s Reflections on Grief, Unemployment, and Inappropriate Jokes About Death"

13 May 2019

Contributed by Lukas

In his own description of his book, And Then I Got Fired: One Transqueer’s Reflections on Grief, Unemployment, & Inappropriate Jokes About Death, J ...

Adriana X. Jacobs, "Strange Cocktail: Translation and the Making of Modern Hebrew Poetry" (U Michigan Press, 2018)

02 May 2019

Contributed by Lukas

In Strange Cocktail: Translation and the Making of Modern Hebrew Poetry(University of Michigan Press, 2018), Adriana X. Jacobs offers a translation-ce...

Frances Donovan, "Mad Quick Hand of the Seashore" (Reaching Press, 2018)

24 Apr 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Grey Held writes of Frances Donovan's book, Mad Quick Hand of the Seashore (Reaching Press 2018 ), "there is hunting for love, there is basking in lov...

Sara Tantlinger, "The Devil’s Dreamland: Poetry Inspired by H.H. Holmes" (StrangeHouse Books, 2018)

09 Apr 2019

Contributed by Lukas

In The Devil’s Dreamland: Poetry Inspired by H.H. Holmes (StrangeHouse Books, 2018), Sara Tantlinger intertwines fact and speculation to examine inn...

Isobel O’Hare, "all this can be yours" (University of Hell Press, 2019)

15 Mar 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Isobel O’Hare’s all this can be yours (University of Hell Press, 2019) presents a series of erasures crafted from celebrity sexual assault apologi...

Megan Burns, "Basic Programming" (Lavender Ink, 2018)

21 Feb 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Basic Programming ( Lavender Ink, 2018), the latest collection by Megan Burns, is an exercise in balance. Between grief and healing. Between humanness...

Ivy Johnson, "Born Again" (The Operating System, 2018)

16 Jan 2019

Contributed by Lukas

The poetry and prose in Ivy Johnson’s Born Again (The Operating System, 2018) beautifully dives into the ecstatic expression of religious experience...

Emily Jungmin Yoon, "A Cruelty Special to Our Species" (Ecco Books, 2018)

07 Dec 2018

Contributed by Lukas

In her first full-length collection, A Cruelty Special to Our Species (Ecco Books, 2018), Emily Jungmin Yoon examines forms of violence against women....

Nivedita Lakhera, “Pillow of Dreams” (Nivedita Lakhera, 2017)

21 Nov 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Pillow of Dreams (Nivedita Lakhera, 2017) is an intensely emotional and inspirational collection of poetry and art by Dr. Nivedita Lakhera. She experi...

Vernon Keeve III, “Southern Migrant Mixtape” (Nomadic Press, 2018)

15 Nov 2018

Contributed by Lukas

In this episode, we speak with Vernon Keeve III about his book Southern Migrant Mixtape (Nomadic Press, 2018), a collection published by Nomadic Pre...

Nick Admussen, “Recite and Refuse: Contemporary Chinese Prose Poetry” (U Hawaii Press, 2016)

11 Apr 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Published by the University of Hawaii Press in 2016, Nick Admussen’s exciting new book Recite and Refuse: Contemporary Chinese Prose Poetry explores...

Interview with Australian Poets Leni Shilton and Renee Pettitt-Schipp

23 Feb 2018

Contributed by Lukas

In this special episode of New Books in Australian and New Zealand Studies, we are joined by two fantastic Australian poets. In her new poetic narrat...

Christopher Grobe, “The Art of Confession: The Performance of Self from Robert Lowell to Reality TV” (NYU Press, 2017)

16 Feb 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Christopher Grobe’s The Art of Confession: The Performance of Self from Robert Lowell to Reality TV (New York University Press, 2017) traces the way...

Liam Cole Young, “List Cultures: Knowledge and Poetics from Mesopotamia to Buzzfeed” (Amsterdam UP, 2017)

09 Jan 2018

Contributed by Lukas

The list is the origin of culture. At least, that’s according to Umberto Eco, whose words open Liam Cole Young‘s new book, List Cultures: Knowled...

Daniel Kane, “Do You Have a Band?”: Poetry and Punk Rock in New York City” (Columbia UP, 2017)

02 Nov 2017

Contributed by Lukas

Often, poetry and punk rock are seen as distinct activities that occur in different locations with separate audiences. Many would also ascribe to them...

Rahuldeep Singh Gill, “Drinking From Love’s Cup: Surrender and Sacrifice in the Vars of Bhai Gurdas Bhalla” (Oxford UP, 2016)

27 Aug 2017

Contributed by Lukas

There is a long tradition of the study of Sikhism in Western academia. However, historiographical accounts still lack a clear vision of the early form...

Patricia Spears Jones, “A Lucent Fire: New and Collected Poems” (White Pines Press, 2015)

19 Jul 2017

Contributed by Lukas

Jackson Poetry Prize Winner Speaks Patricia Spears Jones has been writing poetry since she was twenty and then she was “good.” Today, the prolifi...

Brad Gooch, “Rumi’s Secret: The Life of the Sufi Poet of Love” (Harper, 2017)

08 Jun 2017

Contributed by Lukas

Ever since their composition in the 13th century the poems of the Persian writer Rumi have enthralled millions of readers around the world. In Rumi’...

Leia Penina Wilson, “i built a boat with all the towels in your closet” (Red Hen Press, 2014)

21 Mar 2017

Contributed by Lukas

There’s a phrase that sometimes comes up among those of us who love poetry. Its called the “heresy of paraphrase.” It’s from a book published ...