Tod, Trauer, Verlust

From a two-time winner of the National Poetry Series competition, a bold new collection of poems lamenting the state of the world—and offering poetry that might save it  “Civil twilight” occurs just before dawn and just after dusk, when there is still light enough to distinguish the shapes and contours of objects but not the richness of their detail.Beginning with the idea that nothing can be seen clearly in the light of the present, the poems in Civil Twilight attempt to resuscitate lyric’s revelatory impulse by taking nothing for granted, forming their materials under the light of a critical gaze. If there is any chance left for a humane world, a world in which poetry might become as transparent and evocative as it has always longed to be, these poems desire nothing but to find hints of that chance, and to follow them as far as they might lead. Jeffrey Schultz brings his distinct voice to bear on the stuff of twenty-first-century America—languishing FOIA requests, graffiti-covered city walls, the violent machinery of the state—without abandoning hope that the language of poetry might transport us to some better and as-yet-unimaginable world. Turning a call to be “civil” on its head, this collection nudges the reader toward revolution.

"Everyone is familiar with the old saying, 'If these walls could talk.' It's just an adage, of course. But play along for a moment. What if these walls could talk? What if that massive old oak needed to express some of what it has seen being the oldest living thing for miles? What if our watches could speak? Would they speak of all the reasons, important and inane, that they've checked the time? In Leff's brilliant new book, these things-and more-do speak, and Leff's recording of these subtle murmurings, is captivating, recognizable, and extraordinarily poignant. This is among the most original and compelling works I've ever read. In fact, I'm pretty sure my lamp just uttered, in its light voice, David's new book is marvelous! And I couldn't agree more.-John Stanizzi, author of Ecstasy Among Ghosts

Eine gefühlvolle Gedankenreise zu einer verletzenden Vergangenheit, einer heilenden Gegenwart und einer aussichtsreichen Zukunft. Es ist nie zu spät, alten Groll hinter sich zu lassen und neue Liebe anzunehmen. Nur nicht die Hoffnung aufgeben!

Lindsey Royce has given us a beautifully observed book of love and remembrance, loss and endurance. You will be moved. You might even be changed. It is shining with life (Luis Alberto Urrea). This is poetry that touches and transports, which is what we expect from the art; the difference in The Book of John is the generosity with which the poet nourishes our creativity, inspiring us to sing-renewed!-in our own voices. Lindsey Royce serves us our communion feast with her sublime poetry, inviting us, "Break bread with me then- / Make merry, drink my wine." (Aliki Barnstone)

Written in pandemic, Rick Benjamin's The Mob Within the Heart, is a poetic witnessing: of illness and loss, of harm to the more-than-human sentient world, of cultural, familial & political conflict, and of deep, enduring, lasting love-of people, & of the planet & everything on it. In this book, it is all happening at the same time: Covid and Black Lives Matter; praise of all sentient life, while also testifying to the damage already done; a fracture-defying inter-connectedness among loved ones, and other "families" (biological, chosen, messed up & made). Benjamin's work is a series of snapshots occurring at once, a commitment to train attention in as many different directions as possible in this particular moment. As Dickinson says in her own poem, it's a crowded heart, but one with a beat no laws can touch, ultimately asking, simply, just the best of us, or, at the very least, so much more.

Dive deep into self-reflection with this beautiful and intimate introspective collection of poetry.Join nieve as she 'confesses' her darkest secrets over four chapters, one to represent each aspect of her being: the mind, the body, the heart and the soul, on her journey to self-love and acceptance. At once vulnerable and hopeful, this book is for anyone in need of healing. Whether it's grief, heartbreak, or lack of clarity, these words are both the comfort and the cure.Beautifully illustrated throughout.

Mayhaps: poems of longing, loss & loveDelicate verses from the lyrical pen of a powerful wordsmith, Mayhaps dares to trace the landscape of love from the first stirrings through the greatest passion to the all-too familiar tenderness of sorrow and loss. Mayhaps is poetry from its rawest to its most rapturous.

In Between Twilight Post delves deep into the difficult journeys of everyday life and intersects those with the difficult maps of the past. There are "atrocities in the body" and many ways a person can falter, fall or rise from "the hue of an unseen self." Post explores the necessary truths, the ones we can no longer hide, the ones we've held on to, for too long. In these poems, the reader will more fully understand Faulkner's "the past is never the past in never past, it's not even dead." The poet infuses elements of evolution, illness, astronomy, humanity, internal travels inside our bodies, and travels back in time "before shadows understood their first for light." Post's poems will seep into our subconscious and help us see how a room can be "dark and iridescent all at once."

As if performing open heart surgery on herself, B. Sonenreich excavates the most personal memories of loss. Inhale grief and exhale gratitude in twenty-three poems that encompass what caring might look like in its many forms. And when you get a message from your ex lover, remember: You're Only Crazy If You Answer.

The only book of poetry to date devoted to the Rwanda genocide and published in this country, this is a work of nonfictional poetry, a cousin in genre to the nonfictional novel. It is based not only on the poet's observations and encounters during months spent in post-genocide Rwanda, but on his numerous extensive interviews with survivors, all of whom lost most if not all of their families, and with convicted genocide perpetrators, conducted in prisons. The result is a startling book of poems that by turns is unthinkably horrifying, heartbreaking, and enraging, yet which at times breaks unexpectedly into stunning revelatory moments of grace. As a poetry of witness this book reveals what it is like to carry on with daily life in a society where nearly every adult male is either a genocide survivor or perpetrator, almost every woman either a survivor or the wife of a perpetrator, and where nearly every child at the time of the genocide witnessed multiple killings, often of immediate family members. Ranging from free verse to stanzaic forms, this book by an NEA-award-winning poet uses tools and methods of poetry to distil each of its many varied voices to its essence, allowing those who are heard in these poems to speak for themselves, often in juxtapositions that lend the book the structure and tension of a drama. Considered more broadly, The Rwanda Poems is a book about the extremities of evil that the human psyche is capable of enduring and inflicting, and the resulting psychic costs to survivors and perpetrators.

First time author Hope Davids pens her first book of poetry. Transparent and vulnerable, Hope's experiences will resonate with those who love youthful musings that are rich emotion. Hope Was Here is a collection of poems that capture some of the darkest and brightest moments in life up until the weird and confusing age of twenty-five. Whether dark or light, hope is present in all of these moments if you can find it. I hope you can.

This collection of poems by debut author D. L. Marcus delves into the entanglement of grief, identity and chaos to offer a haunting image of modern reality and the grotesque dynamics of embodiment.

Writers of all ages and levels of experience have been using Taylor Mali's Metaphor Dice for years to explore and revel in the formulaic nature of metaphors. The game gives you a collection of three different concepts or language tools that create a metaphor, and it is up to the poet to fill in the rest of the poem based on their roll. Some metaphors work and some don't. Some are immediately hilarious while others slowly reveal themselves to be astonishingly insightful. Poetry By Chance is the first collection of poems that were all prompted by different rolls of Metaphor Dice, featuring submitters from the inaugural Golden Die Contest. After reading through this collection, you can't help but see the power of metaphor in understanding the world around us. In this anthology there is no singular poetic style or voice, but rather a collection of unique voices and perspectives for each roll. With some deeply personal, and some widely universalizing, one thing is clear: these poems are the brainchild of an ingenious, yet simple, writing tool.

In 2022, Amy faced the most challenging decision of her life: stay in the job she knew and loved as a high school English teacher, making a difference in the lives of teens, but continue to risk her relationship with her friends, her family, her health - and her own children? Or leap into the unknown? Amy's choice resulted in these poems, as she processed her way through grief into joy on the other side. For everyone who knows what it takes to change the world, one baby step at a time - and a reminder to all creatives that changing the world starts first with changing you.

In these exquisitely rendered poems, people fall in and out of love, in and out of religious belief and in and out of accepting the distance between their imagined lives and the lives they live. They look back as much as forward and pick mercilessly at the open wounds of failed relationships. They inhabit geographies that are both their emancipators and captors. And they find joy, or succumb to sorrow, amid life's inescapable ephemerality and fragility.Breathtaking in its range of styles, Body of Winter, at its heart, is a vivid reflection of the best and worst of us all.

In 2022, Amy faced the most challenging decision of her life: stay in the job she knew and loved as a high school English teacher, making a difference in the lives of teens, but continue to risk her relationship with her friends, her family, her health - and her own children? Or leap into the unknown? Amy's choice resulted in these poems, as she processed her way through grief into joy on the other side. For everyone who knows what it takes to change the world, one baby step at a time - and a reminder to all creatives that changing the world starts first with changing you.