Tag Archive for Poetry

“Un-American”, “Conjure”, and “The Age of Phillis” Longlisted for 2021 PEN Book Awards

by cherrera • December 22, 2020

We congratulate Hafizah Geter, Rae Armantrout, and Honorée Fanonne Jeffers, who are all Longlisted for awards from PEN America.

Hafizah Geter’s debut poetry collection, Un-American, is Longlisted for the PEN Open Book Award. The PEN Open Book Award honors a work of fiction, literary nonfiction, biography/memoir, or poetry written by an author of color. The award was created by PEN America’s Open Book Committee, a group committed to racial and ethnic diversity within the literary and publishing communities.

Geter’s collection moves readers through the fraught internal and external landscapes—linguistic, cultural, racial, familial—of those whose lives are shaped and transformed by immigration. The daughter of a Nigerian Muslim woman and a former Southern Baptist black man, Geter charts the history of a black family of mixed citizenships through poems imbued by migration, racism, queerness, loss, and the heartbreak of trying to feel at home in a country that does not recognize you.

We are also pleased to announce that Rae Armantrout’s Conjure and Honorée Fanonne Jeffers’s The Age of Phillis are both Longlisted for the PEN/Voelcker Award for Poetry. The PEN/Voelcker Award honors a distinguished collection of poetry that represents a notable and accomplished literary presence.

Rae Armantrout has always taken pleasure in uncertainties and conundrums, the tricky nuances of language and feeling. In Conjure that pleasure is matched by dread; fascination meets fear as the poet considers an increasingly toxic world.

The Age of Phillis, by award-winning writer Honorée Fanonne Jeffers, imagines the life and times of Wheatley: her childhood in the Gambia, West Africa, her life with her white American owners, her friendship with Obour Tanner, and her marriage to the enigmatic John Peters. Woven throughout are poems about Wheatley’s “age”—the era that encompassed political, philosophical, and religious upheaval, as well as the transatlantic slave trade.

From PEN America’s press release:

The Longlists for its 2021 Literary Awards span 11 book awards and encompassing more than 125 writers and translators, representing the year’s most extraordinary literary talents. Over 80 judges have selected the Longlists, which are made up of categories including the novel, short story collection, translation, poetry, science writing, essay, biography, and more. (Read the full release here.)

Finalists for PEN America Literary Awards will be announced in February 2021.

Announcing “Xicancuicatl: Collected Poems” by Alfred Arteaga

by gsanford • October 7, 2020

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“Alfred Arteaga’s poems have the courage of dislocation, moved in underworld descent, migration, prophecy, protest, starry skies, and heteroglossia. Gathered at last into a single book, Xicancuicatl is an epic cycle for our times.”
—Edgar Garcia, author of Skins of Columbus: A Dream Ethnography

Xicancuicatl: Collected Poems collects the poetry of leading avant-garde Chicano poet Alfred Arteaga (1950–2008), whom French philosopher Gilles Deleuze regarded as “among those rare poets who are able to raise or shape a new language within their language.” In his five published collections, Arteaga made crucial breakthroughs in the language of poetry, basing his linguistic experiments on the multilingual Xicanx culture of the US Southwest. His formal resources and finely tuned ear for sound patterns and language play remain astonishing. His poetical work, presented as a whole here for the first time, pursues a steadily unfolding project that draws on the tradition of Xicanx writing from the eighteenth-century poet and nun Sor Juana de la Cruz to his contemporaries in the Chicano Renaissance.

Arteaga’s poetry is a sustained and exemplary unfolding of Xicanx poetics out of the historical situation of radical border- and language-crossing and remains still virtually the only work of this rhetorical orientation and theoretical sophistication carried out in the field. His poetry speaks more than ever to a moment in which border-crossing, cultural diversity, language-mixing and a multi-cultural vision of America are critical issues. Read a sample poem from the collection below:

ALFRED ARTEAGA (1950–2008) is a renowned Chicanx poet and scholar whose work stretches across cultural and linguistic barriers. He was professor in the Department of Ethnic Studies at the University of California, Berkeley.

DAVID LLOYD is a professor of English at the University of California, Riverside, and author of several books on postcolonial and cultural theory, literature, poetry and poetics.

CHERRÍE MORAGA is a Chicana writer, feminist activist, poet, essayist, and playwright. She is part of the faculty at the University of California, Santa Barbara in the Department of English.

Wesleyan University Press’ Antiracist Reading Lists!

by mkolson • August 18, 2020

To celebrate the continuous struggle for freedom and equality in America, Wesleyan University Press has compiled a few antiracist reading lists in order to amplify BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color) voices, experiences, and histories. Below are just a few of the fantastic titles Wesleyan University Press has published by BIPOC authors or about the Black historical legacy. Poetry, music and dance, autobiography, science fiction, historical novels, and more show the breadth of these lyrical, literary, and scholarly contributions. We are dedicated to supporting Black authors and stories, to listening and learning through publishing and reading. This moment is highlighting just how much work there is to be done in order to dismantle systemic racism in our country; these books help show us why that work is so important and how we can begin to integrate it into our daily lives and reading practices. Black lives matter!

To order books and view our full list of titles, please visit https://www.hfsbooks.com/publishers/wesleyan-university-press/ or click on the below cover images to visit a book page directly. And don’t forget to look out for Beyoncé in the World: Making Meaning with Queen Bey in Troubled Times edited by Christina Baade and Kristin McGee– forthcoming in Spring 2021!

The following list includes poetry, science fiction, historical novels, and non-fiction.

A Hubert Harrison Reader

Five Black Lives

African American Connecticut Explored

100 Amazing Facts About the Negro with Complete Proof

The Little Edges by Fred Moten	The Book of Landings by Mark McMorris	Zong! by M. NourbeSe Philip
Un-American by Hafizah Geter	The Lazarus Poems by Kamau Brathwaite	Magic City by Yusef Komunyakaa
The Peacock Poems by Sherley Anne Williams	semiautomatic by Evie Shockley	In the Language of My Captor by Shane McCrae
To See the Earth Before the End of the World by Ed Roberson	Butting Out: Reading Resistive Choreographies Through Works by Jawole Willa Jo Zollar and Chandralekha by Ananya Chatterjea	Trophic Cascade by Camille T. Dungy
The Age of Phillis by Honorée Fanonne Jeffers	Fela: Kalakuta Notes by John Collins	The Collected Poems of Lorenzo Thomas
Dub: Soundscapes and Shattered Songs in Jamaican Reggae by Michael E. Veal	Why Haiti Needs New Narratives: A Post-Quake Chronicle by Gina Athena Ulysse	Come home Charley Patton by Ralph Lemon
Black Noise: Rap Music and Black Culture in Contemporary America by Tricia Rose	The Logbooks: Connecticut’s Slave Ships and Human Memory by Anne Farrow	The Einstein Intersection by Samuel R. Delany
How to Dress a Fish by Abigail Chabitnoy	Blue Ravens by Gerald Vizenor	In Mad Love and War by Joy Harjo

Aldon Nielsen reads Lorenzo Thomas for Distāntia Reading Series

by sbazarian • April 2, 2020

In a time of social distancing, virtual connection has become more important than ever. Off Topic Poetics, a non-profit Youtube channel, has taken full advantage of the moment by starting the Distāntia Reading Series. The online video project is described as “an experimentation with intimate social distancing through remote access to poetry.” The channel accepts recordings from poets reading their work in quarantine and posts them to a playlist titled “Distāntia.” The original work, coupled with a video of the poet reading, creates an intimate viewing experience that can help people who feel isolated from human interaction during COVID-19 distancing.

“Sprucing Spring up on Larkin Street,” a poem from The Collected Poems of Lorenzo Thomas, was recited by editor Aldon Lynn Nielsen and submitted to the project earlier this week. Lorenzo Thomas (1944−2005) was the youngest member of the Society of Umbra, predecessor of the Black Arts Movement. The Collected Poems of Lorenzo Thomas is the first volume to encompass his entire writing life. His poetry synthesizes New York School and Black Arts aesthetics, heavily influenced by blues and jazz. In a career that spanned decades, Thomas constantly experimented with form and subject, while still writing poetry deeply rooted in the traditions of African American aesthetics. Whether drawing from his experiences during the war in Vietnam, exploring his life in the urban north and the southwest, or recalling his beloved ancestors, Thomas was a lyric innovator. His experimentation is perfect for our current moment of social improvisation in the face of the unknown, reminding us that we can always find new ways to navigate the world around us.

Subscribe to Off Topic Poetics on Youtube to stay updated on the Distāntia Reading Series, and check out The Collected Poems of Lorenzo Thomas to read more like “Sprucing Spring up on Larkin Street” to keep you company during social distancing.

Announcing “In the Language of My Captor” now available in paperback!

by jgagne • March 7, 2019

Finalist for the 2017 National Book Award for Poetry

“[McCrae’s] language remains as stark as the perdurable, terrible history it contains—a history that is not over yet.”
—Stephanie Burt, New York Times Book Review

Acclaimed poet Shane McCrae’s latest collection, In the Language of My Captor, now available in paper, is a book about freedom told through stories of captivity. In it, historical persona poemsand a prose memoir address the illusory freedom of both black and white Americans. McCrae explores the role mass entertainment plays in oppression, and he interrogates the infrequently examined connections between racism and love.

Shane McCrae is the author of four other books of poetry, including The Animal Too Big to Kill, Mule, Forgiveness Forgiveness, and Blood.

April 2, 2019
108 pp., 9 x 6″
Paperback, $14.95 9780819577122
Cloth, $24.95 9780819577115

Announcing “Extra Hidden Life, among the Days” now available in paperback!

by jgagne • March 7, 2019

Poetry of grief and sustenance from an award-winning poet

“Just dazzling: how the world, the mind, and emotion are bound into that affecting, meditative, and poignant system of phrases. When I read lines as sharp as these are lexically, semantically, syntactically, and rhythmically, I fall in love with American poetry again.”
—Forrest Gander, New York Journal of Books

Building on her groundbreaking quartet of books about the earth’s elements, Brenda Hillman’s Extra Hidden Life, among the Days features new poems that are both plain and transcendent. This is poetry as a discipline of love and service to the world, whose lines shepherd us through grief and into an ethics of active resistance. A free reader’s companion is available online.

Brenda Hillman is an activist, writer, editor, and teacher. Hillman serves on the faculty of Saint Mary’s College in Moraga, California.

April 2, 2019
152 pp., 9 x 6″
Paperback, $14.95 9780819578945
Cloth, $24.95 9780819578051

Announcing “How to Dress a Fish”

by jgagne • February 4, 2019

A vision of identity at the intersection of language, history, and family

“This essential and captivating debut will draw readers into intersections of history, memory, exile, and return. Abigail Chabitnoy’s poems are tender and direct—they restore worlds, mend fragmented histories by revealing our human longing for land and for memories embraced in language.”
—Sherwin Bitsui, author of Shapeshift

In How to Dress a Fish, poet Abigail Chabitnoy, of Unangan and Sugpiaq descent, addresses the lives disrupted by the Indian boarding school policy of the US government. She pays particular attention to the life story of her great-grandfather, who was taken from Alaska to Carlisle Indian School in Pennsylvania. In uncovering her own family records, Chabitnoy finds that reconnection through blood and paper does not restore the personal relationships that had already been severed.

Abigail Chabitnoy is a member of the Tangirnaq Native Village in Kodiak, Alaska. Her poems have appeared in Hayden’s Ferry Review, Tin House, Gulf Coast, Pleiades, Tinderbox Poetry Journal, Nat. Brut, Red Ink, and Mud City.

December 11, 2018
152 pp., 6 x 9”
Paper, $14.95 978-0-8195-7849-5
Unjacketed Cloth, $30.00 978-0-8195-7848-8

Hilda Raz, Exploring Trans Identity in Poetry

by jgagne • October 29, 2018

Author of the first poetic exploration of transgender issues by the mother of a transgendered child Hilda Raz and her poetry serve as a reminder of humanity in today’s socio-political world on the edge of redefining gender and identity along political party lines.

Trans (2001, Wesleyan) is considered the first poetic exploration of transgender issues by the mother of a transgendered child, becoming a poetic landmark preceding today’s social transformations of understanding gender. Honored by the Nebraska Center for the Book’s Nebraska Book Award for Poetry (2002), Trans is a work which traverses the questions of transformation of body, self, society, and spirit through meditation of the evolving self.

All Odd and Splendid (2008, Wesleyan) is a continued poetic exploration of these themes of self, actualization, and transformation. Following Raz’s coauthored memoir with her son Aaron, What Becomes You (2007, Nebraska), Raz continues to write of her son’s and her own personal transition from daughter to son, providing poetic space for family, community, loss, growth, personal examination, and shared experience.

Celebrating Wallace Stevens – 23rd Annual Wallace Stevens Birthday Bash

by jgagne • October 24, 2018

Looking for poetry to snuggle up with as the days grow shorter and temperatures dip? Want to read more Connecticut poets? Pick up Garnet Poems: An Anthology of Connecticut Poetry Since 1776, edited by Dennis Barone, featuring Robinson Jeffers, Susan Howe, Richard Wilbur, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and Wallace Stevens.

A fan of Stevens’ poetry? Head over to the Hartford Public Library for the twenty-third annual Wallace Stevens Birthday Bash!

Saturday, November 3, 2018, 2:00pm
Center for Contemporary Culture
Hartford Public Library
suggested donation: $10

Featuring: Cole Swensen, presenting “Perhaps the Truth Depends”

A reception of wine and hors d’oeuvres, book signing, birthday cake, and champagne will be available.

Announcing “bury it” by sam sax

by jgagne • September 4, 2018

“bury it is lit with imagery and purpose that surprises and jolts at every turn. Exuberant, wild, tightly knotted mesmerisms of discovery inhabit each poem in this seethe of hunger and sacred toll of toil. A vitalizing and necessary book of poems that dig hard and lift luminously.”
—Tyehimba Jess, judge of 2017 Laughlin Award

sam sax’s bury it, winner of the 2017 James Laughlin Award from the Academy of American Poets, writes from the root of experience with poems written in response to coming of age, young gay suicide, desire, and generational weight. What follows are raw and expertly crafted mediations on death, rituals of passage, translation, desire, diaspora, and personhood. What’s at stake is survival itself and the archiving of a lived and lyric history. In this phenomenal second collection of poems, sam sax invites the reader to join him in his interrogation of the bridges we cross, the bridges we burn, and bridges we must leap from.

sam sax is a queer Jewish writer and educator currently living in Brooklyn. He’s the author of Madness, winner of the National Poetry Series, and the two-time Bay Area Grand Slam Champion.

Publication of this book is funded by the
National Education Association.

September

88 pp., 6 x 9”

Paper, $14.95

978-0-8195-7731-3

eBook, $11.99

978-0-8195-7732-0 Poetry