Tag Archive for queer

Announcing “bury it” by sam sax

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

sam sax is recipient of a 2018 Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Fellowship

For Immediate Release—August 29, 2018

Wesleyan author sam sax is recipient of a 2018 Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Fellowship

from The Poetry Foundation:

The Poetry Foundation and Poetry magazine announce the winners of the 2018 Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Fellowships: Safia Elhillo, Hieu Minh Nguyen, sam sax, Natalie Scenters-Zapico, and Paul Tran. The $25,800 fellowship is among the largest and most prestigious awards available for young poets in the United States.

The fellows will make their first joint appearance at the Dodge Poetry Festival in October, and the December 2018 issue of Poetry will feature a sampling of their work.

“Our 2018 fellows created their own trails and important beautiful markers for those who will follow them into the future,” said Poetry editor, Don Share. “Each of these fellows energetically speaks to and contributes to the ever-increasing interest in contemporary poetry, especially among young people.”

Established by Ruth Lilly in 1989 for one student recipient nominated by a university writing program, the fellowship program expanded to two spots in 1996, then five in in 2008. After a generous gift from the Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Memorial Fund in 2013, it became the Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Fellowships. Now open to any U.S. poets between the ages of 21 and 31, regardless of whether or not they are affiliated with academic institutions, the fellowship’s expanded inclusivity created space for more young poets to flourish and develop their craft.

This year’s cohort includes a founding member of Slam NYU, a Warren Wilson College MFA candidate, a National Poetry Series winner, a PEN/Joyce Osterweil Award for Poetry winner, and a “Discovery”/Boston Review Poetry Prize winner.

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sam sax is the author of bury it, winner of the 2017 James Laughlin Award given by the Academy of American Poets. bury it will be published by Wesleyan University Press in September 2018.

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