Elusive, elegant, and meditative, the poems in Cassie Donish’s "The Year of the Femme" resist traditional narratives, opting instead to accrue meaning by way of juxtaposition and repetition of language and images. Rife with nature and... Read More

A passion project targeted at a particular woman, "Love, Time Is Gone" features high-flown language, lambent rage, and nearly mythic stakes. Dedicated to a woman named April, Joseph Bartley Haltom III’s "Love, Time Is Gone" is a deeply... Read More

A professor in the religious studies department at the University of Virginia, Kevin Hart’s Christianity is ever present even as he writes passionately of young love, titillation, and “thin girls who taste of Beaujolais at night.”... Read More

When cornered, we’ll admit to preferring poetry with rhythm—musicality in the ear surely deepens a poem’s effect. Yes, Jennifer Givhan, we’re awed by your use of pause and pacing, as you lead us to better understanding a... Read More

Poets and words, a relationship built on endless frustration and betrayal. That’s not what I intended to say. Sorry, bard, that’s what you get with me. Certain poets embrace the ambiguity, as if potential misunderstandings raise a... Read More

Tension. Simmering. —Beneath her matter-of-fact, easy-going, sit-yourself-down, let-me-tell-it-like-it-is chatifying. And her power we take deadly seriously. Camille T. Dungy is a Fort Collins, Colorado, essayist and author of three... Read More

A sense of fun and musical exuberance permeates these poems about embracing “the now.” In "Zarg", the collected poems of Sam Muldoon, the poet explores themes of spirituality, mindfulness, antimaterialism, and romantic love in verses... Read More

Ligon’s poignant compilation mirrors fundamental truths about human desire and defeat. “Something broke in me for good, some brittle thing I didn’t know was there,” writes Samuel Ligon in his new collection, "Wonderland", “and... Read More