An Investigation into Fate and Freedom: Manhattan Beach by Jennifer Egan
Everyone, no matter how strong or independent, is subject to forces like war, or time, or the claims of family.
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Reclamation and Redemption: Villain Songs by Tammy Robacker
Robacker's language, steeped in religion and myth, creates an avenue for her own salvation while invoking a timelessness that gives voice to all whose song has been suppressed.
Between Autonomy and Powerlessness: Her Body and Other Parties by Carmen Maria Machado
Women’s bodies signify so much, both to ourselves and others, that inhabiting them and having ownership over them often feel like two different states of being.
Both Companion and Guide: Jeannine Hall Gailey’s Field Guide to the End of the World
I recommend you pull over now. Better yet, I recommend you call in sick and turn your car around. You’re going to want to read this book in one solitary burst...
You’re in the Hands of a Pro: The Goat Fish and the Lover’s Knot by Jack Driscoll
The characters in this collection frequently daydream about time. Children and teens want to speed it up so life can start. Grown-ups ask time to slow, or rewind to get some of it back.
Imagination Is Like Grace: Meghan O’Rourke’s Sun in Days
A poem doesn’t bring the dead back to life, but a memory has a touch of immortality: it’s a sort of recompense—forever isn’t exactly a lie, even if it’s not completely true.
Ward’s Mississippi Is Our Mississippi: Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward
Capturing the Delta in harrowing detail, Ward takes readers on a journey from her own home of the Gulf Coast to the Mississippi State Penitentiary.
Let Us Be Singing Fools: Norman Finkelstein’s The Ratio of Reason to Magic: New & Selected Poems
If poetry is to remain a bulwark against the flagrant coarseness and cruelty at work in this moment of history, Norman Finkelstein’s work belongs right here with us.
Naming Our Phantoms: Tim Taranto’s Ars Botanica
There is no way to classify a response to pregnancy. It is what it is, which is why people find consolation in naming their phantoms. In this case, the phantom is named Catalpa.
A Tour de Force of Grief: Sun & Urn by Christopher Salerno
The winner of the 2016 inaugural Georgia Poetry Prize, Sun & Urn is gloomy and luminous, nostalgic and hopeful, moribund yet brimming with life.
Gentrification Looks Like Us: Making Rent in Bed-Stuy by Brandon Harris
Harris thoughtfully examines what happens when privilege and lack of privilege are forced to coexist in the same neighborhood—and, occasionally, in the same apartment.
Coursing Byways and Biographical Thoroughfares: Karin Roffman’s The Songs We Know Best: John Ashbery’s Early Life
I’ve long found that when reading Ashbery’s poetry it’s easy to lose track of just who the poet is.