Unsettled Terrain: Rummage by Ife-Chudeni A. Oputa
If shame works by convincing us that we are bad, by pinning us into a definition of badness, then the poems in Rummage resist by refusing to be pinned at all.
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An Invisible World: Tomas Tranströmer’s The Half-Finished Heaven: Selected Poems (Expanded Edition)
The poem, [Tranströmer] seems to say, doesn’t have to carry every burden of its poet’s heart. It doesn’t need to speak out loud, either.
This Most Vulnerable of Houses: Fady Joudah’s Footnotes in the Order of Disappearance
These poems, poised at the intersections of the material, the metaphorical, and the spiritual, fold into and out of one another as their boundaries dissolve with question after question.
Wide-Eyed and Awed: Keegan Lester’s this shouldn’t be beautiful but it was & it was all I had so I drew it
Lester often weaves past and present, the personal and the vast into one poem, leaping between these seeming opposites.
So Much Love of Death: A Crown of Violets by Renée Vivien
Translation always sacrifices something, and Pious, in her translations, has been consistent about the choice to cleave to some formal principles and lean away from others.
An Arduous Reality: Testify by Simone John
Simone John’s first full-length collection of poems, Testify, is a remarkable exercise in documentary poetics.
Map-Making: Alex Dimitrov’s Together and By Ourselves
At one point, I write in my margin: There is no X marks the spot for treasure here. The map is the treasure. Which is another way of saying: this book is the bounty; these poems are the gold.
The Violence of Lost Time: Planetary Noise: Selected Poetry of Erin Mouré
Translating, in its widest meaning, is an attempt to accomplish what having a passport gives us permission to undertake.
The Way That Poetry Works: Holdfast by Christian Anton Gerard
In his searing, soulful second collection, Gerard uses the language that is poetry to invite the reader in to the experience of his darkest and brightest moments.
Both Presence and Absence: Safia Elhillo’s The January Children
The book, in the end, is shot through with a faith in human communion despite immense communal and individual loss.
On Joy: Three Poetry Anthologies
With impermanence and “praise for the devil” all around, it’s a gift to rediscover joy, no matter how fleeting.
Barbara Berman’s 2017 Holiday Poetry Shout-Out
It's the most wonderful time of the year! Barbara Berman offers gift recommendations for the poets on your holiday shopping list.