Bøger i University Press of Kentucky New Poetry & Prose Series serien

"One of the most notorious prisons in Iraq during the government of Saddam Hussein, Abu Ghraib was refurbished by the US Army and turned into a military prison in 2003. During the early stages of the Iraq War, members of the Army and the CIA committed a series of human rights violations and war crimes against the detainees in Abu Ghraib, including physical and sexual abuse, torture, sodomy, and murder. Documentation of these abuses came to light in the years that followed, causing shock, outrage, and widespread international condemnation. In INK, Angela Woodward captures the passivity, permanence, and compliance of bearing witness. Set in the early 2000s, INK follows two typists, Sylvia and Marina, as they spend their days transcribing testimonies of abused Abu Ghraib prisoners. Their lives in and out of the small bureaucratic office in which they type away on outdated IBM typewriters are changed in visible and invisible ways. Sylvia becomes haunted by the voices of the recordings, straining her already-fragmented relationship with her teenage son and causing her to smell urine in improbable places. Marina's submissive ignorance subjects her and her troubled daughter into a sexually abusive relationship. Violence bleeds off the pages, making the dangers of detachment and compliance apparent when Sylvia fails to act upon the early signs of trouble in Marina's love life. Woodward's experimental structure toys with post-modern elements by braiding slivers of the prisoner's accounts in with the trivial preoccupations of the typists, along with a disquisition on the history of ink. Lyrical prose provides reflections on substances as seemingly different as ink, soap, blood, and water. Ruminations on the life and art of poet Francis Ponge are inserted as digressions from the character-driven parts of the novel. Finally, a second plot written in the first person emerges to tie all these fringes by describing the narrator's writing trajectory. Taken together, these fragmented components tell the reader that distanced stories of abuse are not as disparate or detached from us as they might first appear"--

A debut collection of poetry combining the scientific and the fantastic with Japanese culture. A honeycomb long vacated by honeybees still possesses an ';echo of the swarm, / a lingering song.' Living things are made and make themselves: ';My bones came first. / Like long needles, / they knitted muscle / and tendon / and tissue and skin. / Filled themselves / with marrow.' In her debut collection, Brianna Noll fuses the scientific and fantastic, posing probing questions that explore the paradoxes of experience. Interweaving themes of creation, art, and nature, the poet gives voice to animate and inanimate figures such as woolly mammoths, star-nosed moles, cells, mylar balloons, and puzzle boxes. Her vivid poems obscure the line between what is literal and what is figurative. The result is alchemic and etherealeach verse intricately layered with sharp observation as well as emotional and intellectual exploration and questioning. Collectively, the poems draw significantly on Japanese culture and language in their imagery, with cultural nuances and implications embedded in words and expressions. They tend to be tied, not to subjects, but to ways of seeing and considering the world. Noll's lyrical voice reflects a curious and imaginative approach that results in tight poems, typically enjambed, which build together into a thoughtful collection. Her work offers ways of seeing and considering the world that exceed our lived experience, begging the reader to consider how far we are willing to go when faced with roadblocks, doubts, and uncertainties.Named one of the best books of 2017 by the Chicago Review of Books Praise for The Price of Scarlet ';Brianna Noll's vivid, haunting collection contains poetry wide-ranging and deep, with a brilliance reminiscent of Marianne Moore, and a similar interest in creation.' Lisa Williams, author of Women Reading to the Sea and Gazelle in the House Brianna Noll is on the find-out committee. Like an Emily Dickinson for the twenty-first century, she rules out nothing. These quiet, powerful poems tells us that the world is connected, that all we need to see those connections is what Noll has in abundance: openness, patience, and an eye for beauty.' David Kirby, author of Get Up, Please ';The Price of Scarlet doesn't sneak up on the reader as much as it swallows the reader whole, pushes us out at the other end, more erudite than upon entrance. There's a certainty in every poem, whether she is investigating the nature of the wind or invoking the Kraken from the deep. This is a remarkable first book of poems. From the first poem to the last these solid poems feel polished to a fine gloss. Read The Price of Scarlet, it will intoxicate you.' Todays Book of Poetry

"In this exquisite collection of short stories, readers are introduced to individuals whose existence reveals "the daily miracle" of their inner lives.

"Forgive state poet #289-128 / for not scribbling illusions / of trickery as if timeless hell / could be captured by stanzas / alliteration or slant rhyme," remarks the speaker, Maryland Department of Corrections prisoner {#289-128}, early in this haunting collection.

King football is filled with obscure, ignored players like Miles -- which is why he and the sports world in general are shocked when the country's top recruit, Reshawn McCoy, also chooses to attend the college.

An exploration of womanhood from an underrepresented voice in American literature, Amreekiya is simultaneously unique and relatable.

In Mend: Poems, Kwoya Fagin Maples gives voice to the enslaved women named in Sims's autobiography: Anarcha, Betsy, and Lucy.

Haunting and candid, A Girl's A Gun introduces a poet whose bold voice merges heightened lyricism with compelling narrative.

In Insurrections, Rion Amilcar Scott's lyrical prose authentically portrays individuals growing up and growing old in an African American community.

Castro's communist regime gained control of Cuba in 1959, sparking a surge of immigration to the United States, particularly Miami, as refugees sought a better life. Ten stories explore the lives of Cuban refugees in Miami as they grapple with a longing for the past and a fervent need to move forward.

Drawing from both American and Latin American poetry, as well as global influences, to articulate a language of loss and devastation in search of a new identity, this collection illuminates a chaotic and confusing landscape that is not only physical but also cultural, social, and political.

In this affecting collection, Katie Cortese explores the many faces of love and desire. Featuring female narrators that range in age from five to forty, the narratives in Make Way for Her speak to the many challenges and often bittersweet rewards of offering, receiving, and returning love as imperfect human beings.