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Martha Collins offers haunting reflections on time and other subjects in Day unto Day, a spare and subtle seventh collection. The book consists of six sequences: during one month each year, for six years, Collins wrote a short poem each day. With perfectly distilled lines, she captures the aching, liminal beauty of one day becoming another the slow burn of time passing, the ambiguity of an old / new leaf turning over, even as she collages a wide range of material that includes often disturbing news of the world. Writing in the tradition of poetic meditation, Collins shows us the full degree of her mastery a mature voice, poems with tremendous scope, and lines exceptionally controlled. Here is the work of a seasoned poet at the height of her career.

The characters in Inappropriate Behavior teeter on the brink of sanity, while those around them reach out in support, watch helplessly, or duck for cover. In their loneliness, Murray Farish's characters cast about for a way to connect, to be understood, though more often than not, things go horribly wrong. Some of the characters come from the darkest recesses of American history. In 'Lubbock Is Not a Place of the Spirit,' a Texas Tech student recognizable as John Hinckley, Jr. writes hundreds of songs for Jodie Foster as he grows increasingly estranged from reality. Other characters are recognizable only in the sense that their situations strike an emotional chord. The young couple in 'The Thing About Norfolk,' socially isolated after a cross-country move, are dismayed to find themselves unable to resist sexually deviant urges. And in the deeply touching title story, a couple stretched to their limit after the husband's layoff struggle to care for their emotionally unbalanced young son. Set in cities across America and spanning the last half-century, this collection draws a bead on our national identity, distilling our obsessions, our hauntings, our universal predicament.

In this compact collection, settling the score provides a fascinating apparatus for exploring foundational civilizing ideas. Notions of courage, cowardice, and revenge course through Michael Garrigas flash fiction pieces, each one of which captures a duels decisive moment from three distinct perspectives: opposing accounts from the individual duelists, followed by the third account of a witness. In razor-honed language, the voices of the duelists take center stage, training a spotlight on the litany of misguided beliefs and perceptions that lead individuals into such conflicts.From Cain and Abel to Andrew Jackson and Charles Dickenson; from John Henry and the steam drill to an alcoholic fighting the bottle: the cumulative effect of these powerful pieces is a probing and disconcerting look at humankinds long-held notions of pride, honor, vengeance, and satisfaction. Meticulously crafted by Garriga, and with stunning illustrations by Tynan Kerr, The Book of Duels is a fierce, searing debut.

Wilson writes from the periphery of an open field in this extended investigation into longing and loss, love and doubt. As the poet muses, "e;we wonder / what we're not / in the field,"e; and reading The Hundred Grasses, we are made to wonder as much about what exists within us as how were shaped by what we lack.For Wilson, the act of looking can animate what is seemingly static.Stillness becomes not absence but fullness.These poems shape sounds culled from the empty spaces they inhabit, giving sense to life's silences.In the authors words:I am interested in locating my poems subjects within the midst of open space and exploring the tensions that arise from this positioning. I am drawn to the struggle between foreground and background, as well as the foggy median (or prohibitive hedge) that serves to locate my subjects thrust. My poems are rooted in the flatlands and lowlands: the Midwestern lawns, lakes, fields, and creeks of my childhood, and the Dutch farms, canals, and seascapes near my family's home in Holland. Much of my poetry focuses on those instances when a space exerts itself beyond recognition, when it seems to estrange itself so that it may be renegotiated. For me this is a process of embedding my examination in the musicality of language and paying close attention to the breath of a line.

A grim prognosis, brain cancer, leaves the speaker in Kirkpatricks Odessa fighting for her life. The tumor presses against her amygdalae, the emotional core of the self, and central to the process of memory. In poems endowed with this emotional charge but void of sentimentality, Kirkpatrick sets out to recreate what was lost by fashioning a dreamlike reality. Odessa, roof of the underworld, a refuge at once real and imagined, resembles simultaneously the Midwestern prairie and a mythical god-inhabited city. In image-packed lines bearing shades of Classical heroism, Kirkpatrick delivers a personal narrative of stunning dimension.

Using such models as Joseph Cornells box constructions, crazy quilts, and specimen displays,Joni Tevis places fragments in relationship to each other in order to puzzle out lost histories,particularly those of women. Navigating the peril and excitement of outward journeyscomplicated by an inward longing for home, The Wet Collection follows Tevis through severaladventures that coalesce into a narrative imbued with the light of Teviss Southern upbringing.Written with a poets lyricism, a scientists precision, and a theologians understanding ofthe world as it shifts around us, The Wet Collection is the exciting debut of a distinctive voice."e;Teviss writing, a showcase for her interests in religion, memoir, natural study and womenshistory, is precise and unique, and in this collection of musings, she builds big ideas out of small fragments...Far from the typical memoir or essay collection, this volume showcases a unique, meticulous and inviting voice. Publishers Weekly

Moving from the mundane to the profound, first through observation of fact and matter, then shifting perspective, engaging a deeper sense of self, these poems re-imagine things great and small, making us care deeply about the world around us. In this cultivated and intricately crafted collection, Sally Keith shows the self as a crucible of forcethat which compels us to exert ourselves upon the world, and meanwhile renders us vulnerable to it. Force by which a line unfurlsas in Robert Smithsons colossal Spiral Jettyor leads with forward motiona train hurdling along the west-reaching railroad; Edweard Muybridges photographic reels charting animal and human locomotion. With poems remarkable in their clarity, captivating in their matter-of-factness, Keith examines the impossible and inevitable privacy of being a person in the world, meanwhile negotiating an inexorable pull toward the places we call homeone we alternately try and fail to resist.

Manz is sure of one thing: he lives on the wrong side of the tracks in dusty Rockhill, Texas. Life is tough for everyone—his hard-drinking mother, her truck-driving boyfriend, even his privileged friend Jed—but especially for Manz, the mixed-race son of migrant apple pickers. If he could only get out of town, his life would be better.When the summer heat sets in, Manz and Jed take a job rebuilding fence for a cattle ranch outside town. There he meets Vanessa, who works in the ranch’s kitchen. The two hit it off, but Manz isn’t sure he can trust her. As the dog days drag on, Manz must negotiate an unwieldy terrain involving his unpredictable mother, a best friend whose father uses him as a punching bag, and a simmering, creeping delusion that "Operation Wetback"—which brutally relocated illegal aliens deep in Mexican territory following World War II—has been put back into effect. Manz’s bright and questioning mind begins to give in to its own claustrophobic temptations as he finds guidance in the voices that have been growing louder and more insistent each day.A revealing look a one young man’s struggle with identity and the effects of schizophrenia.

Discovering Pig Magic follows the exploits of Mattie (or Miss M, or just M) and her friends Ariel and Nicki as they attempt to overcome the problems that plague their 13-year-old lives. After finding a book of spells, the three girls perform a ritual that will grant each the object of her desire. This requires that they each bury a special object. Ariel buries a tiny antique spoon; Nicki puts in a thumb-sized leather mother-and-child doll; and Miss M contributes a small ceramic pig with real gold inlays. When the magic starts to take effect, the girls'' longed-for wishes carry unintended, and unwelcome, consequences. Breaking the spell before something really bad happens becomes crucial, but doing so may be too much even for these resourceful friends. Julie Crabtree''s wonderfully funny novel captures the everyday lives of three quirky, engaging girls, and shows that some wishes may be better left unfulfilled.

The California-based River of Words (ROW) has gained fame as an important nonprofit that trains teachers, park naturalists, grassroots groups, and others to incorporate observation-based nature exploration and the arts into young people’s lives. One of the group’s most important annual projects is to take the youth pulse from the United States and 22 other countries, by asking for writing on water and nature. This anthology collects the best of that writing, with accompanying artwork. Divided into nine geographical areas (California, Pacific Northwest, Inland West, Midwest, Southwest, Northwest, Mid Atlantic, South, and International), the book presents writers from ages six to 18. In poems such as "I Love My Dog," "Seasons in Our Watershed," "History of a Cornfield," and "Swamp Shack," River of Words exhibits diverse voices, as well as some bilingual poems. A remarkable confluence of K-12 curriculum, children’s literature, environmentalism, and poetry, this thoughtful book, in the words of Pulitzer Prize–winning poet Gary Snyder, gives us "pleasure and hope."

Thirteen-year-old Lauren, a Korean American adoptee, is best friends with the prettiest and tallest girl in the school, Julie, who has an endless amount of confidence. Lauren, on the other hand, has been saving for years to pay for a special eye surgery that will deepen the crease of her eyelids. It's not that she wants to look like everyone else in her suburban Connecticut school; she'd just be happy if kids stopped calling her "e;slant"e; and "e;gook."e; Up until now she's been able to ignore the insults, but when the cutest boy in her class calls her "e;slant,"e; she realizes she needs to do something about her "e;nickname."e; When she convinces her reluctant father to consent to the eye operation, Lauren suddenly finds herself faced with a challenge: should she get the operation that might make her more confident and popular, or can she find that confidence within herself? Laura Williams' sensitive, beautifully written story offers a powerful lesson to young readers whose self-esteem depends too much on how they look.

Children learning to fish in the tidewaters of Chesapeake Bay, a girl escaping Ocean City to see her first American oystercatcher, a family canoeing through Okefenokee Swamp, brothers catching a trophy bass together — these are some of the vivid stories, contemporary and historical, in this multilayered portrait of the South Atlantic Coast. Renowned writers and gifted observers limn the region’s seasons and moods, from autumn along the C&O Canal to kite flying on a spring day in South Carolina. Included are sections on common plants and animals, maps of the region, and a list of parks and nature centers for further study.

Winner of the Milkweed Prize for Children's Literature, this is the tale of a girl's struggles with school and changing friendships, as well as her heartfelt emotions that arise from helping her mother make tough decisions after her father is diagnosed with Alzheimer's.

It's 1942. Thirteen-year-old Korinna Rehme is an active member of her local Jungmadel, a Nazi youth group, along with many of her friends. She believes that Hitler is helping Germany by instituting a program to deal with what he calls the "e;Jewish problem,"e; a program that she witnesses as her Jewish neighbors are attacked and taken from their homes. Korinna's parents, however, are members of a secret underground group providing a means of escape to the Jews of their city. Korinna is shocked to discover that they are hiding a refugee family behind the wall of her bedroom. But as she comes to know the family, her sympathies begin to turn. When someone tips off the Gestapo, loyalties are put to the test and Korinna must decide what she really believes and whom she really trusts. Filled with adventure, Behind the Bedroom Wall helps readers understand the forces that drove so many to turn on their neighbors and the courage that allowed some to resist.

The perfect summer-reading adventure for boys, this contemporary novel features twelve-year-old Donovan, asked by his dad to spend the summer in Puget Sound with an aunt and uncle he barely knows. Aunt Hattie is ill with cancer, and she and Uncle Bix need some support. The trouble is, only Donovan can provide it, because his dad and Uncle Bix - who was recently released from jail for robbery - haven't spoken for years. Naturally, Donovan is curious about his uncle's past, and the summer he spends in the Sound turns out to be one he'll never forget. Whether he's helping his uncle reclaim a sunken boat, caring for and learning from his aunt, or wondering about his uncle's secret meetings with ex-convict friends, Donovan discovers there are some things children can do that grown-ups can't or won't - including asking difficult questions. His questions about his uncle help him realize the courage it takes to attain redemption, and the power of strong relationships to help people look beyond the bad choices others make and see the good inside them.

The death of he mother has left thirteen-year-old Anna Kallio responsible for running the house. She has no time anymore for going to school or playing with friends. She and her nine-year-old brother, Matti, worry about their father, who is a blacksmith for the iron mines. When they realize how lonely he his, they plot to find him a new wife, even trying to arrange a match with one of the "mail order" brides arriving from Finland. The results of their efforts are different from anything Anna expected. She finds herself torn by her own emotions as she realizes another woman will fill her mother''s place.

Gathering the stories of people whose lives have adapted to the unique features of the North Atlantic coast, the book moves from Wampanoag Indians to eighteenth-century seafarers to contemporary teens. Readers are invited to feel the throb and pulse of the surf as Helen Keller felt it, track an otter through a southern New Hampshire winter, harvest blueberries as the Micmac Indians once did, and join a young boy as he tries to save a lobster from the cooking pot. The lives of fishermen and women, of sailors lost in the fog, of a whale trapped in a pond in Newfoundland—all become richer and more memorable when woven into the fabric of literature. The book is divided, as are all books in the series, into four sections: Adventures, Great Places, Reapers and Sowers, and Wild Lives. The treasure trove of stories, poems, journal entries, and essays about the region is followed by a brief natural history, including a list of areas to visit to experience the wilder side of the North Atlantic Coast region.

In poems brilliantly textured and layered, Salgado Maranho integrates socio-political thought with subjects abstractly metaphysical. Concrete collides with conceptualbutcher shops, sex, and machine guns in conversation with language, absence, and timeresulting in a collection varied as well as unified, an aesthetic at once traditional and postmodern. Writing in forms both fixed and free, Maranhos language suggests a jazz-like musicality that rings true in Alexis Levitins masterful translations. For readers who enjoy the complexity of Charles Simic, or the stylistically innovative syntax of Csar Vallejo, Maranhos Blood of the Sun is a sensually provocative amalgamation of both.

In her accomplished second collection of poems, Katrina Vandenberg writes from the intersection of power and forgiveness. With poems named for letters of the Phoenician alphabet, and employing such innovative forms as the ancient ghazal, Vandenberg deciphers the seemingly indecipherable in this extraordinary becoming of self through language. Moving between the physical and the abstract, the individual and the collective, Alphabet Not Unlike the World unearths meaningwith astonishing beautyfrom the pain of loss and separation.A deeply confident, compelling voice, with strong music, originality, and flow. I wanted to go wherever it went. Passionate with a keen sense of surprise, these poems are funny, serious, and wise all at once. Bravo. Naomi Shihab Nye

A William Carlos William Award Finalist for 2012A Kansas City Star Top Book of 2012A Library Journal Top Winter Poetry PickA series of semi-mythologized, symbolic narratives interspersed with dramatic monologues, the poems collected in The City, Our City showcase the voice of a young poet striking out, dramatically, emphatically, to stake his claim on the City. It is an unnamed, crowded place where the human questions and observations found in almost any citypast, present, and futurering out with urgency. These poemsin turn elegiac, celebratory, haunting, grave, and joyfulgive hum to our modern experience, to those caught up in the Citys immensity, and announce the arrival of a major new contemporary poet.

In Fancy Beasts, the author of Hallelujah Blackout and Mosquito takes on California, the 2008 election, plastic surgery, Larry Craig, wildfires, Wal-Mart, and rampant commercialism in short, the modern American media culture, which provides obscene foil for his personal legacies of violence and violation. This pivotal book captures the turning point in a life of abuse, in which the recovering victim/perpetrator puzzles through the paradigm of son-to-husband-to-father. Frenetic, hilarious, and fearless, these poems are a workout vigorous and raw. Yet they are also composed and controlled, pared down and sculpted, with a disarming narrative simplicity and directness. Even when dealing with toxic content, the point of view is always genuine and trustworthy. This stunning achievement marks Alex Lemons best work yet.

This second volume of poetry by experimental writer Jesse Ball is a philosophical recasting of myth and legend. Employing an eerie narrative simplicity, these always unpredictable poems are cautionary tales of the oppressiveness of monolithic culture on the development of artistic, philosophical, and political leadership. Alternating from the personal to the public, Ball attains a wide enough vantage to observe the cowardliness of historians in their refusal to ascribe causality. Unearthing parables from the compost heap of oral tradition, folklore, literature, and popular culture, this book projects shadows of figures we think we recognize: Helen Keller, Pompeii, Ellis Island, Houdini, Lazarus, the Pied Piper, Punch and Judy, Hawthorne, Shirley Jackson, and more. Comprised of three separate volumes, The Village on Horseback creates an entirely original world of interrelated characters, with a mix of references, allusions, evocationsthe result being a sort of Brueghel-esque feeland yet theres also a self-conscious acknowledgment of modernity as well as a questioning of the authority of the author in determining meaning. At times evoking Gorey, Chaucer, and the tale of Robin Hood, these fables, ghost stories, and riddles of human nature dissect the individuals interaction with culture, particularly commenting on the ascribing of meaning by communal groups resulting in truth-making, and the limitations of our leaders (artists, philosophers, politicians) in their ability to break us out of communal indoctrination.

The distilled, haunting, and subtly complex poems in Adam Clays A Hotel Lobby at the Edge of the World often arrive at that moment when solitude slips into separation, when a person suddenly realizes he can barely see the place he set out from however long ago. He now sees he must find his connection back to the present, socially entangled world in which he lives. For Clay, reverie can be a sirens song, luring him to that space in which prisoners will begin to interrogate themselves.Clay pays attention to the poets return to the world of his daily life, tracking the subtly shifting tenors of thought that occur as the landscape around him changes. Clay is fully aware of the difficulties of Thoreaus border life, and his poems live somewhere between those of James Wright and John Ashbery: they seek wholeness, all the while acknowledging that a fragment is as complete as thought can be. In the end, what we encounter most in these poems is a generous gentleness--an attention to the world so careful its as if the mind is washing each grain of sand.

In her stunning debut poetry collection, What have you done to our ears to make us hear echoes?, Arlene Kim confronts the ways in which language mythologizes memory and, thus, exiles us from our own true histories. Juxtaposing formal choices and dreamlike details, Kim explores the entangled myths that accompany the experience of immigrationthe abandoned country known only through stories, the new country into which the immigrant family must wander ever deeper, and the numerous points where these narratives intertwine.Sharing ground with Randall Jarrells later poems, and drawing on a dizzying array of sourcesincluding Grimms Fairy Tales, Korean folklore, Turkish proverbs, Paul Celan, Anna Akhmatova, Antonin Dvoraks letters, and the numerous fictions we script across the inscrutabilities of the natural worldKim reveals how a homesickness for the self is universal. It is this persistent and incurable longing that drives us as we make our way through the dark woods of our lives, following what might or might not be a trail of breadcrumbs, discovering, finally, that we are the only path.

Since Milkweed Editions’ original publication of The Phoenix Gone, the Terrace Empty, Marilyn Chin has been widely celebrated as a consummate poet of the hybrid experience. At once ancient and contemporary, personal and political, grounded and yet uniquely dazzling, this extraordinary collection blends Asian and Western sensibilities in a pioneering way.Here, with wit and energy, Chin defines her existence as a first-generation Asian American woman, effectively straddling two cultures. And she spins virtuoso jazz in her juxtaposition of the contemporary with images and metaphors from Chinese tales and classic poems, creating an expansive poetry of self.Featuring an afterword by the author addressing the collection’s effect and the developments in her work since, this edition reintroduces a modern classic to a new generation of readers.

The speaker in this extraordinary collection finds herself multiply dislocated: from her childhood in California, from her familys roots in Mexico, from a dying parent, from her prior self. The world is always in motion both toward and away from usand it is also full of risk: from sharks unexpectedly lurking beneath estuarial rivers to the dangers of New York City, where, as Limn reminds us, even rats find themselves trapped by the garbage cans theyve crawled into. In such a world, how should one proceed? Throughout Sharks in the Rivers, Limn suggests that we must cleave to the world as it keeps opening before us, for, if we pay attention, we can be one with its complex, ephemeral, and beautiful strangeness. Loss is perpetual, and each persons mouth is the same / mouth as everyones, all trying to say the same thing. For Limn, its the sayingindividual and collective that transforms each of us into a wound overcome by wonder, that allows the wind itself to be our own wild whisper.