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Poetry 365

January 31, 2013

This month for Poetry 365 we’re highlighting the extraordinary new novel-in-poems from Kathleen Rooney. In Robinson Alone, the Rose Metal Press founding editor examines and expands upon the work of mysterious 1940’s poet Weldon Kees by reanimating his haunting literary alter ego Robinson. Epic, atmospheric, and akin to historical fiction, this cinematic collection traces Robinson’s cross country journey from hope to despair in what Booklist called “an intricate… tale of American loneliness and enthralling testament to poetry’s resonance.” So don’t miss this Chicagoan’s brilliant new book, sample a poem below, and make sure to stop back next month for Poetry 365.

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Poetry 365

December 29, 2012

This month for Poetry 365 we’re featuring D.A. Powell’s exhilarating new volume Useless Landscape, or A Guide for Boys. A staple on multiple 2012 Best Poetry Book lists, Powell’s fifth collection demonstrates his remarkable range of form as he examines his impoverished childhood, ecological disaster, gay sexual awakening, illness, and love. Sleek, witty, scathing, and compact, Useless Landscape finds Powell “turning the corner from promising poet into established power.” So check out this lyrical new book, sample a poem below, and make sure to stop back in 2013 for Poetry 365.

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Poetry 365

November 9, 2012

This month for Poetry 365 we’re featuring the lyrical debut of Rowan Ricardo Phillips. In The Ground, the Stony Brook University professor meditates on both the beautiful and ugly of post-9/11 New York City in 44 poems of “fiery intelligence and inescapable music.” Reminiscent of the work of Derek Walcott, Wallace Stevens, and Rita Dove, Phillips’ poems are infused with the flavor of his West Indies’ roots and showcase an original voice that is at once timeless and contemporary. So check out this masterful new collection, sample a poem below, and make sure to stop back next month for Poetry 365.

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Poetry 365

October 14, 2012

This month for Poetry 365 we’re highlighting the dazzling debut collection of poet Eduardo C. Corral. The first Latino winner of the prestigious Yale Younger Poets prize, Corral has been roundly praised for vividly portraying his experiences as a Chicano and gay man with a Robert Hayden-like resistance to reductivism. In Slow Lightning, he mixes colloquial Spanish and English into sensual and sobering sonnets and free verse that touch on everything from illegal immigration to Freda Kahlo to difficult memories of family and lovers. So don’t miss this engaging new collection, sample a poem below, and make sure to stop back next month for Poetry 365.

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Poetry 365

September 21, 2012

This month for Poetry 365 we’re featuring Heather Christle’s nimble new volume What Is Amazing. Following 2011’s inventively quirky The Trees the Trees, the jubilat editor’s third collection expands her formal range while retaining the voracious curiosity and playfulness found in her earlier work. Hip, irreverent, and darkly funny, these 49 poems “feel like pages from a secret notebook” as they explore the world with a sly mixture of childlike wonder and adult gravitas. So check out this excellent new collection, sample a poem below, and make sure to stop back next month for Poetry 365.

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Poetry 365

August 30, 2012

This month for Poetry 365 we’re highlighting Michael Robbins’ defiantly inventive debut Alien vs. Predator. Described as “equal parts hip-hop, John Berryman, and capitalism seeking death and not finding it,” these 55 strange, darkly funny poems are as impressive for their formal precision as they are for their frenzied name checking of everyone from Auden, Frost, and Yeats to Nirvana, Star Wars, and M*A*S*H. So check out this University of Chicago grad’s brave new collection, sample a poem below, and make sure to stop back next month for Poetry 365.

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Poetry 365

July 23, 2012

This month for Poetry 365 we’re highlighting Rebecca Lindenberg’s highly anticipated debut Love, An Index. Praised by National Book Award winner Terrence Hayes for “recovering, reclaiming, and remaking the elegy form,” this one-of-a kind collection serves as Lindenberg’s memorial to her late partner Craig Arnold, an acclaimed poet who disappeared while hiking a Japanese volcano in 2009. At once plainspoken and uniquely musical, the volume stays fresh with forms both adopted and invented including prose poems, sparse free verse, and the lengthy title poem which appears as an index. Beautiful, fierce, humbling, and human, this first title in the newly minted McSweeney’s Poetry Series is simply not to be missed. So make sure to sample an “index” poem below and don’t forget to stop back next month for Poetry 365.

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Poetry 365

June 23, 2012

This month for Poetry 365 we’re featuring the latest collection from virtuoso poet Albert Goldbarth. Author of over 25 volumes and the only two-time winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for Poetry, the prolific Chicago native is best known for a singular, sprawling style that mixes dense philosophical ideas with wildly energetic word play. In Everyday People, he presents 66 new poems that nimbly explore the wonders of everyone from Hercules and Jesus to overprotective parents, online gamblers, and newlyweds. Fearless, funny, and tender, Everyday People argues that “our ordinary failures, heroics, joy, and grief are worth giving voice to and giving thanks for.” So check out this extraordinary new book, sample a shorter poem below, and make sure to stop back next month for Poetry 365.

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Poetry 365

May 29, 2012

The sun may have set on another National Poetry Month but that doesn’t mean the fun has to end. No, here at Off the Shelf we like to celebrate year round with Poetry 365, a monthly-minus-April feature that highlights a contemporary poet’s most recent work. This month we pick back up with Alan Shapiro’s ambitious new book Night of the Republic. Inventive, urgent, and moving, this twelfth collection from the L.A. Times Book Prize winner takes readers on a dreamlike tour of America’s public places. Breathing fresh life into generic spaces such as a gas station restroom, a dry cleaner, and a funeral home, the book offers unexpected insights that “illuminate the mingling of private obsessions with public space.” So while you bask in the afterglow of National Poetry Month, check out this excellent new collection, sample a poem below, and make sure to stop back next month for Poetry 365.

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Poetry 365: Laura Kasischke

March 16, 2012

This month for Poetry 365 we’re highlighting Laura Kasischke’s ambitious new volume Space, in Chains. A 2011 NY Times Notable Book, the Pushcart Prize winner’s eighth collection finds her pursuing her signature stream-of-consciousness style while also exploring her new interest in the prose poem. Mingling homey memories of childhood with questions about the existence of God, Kasischke’s haunting and hypnotic pieces often resemble impressionist paintings as they “walk that perfect Plathian line between the everyday… and the eternal.” So check out this profound new collection, sample a poem below, and clear your calendar… our National Poetry Month celebration is about to begin.

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