New Books in Poetry

I won’t say Ailish Hopper‘s collection Dark~Sky Society (New Issues Press, 2014) is “about” anything because that would do it a disservice. These poems are human. They move like legs on a street, like a mind at work that calls you to ruminate with it. Because we can’t understand everything, we have to be comfortable in that space of being unsure. Hopper calls it “Art out of Ignorance” and I agree, but wonder if it is not also “Art out of a Refusal to Misunderstand.” It is not easy to stay in an uncomfortable space until you hit on a truth. It is also difficult to accept silence as a part of communication but this poet does and what she has discovered, she shares with us in this collection. “Dark Sky Society” does not see its own bravery. It does not draw attention to its confrontation of everything “place” can mean. And it does not apologize. The poems implicate themselves, and in turn implicate anyone who has ever dared to wonder, “How and why does our world work in this way?” I strongly encourage our listeners to pick up a copy of this collection to witness the ways in which Hopper reminds us that the song, the visuals, and the voice of the poem can engage the senses in a brilliance of stimuli and, in turn, the mind. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/poetry

About twenty years ago, I heard William Stafford read his poetry for about twenty minutes. For a young aspiring writer like I was then, he was mesmerizing, a mix of poetic energy and grandfatherly wisdom, with a high-spirited charm. I think it was the first poetry reading that I attended in which I realized that poetry didn’t have to be solemn and ponderous to be profound.  All of us in the audience laughed a lot. And we were moved. It was only after the reading, after I’d said how enjoyable I found Stafford, that some bitter professor-type said something like, “You know, that’s just his shtick. He’s a much darker poet.” I was troubled, and the remark sent me into Stafford’s work to see if it was true. I was happy to discover the same joy in Stafford’s poetry as I’d experienced in hearing him read, but there was more to it. His was a complex vision, and, to this day, I can recall lines of his that I read over two decades ago. I’m not alone in this experience of feeling as though Stafford’s presence and poems haunt me. Readers sent letters to Stafford by the thousands, and his fellow poets responded to him in life and in verse, though not always with praise. In honor of what would have been Stafford’s hundredth birthday in 2014, editor Becca J.R. Lachman has gathered together a collection of these poems. A Ritual to Read Together (Woodley Press, 2014) offers us an intimate portrait of Stafford’s legacy, from his abiding sense of place to his promotion of nonviolence to his work as a mentor and teacher. The collection takes its title from one of Stafford’s poems about the importance of listening to one another, of telling our stories. It opens: If you don’t know the kind of person I am and I don’t know the kind of person you are a pattern that others made may prevail in the world and following the wrong god home we may miss our star. I sat down with Becca to chat about her experience of assembling an anthology under the star of Stafford. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/poetry

Chapbookapalooza 2014 Aimee Nezhukumatathil & Ross Gay Lace & Pyrite Organic Weapon Arts Press, 2014 Two gardens, 500 miles apart, managed to be in conversation with one another over the span of five seasons. What came of their conversation was this collection of epistolary poems by two brilliant poets. Part exchange, part mediation on hands in dirt and the deep well of winter, this collection offers sustenance to the mind as the garden does to the body. We do not need technology to connect us; our innate connections already exist– we just have to recognize them, nurture them, and watch them grow. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/poetry

Chapbookapalooza 2014 Rachel Moritz Many Forms in Water above/ground press, 2014 Born of a connection to Theodor Schwenk’s 1965 text Sensitive Chaos: The Creation of Flowing Forms in Water and Air, this collection seeks to inhabit that infinitesimal space left between water and that which holds it. Not everything that conforms to its container is formless– sometimes, like Moritz’s verse, a liquid will become a gas and a gas will become all things, inhabit every scant surface of the earth we’ve been given. Moritz can make words pour, flow, and puddle. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/poetry

Chapbookapalooza 2014 Nikki Wallschlaeger I Would Be the Happiest Bird Horseless Press, 2014 It is transient, it is migratory, it embarks from the restlessness of youth and family and lands in self-actualization. I’ve never/ thought of myself as much of a threat, sitting here in a room w/ cats & a space heater trying to figure out/ how birds flying in the sky still has relevant meaning, how not caring if it does means more than// a thesis or carefully splattered book (the trick is believing in yourself long enough so that the words/ come out more or less honest, pitting vulnerability against craft.) I Would Be the Happiest Bird interrogates our “where?” and calls to piece of us that still looks up and wonders, “if I could fly, how far would my wings take me from here and would I ever come back?” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/poetry

Chapbookapalooza 2014 Daniel Borzutzky Bedtime Stories for the End of the World Bloof Books, 2014 This is a collection in which the synaptic leaps have their own synaptic leaps. In direct confrontation with neoliberalism, Borzutzky holds nothing back. His verse levels the page like a chainsaw, leaving the surreal, bloodied and bare. “At times like this he thinks: I can say just about anything right now. This is, after all, a bedtime story for the end of the world. I am moving beneath ground and not sleeping and trying to cross the border from one sick part of the world to another” Prepare to be altered by these poems. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/poetry

Chapbookapalooza 2014 Amber Atiya the fierce bums of doo wop Argos Books, 2014 Densely-packed prosody and firecracker content fill the pages of this stunning, debut collection. It is a native NYC voice, it is a fearless voice, and it commands your attention. Atiya weaves flawless verse; buy this chapbook and bear witness. You’ll want to wear her poems like a vintage leather jacket. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/poetry

Chapbookapalooza 2014 Ashley Inguanta For the Woman Alone Ampersand Books, 2014 More artistic creation than poetry collection, more journal than sketchbook: For the Woman Alone resists category to transport the reader into the mind of an artist. In her own handwriting, Inguanta invites the reader into a world of fragmented beauty, memory, and vision through the clearest lens. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/poetry

Chapbookapalooza 2014 Ken Pobo When the Light Turns Green Spruce Alley Press, 2014 A garden is not always a garden: our metaphors speak of our experiences and musings. Pobo shows the reader how seasons can mean change of weather, passage of time, and realizations of mortality. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/poetry

Chapbookapalooza 2014 Laura Foley Joy Street Headmistress Press, 2014 Within Joy Street are access panels to the poet’s mind. She has a stunning way of bringing a reader to a place and time and then making them feel comfortable only to pull their attention and turn their head towards the heart of the matter. The poems in this collection are worlds– worlds orbiting memory and understanding Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/poetry