New Books in Poetry

Christopher Spaide speaks to managing editor Emily Everett about his poem “Closure?,” which appears in The Common’s most recent issue. Chris talks about how his curiosity for language and wordplay often lead him into deeper themes in his poems. He also discusses taking his first poetry class at Amherst College, and, now, teaching poetry classes himself at Emory University.Christopher Spaide is the N.E.H. Postdoctoral Fellow in Poetics at the Bill and Carol Fox Center for Humanistic Inquiry at Emory University. He received his Ph.D. from the Department of English at Harvard University and was a Junior Fellow at the Harvard Society of Fellows. His poems, essays, and reviews have appeared in The Nation, Ploughshares, Poetry, The Sewanee Review, and elsewhere. He was a 2022–2023 writer in residence at the James Merrill House, and he currently reviews for the Poetry Foundation at Harriet Books.­­Read Chris’s poems “Closure?” and “The Yoke’s on Us” in The Common here.Follow Chris on Twitter @cspaide and learn more about him at christopherspaide.com.The Common is a print and online literary magazine publishing stories, essays, and poems that deepen our collective sense of place. On our podcast and in our pages, The Common features established and emerging writers from around the world. Read more and subscribe to the magazine at thecommononline.org, and follow us on Twitter @CommonMag.Emily Everett is managing editor of the magazine and host of the podcast. Her debut novel is forthcoming from Putnam Books. Her stories appear in the Kenyon Review, Electric Literature, Tin House Online, and Mississippi Review. She is a 2022 Massachusetts Cultural Council Fellow in Fiction. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/poetry

Caitlin Cowan is the author of Happy Everything, forthcoming in February 2024 from Cornerstone Press. Caitlin holds a PhD in English from the University of North Texas, an MFA in Creative Writing from The New School, and BAs in English and Creative Writing from the University of Michigan. Caitlin has taught writing at UNT, Texas Woman’s University, Interlochen Center for the Arts, and elsewhere. She works in arts nonprofit administration at Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp, where she serves as Director of International Programs and as Chair of Creative Writing. Caitlin also writes PopPoetry, a weekly pop culture and poetry newsletter, from Michigan's west coast where she lives with her fiancé, their young daughter, and their two mischievous cats. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/poetry

Prismatic and polysemous, On the Road to Lviv (Arrowsmith Press, 2023) invites us on an odyssey across Ukraine in the hour of war. "This chronicle/ Took shape the day the war began, which was/ My 65th birthday," writes legendary traveler, war correspondent, memoirist and poet Christopher Merrill. At once deeply personal yet rooted in history so recent you can almost see the smoke billowing from the ruins of Mariupol, the poem is equal parts chronicle, a document of war crimes, and a sober self-reflection in which the poem's speaker examines his own engagement with Ukraine as a "democratic-minded" Westerner "determined to develop/ Civil societies around the world." Not since Byron's Mazeppa has there been an English-language poem comparably engaged with Ukrainian history, appearing here en face with Nina Murray's masterly translation into Ukrainian.Nataliya Shpylova-Saeed is a Preceptor in Ukrainian at the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures, Harvard University.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/poetry

“Literature is pathetic.” So claims Eileen Myles in their provocative and robust introduction to Pathetic Literature (Grove Press, 2022), a breathtaking mishmash of pieces ranging from poems to theater scripts to prose to anything in between, all exploring the so-called “pathetic” or awkwardly-felt moments and revelations around which lives are both built and undone. An utterly unique collection composed by the award-winning poet and writer, a global anthology of pieces from lesser-known classics by luminaries like Franz Kafka, Samuel R. Delany, and Gwendolyn Brooks to up-and-coming writers that examine pathos and feeling, giving a well-timed rehab to the word “pathetic”.Hal Coase is a PhD candidate at La Sapienza, University of Rome. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/poetry

When poet Jane Hirshfield first arrived at Tassajara Monastery nearly fifty years ago, a Zen teacher told her that it was a good idea to have a question to practice with. She’s been asking questions ever since. Both in her Zen practice and in her poetry, Hirshfield is guided by questions that resist easy answers, allowing herself to be transformed through the process of asking and paying attention. With her latest poetry collection, The Asking: New and Selected Poems, she takes up the question, “How can I be of service?,” inviting readers to resist fixity and certainty and instead to dwell in not-knowing.In this episode of Tricycle Talks, Tricycle’s editor-in-chief, James Shaheen, sits down with Hirshfield to talk about the questions she’s been asking recently, why she views poetry as an antidote to despair, and how Zen rituals have informed her creative process. Plus, she reads a few poems from her new collection.Tricycle Talks is a monthly podcast featuring prominent voices from within and beyond the Buddhist fold. Listen to more episodes here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/poetry

"I wept as time stopped, and I wept as time refused to cease." Grieving her faith, her love, and her identity, twenty-one-year-old Scarlett V. Leonelli is devastated by an unexpected tragedy--one threatening to unravel her to her very core. Following a series of inexplicable synchronicities, Scarlett journeys deep into the jungle of a hidden village in Costa Rica where, far beyond the only reality she has ever known, she is forced to trust the path as it appears beneath her feet. Led by the sacred invitations in riddles of mysterious guides, romantic rendezvous, and enticing adventures, Scarlett falls into the belly of the Beast itself. Will Scarlett give in or choose to alchemize one of humanity's inevitable tragedies? The Alchemy of The Beast is the first installation of The Lionheart Chronicles, a series inspired by author Alyssa Noelle Coelho's own truth-seeking journey. Drawing upon her training in sociocultural anthropology and her own experiences as a Traveler, wrestling with the meaning of existence, love, connection, and contribution, Alyssa shines a light on the raw truths of the human condition and showcases the beauty of cultures worldwide.After sharing her first journey back to love in her 2016 #1 bestselling poetry compilation, CHOSEN, Death's breath sent twenty-one-year-old Alyssa Noelle Coelho on her first meaning-seeking mission around the world. Through her sociocultural anthropology training at UCSD and many seasons of disconnection with her soul and source, Alyssa unearthed some deeper truths behind the human experience and learned to alchemize her own tragedies into a greater sense of meaning and adventure.A poet and novelist, dancer and world traveler, she has been passionately immersing herself in cultures worldwide, studying their traditions and transformations through the lens of meaning and purpose for years. A lover of novelty and a delighter in the extraordinary, Alyssa uses the power of words and stories to romance humans into falling in love with their precious existence. She reminds us of our wild potential, of our hungry spirits, and of the entire world awaiting our unique gifts.As the Founder of Lionheart Creations, and Co-Founder and Lead Designer at Saved By Story Publishing, she serves messengers and enterprises on a mission to facilitate positive change in the world. She co-hosts the savory, storytelling madness of Sips of Story 'n Sanity podcast, showcasing the journeys of other Seekers and Creators from around the world.You can learn more about Alyssa's work here, as well as Instagram and Facebook.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/poetry

Frank, conversational, and darkly funny, Gravitas examines the tendency of MFA programs to teach women that their lives aren’t worth writing about. These poems bear witness not only to alienation but also to the bittersweet joy of being forced to invent alternative ways of living and writing.Amy Berkowitz is the author of Gravitas (Éditions du Noroît / Total Joy, 2023) and Tender Points (Nightboat Books, 2019). She lives in San Francisco, where she co-hosts the Light Jacket Reading Series. She's working on a novel that she likes to call Untitled Bisexual Jumpsuits Project.Anna Zumbahlen lives in Albuquerque and works in book marketing and publicity at the University of Chicago Press. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/poetry

Bookshop.org is an online book retailer that donates more than 80% of its profits to independent bookstores. Launched in 2020, Bookshop.org has already raised more than $27,000,000. In this interview, Andy Hunter, founder and CEO discusses his journey to creating one of the most revolutionary new organizations in the book world. Bookshop has found a way to retain the convenience of online book shopping while also supporting independent bookstores that are the backbones of many local communities. Andy Hunter is CEO and Founder of Bookshop.org. He also co-created Literary Hub.Caleb Zakarin is the Assistant Editor of the New Books Network. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/poetry

Dong Li’s The Orange Tree (U Chicago Press, 2023) is a collection of narrative poems that braids forgotten legends, personal sorrows, and political upheavals into a cinematic account of Chinese history as experienced by one family. Amid chaos and catastrophe, the child narrator examines a yellowed family photo to find resemblances and learns a new language, inventing compound words to conjure and connect family stories. These invented words and the calligraphy of untranslated Chinese characters appear in lists separating the book’s narrative sections. This lyrical and experimental collection transcends the individual, placing generations of family members and anonymous others together in a single moment that surpasses chronological time and offering intimate perspectives on times that resonate with our own. The result is an unflinching meditation on family history, collective trauma, and imaginative recovery.In this conversation, Dong and Anna discuss landscape and memory, family and history, and poetry as a medium for storytelling and as a language all its own.Dong Li is a multilingual author who translates from Chinese, English, French, and German. Born and raised in China, he was educated at Deep Springs College and Brown University. His poems have been published by Conjunctions, Fence, Kenyon Review, POETRY, and elsewhere. He has served as the Olive B. O’Connor Fellow in creative writing at Colgate University and is a recipient of fellowships from Akademie Schloss Solitude, Camargo and Humboldt Foundations, MacDowell, PEN/Heim Translation Fund, Yaddo, and others. His debut poetry collection, The Orange Tree (University of Chicago Press, March 2023), was the inaugural winner of the Phoenix Emerging Poet Book Prize.Anna Zumbahlen lives in Albuquerque and works in book marketing and publicity at the University of Chicago Press. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/poetry

Thy Power, O Liberty, make strong the weak,And (wond’rous instinct) Ethiopians speak.At the age of 19, Phillis Wheatley published the first book in English by a person of African descent and the third book of poetry by a North American Woman. She was a poet but also a political actor and celebrity – the most famous African in North America and Europe during the era of the American Revolution. George Washington wrote to her. Thomas Jefferson ridiculed her. In The Odyssey of Phillis Wheatley: A Poet's Journeys Through American Slavery and Independence (FSG, 2023) – a joint exercise in history and literary criticism, Dr. David Waldstreicher writes that Wheatley is “Homer and Odysseus and the slaves and the women they knew or imagined. She aimed for the universal without forgetting who was suffering most and why.” Reading Wheatley’s poetry in historical context reveals the extent to which the American Revolution both strengthened and limited black slavery – and also how Wheatley herself affected the debates about American slavery and independence.Mastering the Bible, Greek and Latin translations, and the works of Pope and Milton, Wheatley composed elegies for local elites, celebrated political events, and praised warriors. Despite her skill, knowledge, and fame, she often had to write indirectly about subjects that mattered deeply to her – race, slavery, and discontent with British rule. During a period in which writing was central to political conversation, she used her verse to lampoon, question, and assert the injustice of her enslaved condition. As Waldstreicher demonstrates, Wheatley wrote about events and people – turning what was available and acceptable for a person in her position into poetry that could be read for its art – but also subversively for its political ideas. He concludes that her work proves that the story of the American revolution and Phillis Wheatley are inextricably joined – and that story is one of “resilience and creativity, of antislavery and antiracist possibilities, and of backlash and loss, dreams dashed and deferred.” Dr. David Waldstreicher is distinguished professor of history, American Studies, and Africana Studies at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. His research interests include U.S. cultural and political history, colonial and early US, African American history, slaver, and antislavery. He is the author of Slavery’s Constitution: From Revolution to Ratification (Hill and Wang) and Runaway American: Benjamin Franklin, Slavery, and the American Revolution (Farrar, Strauss & Giroux). His public facing writing includes contributions to The New York Times Book Review, the Boston Review, and The Atlantic.Susan Liebell is a Professor of Political Science at Saint Joseph’s University in Philadelphia. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/poetry