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by Kerri ní Dochartaigh

When someone writes a book about anything the first thing they are often asked is: HOW?

How did you find the time, the topic, the means to get it out of your insides and into the outside world for all to see? When someone writes a book that takes as its subject matter their own personal lived experiences – those which might range from deeply unsettling – to upsetting – or even traumatising; perhaps the question most commonly asked is: WHY?

Why would you put yourself through it? Why would you unearth that pain? Why would…

Milkweed Editions is thrilled to announce that Jennifer Huang has won the 2021 Ballard Spahr Prize for Poetry. For their poetry collection Return Flight, selected by Jos Charles, Huang will receive $10,000 and publication by Milkweed Editions in January 2022.

Jennifer Huang was born in Maryland to Taiwanese immigrants and has since called many places her home. Their poems have appeared in POETRY, The Rumpus, and Narrative Magazine, among other places; and they have received recognition from the Academy of American Poets, North American Taiwan Studies Association, and more. In 2020, Huang earned…

A great deal of Dutch poetry nowadays is influenced by urban tendencies, by movies, by social media, by elements of the news. Earlier generations often focused on nature, that traditional source of consolation for modern man who has lost his religious faith and paradise. This tendency also means that most younger poets do not strive any longer for unity behind all diversity, for calming the chaos, for a symbolist view on reality; on the contrary, they emphasize pluriformity, changes of registers, they prefer the prismatic glance of diversity.

 Also quite striking is the renewal of language in Dutch poetry seen…

by Victoria Chang

The cover for Dear Memory: Letters on Writing, Silence, and Grief, emerged organically, in the same way that this book emerged. After my mother died, there was the obvious grieving of my mother as body, as mind, as caretaker, but I was surprised to feel a greater sense of loss–a loss of not only her history but my own history. When she died, my connection to and with my family’s Chinese and Taiwanese culture evaporated. Because my mother tended toward secrets, I didn’t know much about her history, and never cared too much before about…

We are excited to welcome three Editors-at-Large to Milkweed Editions, and along with one of these editors, a new literary series.

A LETTER FROM OUR PUBLISHER & CEO, DANIEL SLAGER

Over the years, I have often asked writers we are publishing to recommend other writers and manuscripts. Countless new relationships and projects have come to us as a result, and so when I thought of ways to expand the range of curatorial and editorial perspectives at work in building our publishing program, the notion of adding Editors-at-Large struck me as a natural outgrowth – a formalization, perhaps more precisely –…

Author Arra Lynn Ross reminisces on the inspiration for the cover of her forthcoming collection, Day of the Child.

Hello again, friends! It’s time for round two of our National Poetry Month feature (check out part one here).

For our second installment, I touched base with a few well-loved poets whose books are entering the world again as paberbacks. I’m thrilled that Grady Chambers, John James, and Ada Limón shared their thoughts (and voices) with us to discuss the process of putting together a poetry collection, as well as the power of poetry-out-loud. Listen to audio of them reading from their collections below!

Note: for best listening experience, please use Google Chrome.

“A Story About the Moon” from North…

Hello, friends! Welcome to a very special edition of 5 Reasons to Teach This Book. This month, we’re taking a break from our standard five-question, solo-author interview format; instead, we’re taking a stroll with a few different poets through new books and returning favorites in Milkweed’s 2021 poetry lineup. And oh, hey, look at that—it’s National Poetry Month! Why not celebrate by listening to each of these striking poets read from their collections?

We’re starting off this two-part feature with Wayne Miller, Kathryn Smith, and Robert VanderMolen, each of whom have new books out now (or soon!) with Milkweed. Each collection has…

Hello, friends, and welcome to another edition of Deep Cuts! In this series, we dive in with some of our authors and discuss the behind-the-scenes work that goes into the composition and production of their books. This month, I’m so pleased to be featuring Kazim Ali’s Northern Light, a ruminative study of the word home.

Northern Light opens with a photo of a young, smiling Ali. He’s standing at the end of one of three rows of children—Jenpeg School’s ‘77-‘78 class of first graders. I’ve found myself lingering on this page, studying the various expressions marking the children’s faces…

ANNOUNCING THE WINNER OF THE 2020–21 JAKE ADAM YORK PRIZE!

Copper Nickel and Milkweed Editions are thrilled to announce that judge Randall Mann has chosen Brian Tierney’s book Rise and Float as the winner of the 2020–21 Jake Adam York Prize. Rise and Float will be published by Milkweed Editions in February, 2022, and Tierney will receive $2,000.

Brian Tierney’s poetry appears in Agni, Boston Review, Kenyon Review, New England Review, Best New Poets, and elsewhere. A former Wallace Stegner Fellow at Stanford University, and a graduate of the Bennington College MFA Writing…