Our Books
These poems are engaged in the work of recovery, making visible what is often intentionally erased: the movement of domestic workers on a weekday morning in Brooklyn; a veteran of the war in Afghanistan, fondly sharing photos of his dog; the...
What is the deep web? A locked door. A tool for oppression and for revolution. “An emptying drain, driven by gravity.” And in Patrick Johnson’s Gatekeeper—selected by Khaled Mattawa as the winner of the 2019 Ballard Spahr Prize for...
Taking its name from the Roman goddess of wisdom and her companion bird, Owl of Minerva turns astonishingly precise attention to the physical world, scouring it for evidence of the spiritual as the poet travels through such places as...
This National Poetry Series winner is an unflinching portrait of the actual west—full of beauty as well as brutality, where boys tentatively learn to become, and to love, men. Its landscapes are ravaged but also startlingly lush, and even its...
From cartographer Tim Robinson comes the second title in the Seedbank series, a breathtakingly intimate exploration of one beloved place’s geography, ecology, and history. Footstep by footstep, moment...
In 2012, Sarah Ruhl was a distinguished author and playwright, twice a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize; Max Ritvo was an exuberant, opinionated, and highly gifted poet in remission from pediatric cancer. Studded with poems and songs, their...
One winter’s night, Ruby Drake’s beloved parents perish in an accident—and suddenly, Ruby finds herself penniless and nearly alone in the world. Her new path eventually takes her to Harvester, to romance, and to a journey of selfhood on the...
When Gregory Orr was twelve years old, he shot and killed his brother in a hunting accident. Guilt weighed on him throughout a childhood split between the rural Hudson Valley and jungles of Haiti. But eventually his experiences led him to...
As a small boy in remote Alberta, the author was immersed in his Cree family’s history, passed down in the stories of his mother, Bertha. But after a series of tragic losses, Bertha turned wild and unstable, and their home life became chaotic....
2020 PEN TRANSLATION PRIZE FINALIST
From celebrated Belgian author Geneviève Damas, a modern fable about friendship, self-determination, and the power of education.
Illiterate, isolated, and held at arm’s length...
Selected by Victoria Chang, this winner of the Jake Adam York Prize is a deeply personal examination of violent masculinity, driven by a yearning for more compassionate ways of being. With arresting lyricism and humility, these poems attend to...
This is a collection about time—about memory, and remembrance, and how the past makes itself manifest in the world. A desk, a mailbox, a house delivering its own autobiography: in these poems, objects hold history, even if they’ve grown...
In March 2011, a tsunami caused by an earthquake collided with nearby power plant Fukushima Daiichi, causing the only nuclear disaster in history to rival Chernobyl in scope. These poems take a piercing, witty, and ferocious look into the heart...
Ants drunk on cherry-red hummingbird nectar. An ambulance rushing into the distance. And rain, endless rain: turning pulpy with sunlight, seemingly on the verge of a flood. These are the moments of an ordinary day—rendered, throughout these poems...
When her mother is diagnosed with a rare form of cancer, the author—a cook, collector of thrifted vintage cast iron, and fiercely devoted daughter, sister, and aunt—can’t help but wonder: Feed a fever, starve a cold, but what do we do for...
The K’iche’ creation myth of The Popol Vuh is thousands of years old, one of the only epics indigenous to the Americas. By turns poetic and lucid, sinuous and accessible, this verse translation—the first of its kind, and the first in the...
A companion volume to The Stuntman, this collection fuses the stories of two fabled couples: the mythical Narcissus and Echo, and Bob Dylan and Echo Star Helstrom. But where The Stuntman focused on Narcissus, these poems take...
A final collection fully inscribed with the daring of the author’s acrobatic mind and the force of his unrelenting spirit. These poems brush up against the pain, fear, and isolation that accompany a long illness, but with all the creative force...
The Boundary Waters is a national treasure—so when the authors learned of a danger facing the region, they decided to speak on behalf of the wilderness. This is the story of their year bearing witness to wild places and a passionate argument for...