Mary Peelen's spare poems pulse with what they contain and describe--in both the imagistic and the mathematical sense of the word--harnessing the power of the sciences to navigate the chthonic worlds of illness, loss, and desire on both personal and planetary scales. Peelen denies the divisions of mind and body, art and science, precision and ardor. Her poems resonate with allusion (Lady Lazarus's hair as a supernova) and sound (copernicium, ununoctium). Peelen unveils new ways to make sense of our complicated, contradictory world. -- Elizabeth Bradfeld, naturalist and author of Once Removed

Poetry. Middle Eastern Studies. Women's Studies. In TUNSIYA/AMRIKIYA, emerging Tunisian-American poet Leila Chatti explores the nuances of multicultural identity, the necessity of family, and the perennial search for belonging. From vantage points on both sides of the Atlantic, Chatti investigates the perpetual exile that comes from always being separated from some essential part of oneself.

"An abundance of the world's fruits, herbs and patries, gestures of hospitality and regard...[the author]...who writes in the midst of things, and out of a searing awareness of loss and obliviousness to loss, desire and its absence, what it means to be spiritually awake, to behold human life in all its possibility, pathos and tansience"--p. [4] of cover.

“The most original piece of travel writing about the Antarctic region I have read in years . . . Bradfield is a literary tour guide in the best sense.” —Elizabeth Leane, author of Antarctica in Fiction: Imaginative Narratives of the Far South A poet and a naturalist, Elizabeth Bradfield documents and examines her work as a guide on ships in Antarctica through poetry, prose, and photographs, offering an incisive insider’s vision that challenges traditional tropes of The Last Continent. Inspired by haibun, a stylistic form of Japanese poetry invented by seventeenth-century poet Matsuo Basho to chronicle his journeys in remote Japan, Bradfield uses photographs, compressed prose, and short poems to examine our relationship to remoteness, discovery, expertise, awe, labor, temporary societies, “pure” landscapes, and tourism’s service economy. Antarctica was the focus of Bradfield’s Approaching Ice, written before she had set foot on the continent; now Toward Antarctica furthers her investigation with boots on the ground. A complicated love letter, Toward Antarctica offers a unique view of one of the world’s most iconic wild places. Like having a poet’s behind-the-scenes tour of a natural history museum . . . the exquisite landscape and wildlife come into vivid view; so does the gutsy work and responsibility of being a naturalist guide.” —Alison Hawthorne Deming, author of Zoologies: On Animals and the Human Spirit

Poetry. SO LONG THE SKY is an echo. A feeling that lingers between the past and the present. The motivation of a family history that spans decades and continents, and a history that moulds and remembers--where it has been, where it is going. "[An] extraordinary book of poems."--Eleanor Wilner "SO LONG THE SKY is a beautifully written travelogue of the soul."--John Skoyles "These poems are blessed with life and change. Like birds, these poems move from ash to flame and then back to life."--Devin Kelly

Until the age of twelve, Georgia Lee Kay-Stern believed she was Jewish — the story of her Cree birth family had been kept secret. Now she’s living on her own and attending first year university, and with her adoptive parents on sabbatical in Costa Rica, the old questions are back. What does it mean to be Native? How could her life have been different? As Winnipeg is threatened by the flood of the century, Georgia Lee’s brutal murder sparks a tense cultural clash. Two families wish to claim her for burial. But Georgia Lee never figured out where she belonged, and now other people have to decide for her.

Poetry. HOW TO KNOW THE FLOWERS by Jessica Smith is a poetry collection about processes: The process of naturally dyeing flowers, the process of dealing with trauma, the process of remembering. In her poems, Smith examines sexual harassment, female friendship, and grief, accepting the gaps and fragments that unavoidably occur while doing such work.

THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER Women in Clothes is a book unlike any other. It is essentially a conversation among hundreds of women of all nationalities—famous, anonymous, religious, secular, married, single, young, old—on the subject of clothing, and how the garments we put on every day define and shape our lives. It began with a survey. The editors composed a list of more than fifty questions designed to prompt women to think more deeply about their personal style. Writers, activists, and artists including Cindy Sherman, Kim Gordon, Kalpona Akter, Sarah Nicole Prickett, Tavi Gevinson, Miranda July, Roxane Gay, Lena Dunham, and Molly Ringwald answered these questions with photographs, interviews, personal testimonies, and illustrations. Even our most basic clothing choices can give us confidence, show the connection between our appearance and our habits of mind, express our values and our politics, bond us with our friends, or function as armor or disguise. They are the tools we use to reinvent ourselves and to transform how others see us. Women in Clothes embraces the complexity of women’s style decisions, revealing the sometimes funny, sometimes strange, always thoughtful impulses that influence our daily ritual of getting dressed.

Winner of the 2009 Lexi Rudnitsky First Book Prize in Poetry. Drawing on sources as varied as ESL classroom discussions, a colonial travelogue, and the Dungeons & Dragons Player’s Handbook, Alexandra Teague explores how language alternately empowers and fails us in this smart, searching, and accessible debut.

New poems that showcase high-art and popular culture, vamps and giant artichoke statues, and Freudian Disney dolls in a poignant exploration of cultural and personal legacies. This heartrending and darkly playful new collection by Alexandra Teague tries to understand the edges of self in a patriarchal culture and in relation to a family history of mental illness and loss. In poems that mix high art and popular culture (from classical Greek statues to giant plaster artichokes, Cubism to Freudian Disney dolls), Teague interweaves self-reflection with the stories and lives of mythic and historic female figures, such as the dangerous-wise witch Baba Yaga and early-20th-century sculptors’ model Audrey Munson--calling across time and place to explore desire, grief, and the representation and misrepresentation of the female form.