In Stars, she writes: "A chart drawn up / By an ancient hand, / Some dreamer looking out from land / To worlds of distant light / Across the dark sea of the sky: / His map, not for ships, / But for the mind to travel by."

"In [Black Lab], Young's tenth [book], he's clearly at the top of his game."-The Plain Dealer (Cleveland) --

Poetry. "Years ago, I predicted that David Sloan's name would easily join those who revel in the stubbornly elusive meld of craft and lyric. Ever since I've known him, he's mastered it with enviable ease, in deftly-spun poems probing what consoles and disquiets us--inexplicable loss, love that illuminates, the quirks and quandaries of the natural world. This is the book that will do it."--Patricia Smith "David Sloan's second collection of poems astonishes and delights at every turn, literally as each line breaks upon a next elegant phrase, apt image or surprising metaphor. There are several ekphrastic poems that are among the best I've ever read, a sestina that definitely is, a supple and indelible ghazal. The scope of subject matter is breathtaking: birth, childhood, grief, marriage, relationships of all ilks, including one's relationship to Nature, and many more. A few poems are hilariously funny, others beautifully dark and sobering. More are praise songs, and every mood and tone of voice is artfully encoded. Abundance enough, but here as well, a consistent richness of texture, of the intricate workings of sound and thought that only happen when someone falls madly in love with, and remains under the spell of, language itself. This collection demonstrates, full-bore, Sloan's accomplishment: a true poet expressing with elegant restraint and consummate skill the agony and the ecstasy of human existence in North America at this time in history."--Gray Jacobik

A stunning new collection of poems from the author of Speak Low Comparing any human life to "a restless choir" of impulses variously in conflict and at peace with one another, Carl Phillips, in his eleventh book, examines the double shadow that a life casts forth: "now risk, and now / faintheartedness." In poems that both embody and inhabit this double shadow, risk and faintheartedness prove to have the power equally to rescue us from ourselves and to destroy us. Spare, haunted, and haunting, yet not without hope, Double Shadow argues for life as a wilderness through which there's only the questing forward—with no regrets and no looking back. Double Shadow is a finalist for the 2011 National Book Award for Poetry Winner of the 2011 Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Poetry A Boston Globe Best Poetry Book of 2011

Poetry. Literary Nonfiction. African & African American Studies. Australian Book Review Book of the Year. Honorable mention for the 2017 Glenna Luschei Prize for African Poetry. "Timothy Ogene's poems are writings of witness, displacement and beauty. Instead of a home address there are poems as address, at once exquisitely gentle and acute. The sharpness of the poems' blades --whether literal, like the blades that peel cassavas and leave the speaker's arms scarred, or deeper injuries of trauma and loss--sits alongside their subtlety and tenderness. These are poems of deep attentiveness to the smallest encounters, and to the largest questions of love, doubt, solitude and migration. Their crafting reveals Ogene's deep reading, both of poetry and of the landscapes the poems explore. How do poems that bear witness to violence, loss and displacement open so gently to the reader? This paradox is one of many in these wise, important poems. I am reminded of Hélène Cixous's description of Paul Celan's poetry as 'writing that speaks of and through disaster such that disaster and desert become author or spring.' Where trees hold 'time in absent leaves,' these poems mourn roots but refrain from 'easy paths,' offering, instead, the force and grace of a numinous poetics."-- Felicity Plunkett "Where does he come from, Timothy Ogene? From Nigeria, from Liberia, from Texas, from Oxford, now Boston. But look for him in the future, where he will be writing great books. Look for him in the present, too, in this satisfying, wonderful book--already he can do everything--he makes music, his figurative language is rare in that it goes deep, is never arbitrary, there is a care for especially the poor people and objects of this world, he remains hidden behind his language yet clear, which is to say his ego does not control the writing, something else does--a desire to lead us gently to noticing. Not just noticing, experiencing. Suddenly an empty bench comes to the forefront of our sight, from the "remains" of fog. He can personify without anthropomorphizing, maybe because he loves the world without needing to hold on to any aspect of it. He is unusually free yet aware of the limitations imposed on us politically and yes by language itself. If you want some pleasure, slow down and listen to his poems."-- Ruth Lepson "Timothy Ogene's debut collection, DESCENT & OTHER POEMS, presents a lyric and emotional journey that swiftly and utterly captures the reader's eye and heart."--John Keene, judge for the 2017 Glenna Luschei Prize for African Poetry

"Kooser has written more perfect poems than any poet of his generation." -Dana Gioia, Can Poetry Matter?

'Brilliant' –Publishers Weekly Starred Review The legendary Judge Dee Renjie investigates a high-profile murder case in this intriguing companion novel to Inspector Chen and the Private Kitchen Murder set in seventh-century China. Judge Dee Renjie, Empress Wu's newly appointed Imperial Circuit Supervisor for the Tang Empire, is visiting provinces surrounding the grand capital of Chang'an. One night a knife is thrown through his window with a cryptic note attached: 'A high-flying dragon will have something to regret!' Minutes after the ominous warning appears, Judge Dee is approached by an emissary of Internal Minister Wu, Empress Wu's nephew. Minister Wu wants Judge Dee to investigate a high-profile murder supposedly committed by the well-known poetess and courtesan, Xuanji, who locals believe is possessed by the spirit of a black fox. Why is Minister Wu interested in Xuanji? Despite Xuanji confessing to the murder, is there more to the case than first appears? With the mysterious warning and a fierce power struggle playing out at the imperial court, Judge Dee knows he must tread carefully . . .

Autobiographical poetry from one of Kentucky’s rising Affrilachian literary stars. Bernard Clay’s autobiographical poetry debut, English Lit, juxtaposes the roots of Black male identity against an urban and rural Kentucky landscape. Hailed as one of the most authentic voices of his generation, Clay artfully renders coming-of-age in the predominately Black West End of Louisville, Kentucky. Balancing the spirited grit of a farmer and the careful lyricism of a poet, English Lit is a triumph of new Affrilachian—African American and Appalachian—literature.