Need something new to read for the Sealey Challenge? Check out these new poetry titles from some of our partners, sponsors, and advertisers.
2024 Summer Books
36 Dwellings by Jan M. Padios
Burrow Press, July 2024
A literary-architectural hybrid project, 36 Dwellings sketches fault lines within a Filipinx family, linking intimate harm to the forces of colonialism and labor migration. “A haunting cartography of memory and movement.” –Monica Ong
Good Monster by Diannely Antigua
Copper Canyon Press, May 2024
At the crux of despair, Antigua locates a resilient desire to find a love that will remain, to feel pleasure in an inhospitable body and, above all, to keep on living.
Fling Diction by Frances Cannon
Green Writers Press, February 2024
Fling Diction is about the vulnerability of desire, including queer love, polyamory, familial drama, dog/human companionship, and longing in isolation—experiences intensified by the sensuality and ferocity of nature, the speaker’s blunders, embraces, and revelations.
Some Dark Familiar by Julia C. Alter
Green Writers Press, April 2024
Some Dark Familiar, an excavation of the shadow sides of motherhood, turns an unflinching eye on postpartum depression, maternal ambivalence, pregnancy termination, and the complexities of intimacy for a single mother raising her son in America.
Cassandra: A Dramatic Poem by Lesia Ukrainka (Larysa Kosach)
translated by Nina Murray, introduced by Marko Pavlyshyn
Harvard Library of Ukrainian Literature, June 2024
Lesia Ukrainka (Larysa Kosach), a cult Ukrainian feminist writer of the early 20th century, reimagines the story of Cassandra whose true prophecies are not believed by her people because she’s a woman and a poet.
Hardcover $29.95, Paperback $19.95,, ebook $19.95
Nazar Boy by Tarik Dobbs
Haymarket Books, June 2024
From one of the most imaginative and radical voices in contemporary poetry, a debut collection of fierce tenderness, political acuity, and powerful lyricism. Nazar Boy explores surveillance, queerness, disability, race, and working-class identity in post-9/11 America.
A Map Of My Want by Faylita Hicks
Haymarket Books, July 2024
A Map of My Want follows a nonbinary femme as they explore the sensual intersection of the personal and the political, a crossroads to which their sexual liberation brought them after their escape from a religious cult.
We the Gathered Heat edited by Franny Choi, Bao Phi, Noʻu Revilla, and Terisa Siagatonu
Haymarket Books, September 2024
A rich anthology featuring some of the brightest voices in contemporary poetry who challenge, expand, and illuminate the meaning of the label “Asian American and Pacific Islander” (AAPI) in today’s world.
book of provocations by mónica teresa ortiz
Host Publications, July 2024
“In fragmented lyric and explosive song, book of provocations explores catastrophe, illustrating in verse the refusal of the human spirit to submit to systems of oppression, and its undying cry for liberation.”
Instructions for Banno by Kiran Bath
Kelsey Street Press, July 2024
Kiran Bath renders themes of subjugation, domestic violence, honor killings, and infanticide alongside unrequited love, sisterhood, motherhood, and devotion in cathartic form. Instructions for Banno is a diary that at once ruptures and yet survives.
Fall Creek by Lyn Hejinian
Litmus Press, April 2024
A new book-length lyric from one of our most prolific contemporary poets and thinkers. Fall Creek swirls the literal with the littoral, sediment with sentiment, compounding a poetry of everyday life in all its plenitude.
Lost in Living by Halyna Kruk
Lost Horse Press, May 2024,
Lost in Living presents Halyna Kruk’s unpublished work from the immediate, tumultuous “pre-invasion” years before full-scale war in Ukraine. These poems, distinct from war-focused ones, echo a sense of poetic control through vivid imagery and a juxtaposition of calmness and vulnerability.
Leaving Biddle City by Marianne Chan
Sarabande, July 2024
Leaving Biddle City details one Filipina American speaker’s experience of growing up amid a white, Midwestern suburbia mythologized as “Biddle City.” What’s achieved is a work of great play and meticulous beauty.
Coachella Elegy by Christian Gullette
Trio House Press, July 2024
Winner of the 2023 Trio Award, Christian Gullette's Coachella Elegy explores the queer promised lands and poolside utopias of the American West even as they are threatened by environmental destruction.
The Bamboo Wife by Leona Sevick
Trio House Press, July 2024
Leona Sevick's The Bamboo Wife captures the experiences of an imperfect woman held up against the standard of "good" wife and mother.
Architect by Alison Thumel
University of Arkansas, April 2024
In Architect, the buildings of Frank Lloyd Wright become a blueprint for elegy, as Thumel overlays the language of architecture with the language of grief. Winner, 2024 Miller Williams Poetry Prize, Selected by Patricia Smith.
Self-Mythology by Saba Keramati
University of Arkansas, April 2024
Blending the personal and the political, Self-Mythology explores multiraciality and the legacy of exile alongside Keramati’s uniquely American origin as the only child of political refugees from China and Iran.
The Trouble with Light by Jeremy Michael Clark
University of Arkansas, April 2024
Clark’s poems embody a restless, rigorous curiosity. Largely set in the poet’s hometown of Louisville, Kentucky, his portraits of interiority gracefully juxtapose the sorrows of alienation and self-neglect with the restorative power of human connection.
Wager by Adele Elise Williams
University of Arkansas, April 2024
Wager is a raucous debut celebrating fearlessness and determination wrested from strife. In the southern gothic world of her poems, Williams tangles with perceived failures as a wayward daughter, recovering addict, and skeptical scholar.
Anishinaabe Songs for a New Millennium by Marcie R. Rendon
University of Minnesota Press, July 2024
Bringing memory to life and the senses to attention, Marcie R. Rendon summons her ancestors’ songs and breaks the boundaries that time would impose, carrying the Anishinaabe way of life forward in the world.
Santa Tarantula by Jordan Pérez
University of Notre Dame Press, February 2024
Jordan Pérez grants a haunting voice to the voiceless, delves into Cuban history and identity, and confronts trauma and violence in her debut collection Santa Tarantula, the tenth winner of the Andrés Montoya Poetry Prize.