From the publisher: A Long Late Pledge, Wendy Willis’s second book of poems and the first from Bear Star Press, arrives at the perfect moment in our national conversation about democracy, what it is and where it has failed. Willis’s book suggests what remedies there might be for resurrecting its original premise, this time including a pledge to honor what was left out of its charters and laws the first time around. Grounded primarily in the landscape of Willis’s home state of Oregon, the book contains a number of poems that find their footing farther east as well, as far as Monticello and beyond, and contains an afterward of sorts, “notes & commonplaces” that readers will want to consult from time to time as they read the poems.
Wendy Willis graduated from Georgetown University School of Law and now serves as executive director of the Deliberative Democracy Consortium, a national organization of “more than 50 foundations, nonprofit organizations, and universities, collaborating to support research activities and advance democratic practice in North America and around the world.” Her first book is Blood Sisters of the Republic (Press 53, 2012), and she has published essays and poems in Utne Reader, ZYZZYVA, Poetry Northwest, The Rumpus, and New England Review. Her essay “These Are Strange Times, My Dear: Considering Ai Weiwei’s @Large” appeared in 36.2 and her piece on Marcel Broodthaers appeared on NER Digital.
A Long Late Pledge can be purchased through SPD Distribution or directly from Bear Star Press.
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“With subtlety and insight, with precision and passion, Paisley Rekdal explores the consequences of the Vietnam War for Vietnamese, Americans, and herself. The result is The Broken Country, a moving and often gripping meditation on the fallout of war, from violence and racism to melancholy and trauma.”
—Viet Thanh Nguyen, author of The Sympathizer, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction
From the publisher: The Broken Country uses a violent incident that took place in Salt Lake City, Utah, in 2012 as a springboard for examining the long term cultural and psychological effects of the Vietnam War. To make sense of the shocking and baffling incident—in which a young homeless man born in Vietnam stabbed a number of white men purportedly in retribution for the war—Paisley Rekdal draws on a remarkable range of material and fashions it into a compelling account of the dislocations suffered by the Vietnamese and also by American-born veterans over the past decades.
Paisley Rekdal is the Poet Laureate of Utah and a professor of English at the University of Utah. She has been honored with a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, a Pushcart Prize, and a Fulbright Fellowship to South Korea. She has contributed to New England Review on several occasions, with her poems Leash and Horn of Plenty appearing in the current edition (38.3).
The Broken Country can be purchased directly from publisher University of Georgia Press or from independent booksellers.
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“There is a tidal force at work in these poems. They rush toward the reader with frenetic intensity, then slowly recede, leaving us drenched in language that is working at its highest level, language riding meaning the way foam crests a wave.”
—The Rumpus
From the publisher: When the Gnostic Gospels collide with new age spiritualism, the Oxford Happiness Test, and treatises on Buddhist practice, we know we’re in the territory of a Bruce Beasley collection. Known for his intense and continuing soul-quest through previous award-winning books, Beasley interrogates the absurdities and spiritual condition of twenty-first century America with despair, philosophic intelligence, and piercing humor.
Bruce Beasley is the author of eight collections of poetry. He has won three Pushcart Prizes, and his work appears in The Pushcart Book of Poetry: The Best Poems from the First 30 Years of the Pushcart Prize. He most recently appeared in New England Review with his poem “Shibboleth” (38.2).
All Soul Parts Returned can be purchased directly from publisher BOA Limited or from independent booksellers.