Hinton is a rare example of a literary sinologist—that is, a classical scholar thoroughly conversant with, and connected to, contemporary poetry in English. —Eliot Weinberger, New York Review of Books
From the publisher: Henry David Thoreau, in The Maine Woods, describes a moment on Mount Katahdin when all explanations and assumptions fell away for him and he was confronted with the wonderful, inexplicable thusness of things. David Hinton takes that moment as the starting point for his account of a rewilding of consciousness in the West: a dawning awareness of our essential oneness with the world around us. Because there was no Western vocabulary for this perception, it fell to poets to make the first efforts at articulation, and those efforts were largely driven by Taoist and Ch’an (Zen) Buddhist ideas imported from ancient China. Hinton chronicles this rewilding through the lineage of avant-garde poetry in twentieth-century America—from Ezra Pound and Robinson Jeffers to Gary Snyder, W. S. Merwin, and beyond—including generous selections of poems that together form a compelling anthology of ecopoetry. In his much-admired translations, Hinton has recreated ancient Chinese rivers-and-mountains poetry as modern American poetry; here, he reenvisions modern American poetry as an extension of that ancient Chinese tradition: an ecopoetry that weaves consciousness into the Cosmos in radical and fundamental ways.
David Hinton is the author of Hunger Mountain, Existence, and many translations of classical Chinese poetry and philosophy. His work appeared in NER 13.2 and he is a former acting editor for NER. His books have earned wide acclaim and many awards, including a lifetime achievement award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
The Wilds of Poetry can be purchased directly from Shambhala Publications or from independent booksellers.
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With four well-reviewed novels already on the shelves, Charles Holdefer returns to bookstores once more with a collection of riotous short stories that speculate about the early life and times of a future Vice President.
From the publisher: This darkly humorous collection of short fiction by Charles Holdefer, author of The Contractor and Back in the Game, revolves gracefully around an esoteric and, it goes without saying, entirely fictional account of the imaginary formative years of someone who at times resembles America’s most notorious—so far!—Vice President. This center provides a jumping-off point for free-wheeling, fanciful explorations, both poetic and satirical, into the archaeology of the banality of evil, that reveal, with a light touch and forgiving good humor, the soul-distorting burdens of duty, repression and narcissism in our daily life.
Author of four novels, Charles Holdefer grew up in Iowa and is a graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and the Sorbonne. He currently teaches at the University of Poitiers, France. He most recently appeared in the pages of New England Review with his short story “Big and Nasty” (NER 37.1).
Dick Cheney in Shorts can be purchased online or from independent booksellers.
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Every poem is exquisitely crafted, with crisp, clean lines and imagery that dazzles. —The Washington Post
From the publisher: Laura Kasischke’s long-awaited selected poems presents the breadth of her probing vision that subverts the so-called “normal.” A lover of fairy tales, Kasischke showcases her command of the symbolic, with a keen attention to sound in her exploration of the everyday—whether reflections on loss or the complicated realities of childhood and family. As literary critic Stephen Burt wrote in Boston Review, “The future will not see us by one poet alone. . . . If there is any justice in that future, Kasischke is one of the poets it will choose.” This incandescent volume makes the case that Laura Kasischke is one of America’s great poets, and her presence is secure.
Laura Kasischke is a poet and novelist whose fiction has been made into several feature-length films. Her poetry has been featured in number of NER issues over the years. Her book of poems, Space, in Chains, won the National Book Critics Circle Award. She teaches at the University of Michigan and most recently appeared in the pages of New England Review with her poem “Executioner as Muse” (NER 35.3).
Where Now: New and Selected Poems can be purchased from Copper Canyon Press or from independent booksellers.
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Pulitzer Prize Winning poet Paul Muldoon, deemed by many to be the most influential poet writing in English today, brings the world a collection of 19 witty song lyrics in the vein of great bards such as Bob Dylan.
From the publisher: Paul Muldoon is widely considered the greatest living poet of his generation. A former professor of poetry at Oxford, and once poetry editor of the New Yorker, Muldoon’s influence on poetry is incalculable. At once playful, profoundly literate, pop savvy and allusive to the max, his poetry has tens of thousands of readers and fans worldwide. Sadie and the Sadists features punk-rock-style song lyrics—zany, witty, brilliant, sometimes startling—by the master poet, songs played by the spoken word music group, Rogue Oliphant.
Born in Northern Ireland, Paul Muldoon moved to the United States to begin his enduring career as poet, professor, and critic. Among numerous awards and titles which he holds, he is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in the United Kingdom, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Muldoon is a longtime contributor of poetry and criticism to New England Review, having appeared most recently in NER 34.2 with a comment on Seamus Heaney’s “Du Bellay in Rome.”
Sadie and the Sadists can be purchased directly from Eyewear Publishing, or from independent booksellers.
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Nutting deftly exploits the comic potential of perverse attachments . . . The novel charms in its witty portrait of a woman desperate to reconnect with her humanity. —Publishers Weekly, Best Summer Books of 2017
From the publisher: In her second full-length novel, Alissa Nutting demonstrates just how far some will go for love—and how far some will go to escape it. At once an absurd, raunchy comedy and a profound meditation on marriage, monogamy, and family, Made for Love is both perceptive and compulsively readable.
Alissa Nutting is an assistant professor of English at Grinnell College. She is the author of the story collection Unclean Jobs for Women and Girls, as well as the novel Tampa. Nutting contributed most recently to New England Review with her piece “Practice Falling Asleep,” part of the NER Digital series Secret Americas.
Made for Love can be purchased directly from publisher Harper Collins or from independent booksellers.
