From Publishers Weekly
How does one communicate the intersection of life and the imagination-its sources, questions and preoccupations? This anthology of new American poets variously, and more often than not, exquisitely explores this puzzle. Comprised of discordant voices-85, to be exact-from the gritty, near-confessional wordplay of Olena Kalytiak Davis and Paisley Rekdal to the terse experiments and mini-saga prose poems of Matthea Harvey and Joel Brouwer, this anthology uncaps the concerns of contemporary life, releasing vapors to mix with the contemporary imagination. (Or, life and imagination as perceived by poets under age 45 and with three or fewer books-for better or worse, the anthology's selection criteria). The imagination rests, as with as with Oni Buchanan's exploration of love-as-yak, or, in Carrie St. George Comer's poems, reels in memory. Other times, emboldened by language, the imagination "weaves / the world together with a quicker blur of armed / seduction" (Brenda Shaughnessy, "Postfeminism"). Even the titles (compare Maurice Manning's "On God" to Timothy Donnelly's "Twenty-Seven Props for a production of Eine Lebenszeit") reveal the historical, philosophical and aesthetic sources of these poems that often speak to "you," the "Bare-faced, flint-hearted, recoilless / Reader" (Olena Kalytiak Davis, "sweet reader, flannelled and tulled"), inviting intimacy, assuming courage and requiring immersion in the moment.
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About the Author
Marvin's first book, World's Tallest Disaster, was awarded the 2000 Kathryn A. Morton Prize by Robert Pinksy (Sarabande 2001). In 2002, she received the Kate Tufts Discovery Award. Her poems have appeared in The Paris Review, New England Review, Ploughshares, Fence, Georgia Review, Slate, and The Kenyon Review. She is a creative writing professor at the College of Staten Island. Dumanis was the Poetry Curator at Brazos Bookstore, a former Poetry Editor of Gulf Coast, and is currently completing his Ph.D. in Creative Writing at the University of Houston. A two-time Academy of American Poets Prizewinner and recipient of Fulbright, Truman Capote, and James Michener Fellowships, he has published his poems in numerous literary journals.
