Four fabulous new interns have joined the Press for our first session of 2026—remotely, from around the country—and it’s our pleasure to introduce you to each of them here. We’ll share their 60-second Q&As every #MeettheInternMonday in the coming weeks, so check back!
P.S. Interested in becoming a Copper Canyon Press intern? Applications for the Fall 2026 cohort open on March 15th. Learn more about our internship program here.
Meet Ernie
CCP: What’s your favorite aspect of the intern experience at Copper Canyon Press so far?
E: What has stayed with me most is the people I get to work with at CCP. Their generosity, their seriousness about the work, their collective care for growth, everything! Being in continual contact with poetry, and with the sustained thinking required to bring a book of poems into the world, has definitely reshaped my life, and I deeply welcome that feeling. So far, I’m learning just how powerful a collaborative publishing space can be, especially one grounded in a shared purpose. I am grateful to be working within this system and learning from it as it unfolds.
CCP: Please tell us about a forthcoming Copper Canyon Press title you’re excited about, and why.
E: Well, so many incredible books are coming out in the approaching seasons, but I think everyone should keep an eye out for Erin Belieu’s Cocklebur. The poems in this collection confront grief, power, and survival without softening them; if you love poetry that refuses to be comfortable but remains deeply attentive to intimacy, you’ll love this one. Belieu writes with an unsentimental clarity about what we inherit and what we carry. I’m genuinely excited to sink into this collection; it’s exactly my kind of book.
CCP: Please give us a line from a poem that you can’t get out of your head.
E: I keep returning to Mary Ruefle’s brief poem, “Voyager”: “I have become an orchid / washed in on the salt white beach. / Memory, / what can I make of it now / that might please you — / this life, already wasted / and still strewn with / miracles?”
Meet Caroline
CCP: What’s your favorite aspect of the intern experience at Copper Canyon Press so far?
C: I found a place to speculate earnestly about Ashbery’s influence on Lerner within the same conversation as the word “dudebro” amongst people who understand the semiotic baggage of those nouns. It’s spirited and lively. I get to talk about poetry every day.
CCP: Please tell us about a forthcoming Copper Canyon Press title you’re excited about, and why.
E: I’m waiting patiently for Kazim Ali’s The Man in 119 to unfurl into our world. Kazim Ali is a surrealist. Or he’s a sensualist. He’ll speak plainly and with puncture. He has edited books by queer writers that I have poured over and have poured into me. To be offered into the intimacy of grief, in this new collection, however he chooses to structure, or restructure it, seems like a vibrant gift to me.
CCP: Please give us a line from a poem that you can’t get out of your head.
I’ve had Charles Bernstein’s “Questionnaire” sonnet on the mind as of late. Two of my all-time favorite things, if you know me at all: sonnets and questions. What’s been ringing in my head is the fourth question: “a) I can understand the world to a sufficient extent. / b) The world is basically baffling.” I’m not sure which I’d choose. But, I’m interested in the word “sufficient” or “basically.”