Recent news featuring Copper Canyon Press poets.
“Friday and Death,” a review of I Was Bonnie & Clyde from The Poetry Foundation
“I Was Bonnie & Clyde, [Kasischke’s] latest collection of poems, expands her focus beyond the family to trace the violent myths that prop up American identity. . . . Inspired by legends about the [titular] couple as much as by historical fact, Kasischke’s poems channel the brutal, liberatory fantasies of American youth culture and the fiction that one can outrun gender and class categories on the open road.”—Sandra Simonds, The Poetry Foundation
“A Poetics of Survival: On Richard Siken’s Crush and I Do Know Some Things” in ZYZZYVA
“If Crush was a work of near intimacy clouded by questions of what was ‘real,’ then I Do Know Some Things is an act of true intimacy, creating a space where poet and reader can meet at last.”—Ashley Wang, ZYZZYVA
“Into the Hush: A Review” in the American Poetry Review
“Between the journey and the spark, Sze pauses in the hush, which can take the form of wonder or questioning but its primary form seems to be writing, or language itself . . . . Into the Hush marvels at the world while disturbing its readers with the imminent dangers that result from human violence, greed and neglect. Readers will tremble at its haunting beauty.”—Margaret Lee, American Poetry Review
Arthur Sze and Kareem James Abu-Zeid, on KSFR’s “The Last Word”
“[Transient Worlds is] a beautiful and concise volume that celebrates the language of poetry from ancient to modern times around the globe.”—Carly Newfield, “The Last Word” on KSFR
Listen to the full episode here.
Arthur Sze on “Coffee & Culture” with Matthew Chase-Daniel
Arthur Sze joins Matthew Chase-Daniel for a discussion about his newest collection, Transient Worlds.
Listen to the full episode here.
“Kelli Russell Agodon on Play in Poetry” in KVNF’s Emerging Form
“I use play as kind of a backdoor to talk about tougher subjects, […] but also as a front door for the reader to be able to listen.”–Kelli Russell Agodon
Listen to the full episode here.
“On Natalie Shapero’s Stay Dead” in The Rumpus
“The collection feels more like a rehearsal than a story with a neat conclusion. We follow along as the poet pulls on threads that begin to knot with each other. How much of living is performative? What are the social and economic forces directing these performances? What do they have to do with dying? We are shown performance as a key to understanding the layers of death . . .”—Letizia Mariani, The Rumpus
“The Scent from a Cupboard” from Erin Belieu’s Cocklebur: New and Selected Poems in On the Seawall
“Hands petting you beneath / the Christmas tree / as you pretended / as they pretended / the whole house shut down for the night”—Erin Belieu
Five New Poems from Chase Twichell’s The World It Was in Salmagundi Magazine
“I hear the first faint bird-barking, / and see the wavering V of winter coming on. // It takes me back to childhood. / Dad shooting birds in the October woods. // I’d pluck them on the walk home.”—from “How Canada Geese Became Holy” by Chase Twichell
Four New Poems by Randall Mann in Salmagundi Magazine
“We break apart, our obsolescence planned. / An expiration date is good design, / I start to think. Have I lost the upper hand?”—from “Safe Word” by Randall Mann
An excerpt from Egrets, While War by Tishani Doshi
“If you have known love, understand: / The view to infinity is marred by hedgerow, /a line of bedclothes drying. The going, / when it goes, is forever gone.”—from “De-extinction Postcard” by Tishani Doshi