"In these last prayerful poems by Jean Valentine, the poet visits loss, death, and transitional states. Full of longing, connections, and intergenerational knowledge, Valentine continues the mystical journey that has carried her through a lifetime devoted to poetry. Spirits connect. Guides are everywhere as she is "leaving all worlds behind." Love doesn't disappear but is steadfast and without boundaries. A poet of deep tenderness for everything living,...

"First you must realize you're homesick for all the lives you're not living. Then, you must commit to the road and the rising loneliness. To the sincere thrill of coming apart. So begins Joy Sullivan's Instructions for Traveling West- a lush debut collection that examines what happens when we leave home and leap into the deep unknown. Mid-pandemic, Sullivan left the man she planned to marry, sold her house, quit her corporate job, and drove west....

"Daniel Khalastchi boldly strides across a landscape of smoldering fires, unmarked boxes, and pictures of senators in airplane bathrooms. Exhilarating and innovative, The Story of Your Obstinate Survival collapses genre and upends narrative convention with dazzling wordplay and thrilling imagery. Inhabiting a world trapped somewhere between dreams and reality, these poems fuse the political and personal, public and private, pleasing and piquant, to...

"In this follow-up to her award-winning collection, Toxicon and Arachne, Joyelle McSweeney proposes a link between style and survival, even in the gravest of circumstances. Setting herself the task of writing a poem a day and accepting a single icon as her starting point, however unlikely—River Phoenix, Mary Magdalene, a backyard skunk—McSweeney follows each inspiration to the point of exhaustion and makes it through each difficult day. In frank,...

"In this adorable, often amusing collection, Rebecca Kai Dotlich, Lois Lowry, and twelve other poets give thanks for those who bark, purr, chitter, and slither. The poems feature fourteen different animal companions, including a cat snoozing in her bed, a goldfish dancing in her bowl, and a gerbil nestling in an overall pocket. Illustrated in warm, tender detail by Lita Judge, Bless Our Pets captures the charms—and antics—of pets and the people...