{"title":"LGBTQ+ Voices","description":"\u003cp\u003eA reading list of our LGBTQ+ voices.\u003c\/p\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"beautiful-in-the-mouth","title":"Beautiful in the Mouth","description":"\u003ch4\u003eWinner of the 2009 A. Poulin, Jr. Poetry Prize\u003cbr\u003eSelected by Thomas Lux\u003cb\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\n\u003c\/h4\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWhat happens when the things we care for—children, lovers, parents, dreams, homes—are taken away? What populates our landscapes and how do we perceive those objects? In her debut collection of poems, \u003ci\u003eBeautiful in the Mouth\u003c\/i\u003e, Keetje Kuipers attempts to answer these questions. Written over the course of five years and a geographic journey spanning Paris to New York to Oregon, Kuipers’ poems examine contemporary female loss in terms of literal and figurative geography: the empty bedroom of a dead child, a clear-cut hillside outside of a logging town. From her own unique perspective, Kuipers continues in the spirit of poets like Elizabeth Bishop to examine how loss forces itself upon unwilling landscapes and how those landscapes must alter to receive that loss.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch4\u003eRemembering Our Last Meal in New York\u003c\/h4\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI eat \u003cem\u003echirashizushi\u003c\/em\u003e, peel the raw fish\u003cbr\u003e from their sweet bed of seasoned rice.\u003cbr\u003e I know right now the beaten mares on 59th\u003cbr\u003e stomp slowly at the snowy curb, take great\u003cbr\u003e pitchers of air into their distended lungs\u003cbr\u003e and bloom from between yellowed teeth\u003cbr\u003e white peonies against the trees of Central Park.\u003cbr\u003e I have tried to forget your light, the way it breaks\u003cbr\u003e me open, even now, and makes me speak,\u003cbr\u003e how it glitters in the gutters up and down Eighth Avenue,\u003cbr\u003e swirling in pools of snowmelt, so many\u003cbr\u003e sparkling tea leaves I still read for signs of you.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch4\u003ePraise for the collection\u003c\/h4\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e“I was immediately struck by the boldness of imagination, the strange cadences, and wild music of these poems. We should be glad that young poets like Keetje Kuipers are making their voices heard not by tearing up the old language but by making the old language new.” \u003cstrong\u003e—Thomas Lux, from the Foreword\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch6\u003eISBN: \u003cspan\u003e978-1-934414-33-0\u003c\/span\u003e\n\u003c\/h6\u003e\n\u003ch6\u003e© BOA Editions, Ltd. 2010\u003c\/h6\u003e","brand":"BOA Editions, Ltd.","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":8420054405,"sku":"9781934414330","price":16.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0982\/0178\/products\/BeautifulInTheMouth.jpg?v=1527683181"},{"product_id":"the-keys-to-the-jail","title":"The Keys to the Jail","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003eThe Keys to the Jail continues Elizabeth Bishop’s tradition of the art of losing, but delves deeper, asking the question of who is to blame for all we’ve lost. Keetje Kuipers’s new \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003ecollection calls us to reexamine the harsh words of failed love, the aging of a once-beautiful body, and our own voracious desires. Kuipers is a poet of daring leaps and unflinching observations, whose richly-textured lyrics travel from Montana’s great wildernesses to the ocean-fogged streets of San Francisco as they search out the heart that’s lost its way.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch4\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003e“\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eOne of Us Can't Live Like This\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e”\u003c\/strong\u003e\n\u003c\/h4\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWe might be unhappy for the rest\u003cbr\u003eof our lives. It\u003cspan\u003e’\u003c\/span\u003es not inconceivable -- \u003cbr\u003ethe skiff of dust on your hands, the slow\u003cbr\u003esmelting of years. How would I know\u003cbr\u003eif you call me\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cem\u003edarling\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003ein your sleep?\u003cbr\u003eA promise is a train lying in a field\u003cbr\u003efor decades: we take pictures of the weeds\u003cbr\u003ethat flower around it and talk about the days\u003cbr\u003ewhen it arrived with a whistle of steam.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch4\u003e\u003cstrong\u003ePraise for \u003cem\u003eThe Keys to the Jail\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/h4\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;\"\u003e“Keetje Kuipers’s poems are daring, formally beautiful and driven by rich imagery and startling ideas.”\u003cstrong\u003e—Tracy K. Smith\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;\"\u003e“Quietly ferocious, \u003cem\u003eThe Keys to the Jail\u003c\/em\u003e is full of love and after-love poems that come clad with ‘bell[ies] of rusted steel.’ These poems are not afraid to feel, not afraid of desire or beauty or the inevitability of their respective undoings, not afraid ‘to eat the filter on the cigarette.’ Yet there is such generosity here in the ‘repenned’ landscape—out among the wolves and ghosts, the rodeo queens and Dairy Queens—that we are allowed to glean from hunger, a form of contentment, and still welcome the cavernous desire for more.”\u003cstrong\u003e—Elyse Fenton \u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch4\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e About the Author\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/h4\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;\"\u003eKeetje Kuipers’s debut collection, \u003cem\u003eBeautiful in the Mouth\u003c\/em\u003e, won the A. Poulin, Jr. Poetry Prize. Kuipers holds a BA from Swarthmore College and an MFA from the University of Oregon. Her poetry appears widely in such venues as \u003cem\u003eAmerican Poetry Review, Indiana Review\u003c\/em\u003e, and \u003cem\u003eJubilat\u003c\/em\u003e. She is the recipient of fellowships from the Vermont Studio Center, Squaw Valley Community of Writers, and Oregon Literary Arts. A former Wallace Stegner Fellow at Stanford University, Kuipers is currently an assistant professor at Auburn University.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;\"\u003eISBN: 9781938160264\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"BOA Editions, Ltd.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":8420284805,"sku":"9781938160264","price":16.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0982\/0178\/products\/THE_KEYS_TO.jpg?v=1527683595"},{"product_id":"trouble-the-water","title":"Trouble the Water","description":"\u003ch4\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eWinner, \u003ca href=\"https:\/\/www.boaeditions.org\/pages\/a-poulin-jr-poetry-prize\" target=\"_blank\"\u003eA. POULIN, JR. POETRY PRIZE\u003c\/a\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFinalist, 2017 Kate Tufts Discovery Award\u003cbr\u003e2017 Thom Gunn Award for Gay Poetry\u003cbr\u003e2017 Lambda Literary Award for Gay Poetry\u003cbr\u003e2017 Norma Farber First Book Award                                                                     \u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/h4\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eRich in religious and artistic imagery, \u003cem\u003eTrouble the Wate\u003c\/em\u003er is an intriguing exploration of race, sexuality, and identity, particularly where self-hood is in constant flux. These intimate, sensual poems interweave pop culture and history—moving from the Bible through several artistic eras—to interrogate what it means to be, as Austin says, \u003cspan\u003e“\u003c\/span\u003efully human as a queer, black body\" in 21st century America.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch4\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cspan\u003e“\u003c\/span\u003ePrimer for Sainthood\u003cspan\u003e”\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/h4\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003eSo you want to kiss the passionflowers\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003ein his hands, the blooming flies and blood?\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003eSo you would fast and serve his meals,\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003emeats and bread, liquors, sweets?\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003eHappily, you say, drunk on the waters\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003eof his smile. And if he does not smile\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003ethat day? If out of boredom he says, \u003c\/span\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003ekneel\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003eand wash my feet, every day you must\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003edrink of this water.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003e Happily, you say. Again\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003ewith this happiness. And if he breaks you?\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003eBatters you with his fists? Batters you\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003elike a dorr and hands back your happiness\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003e—a dozen knocked teeth—would you say\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003eAgain my lord?\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003e What wouldn’t you pay \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003efor an endless night with the god? O you\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003ewho would starve for such music,\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003ethere is another sweetness saved for those\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003ewho wash and bind the wounds, who join the feast.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch4\u003e\u003cb\u003ePraise for \u003cem\u003eTrouble the Water\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/h4\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003e“\u003c\/span\u003eSkilled with the ability to harness detail and stringent images, Derrick Austin creates a lush and smoldering landscape in which the very soul is tested.\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cem\u003eTrouble the Water\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003eis a book of devotion, a metaphysical book that troubles God, the landscape of Florida, the always-fallible bodies of men, and even the body of art. Austin writes: ‘Lord in the pigment, the crushed, colored stones. \/ Lord in the carved marble chest. I turn away \/ from art.’ But you will not be able to turn away from this beautiful debut.\u003cspan\u003e”\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e—C. Dale Young\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003e“\u003c\/span\u003eAustin’s remarkable debut collection opens with a quote from John 5:4–6 . . . foreshadowing how water, religion\/spirituality, and body focus become vehicles to explore being black, homosexual, male, and a human being in a troubling century. ‘San Souci’ epitomizes the sophistication of form and thought in Austin’s poetry by using an effect resembling Versailles’ Hall of Mirrors as the poem’s speaker reflects on paintings, how they reflect life, his body, his lover’s body, how he can see his lover as a painting or see the act of pleasuring another artfully reflected back to him. Whether encountering European catacombs or the Gulf Coast’s post-oil-spill devastation, all of Austin’s lyrical poems are poignant and empowered.” \u003cstrong\u003e—\u003cem\u003eBooklist\u003c\/em\u003e, *Starred*\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“This collection is well-suited to readers prepared interrogate what they love and what they distrust. In Austin’s hands, the exquisite can be ominous while the grotesque can turn charming, and his poems wisely assert that the world is unforgiving and yet full of mercy—that one can question beauty and yet still be beholden to it.” \u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e—Publishers Weekly\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cspan\u003e“\u003c\/span\u003eTrouble the Water\u003c\/em\u003e is an auspicious debut, a deep and resonant volume which nurses wonder in the face of sorrow and anger, wonder in the presence of loss. Here we follow a speaker who proclaims early on, “my heart swims\/ in gladness at the changeable world.” I want to keep these words as a credo, recite them often. I want to receive the world this way every day.” \u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e—The Rumpus\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003e“\u003c\/span\u003eDerrick Austin’s stunning debut, \u003cem\u003eTrouble the Water\u003c\/em\u003e, gives readers unique insight on what it means to be a queer, black man in today’s world. He navigates the complicated worlds of race, sexuality, and religion with such fearlessness that we as readers can’t turn away even if we wanted to. . . . Austin is an important voice in poetry. His book comes at a time when it is becoming more and more difficult to ignore the social injustices these communities face. Trouble the Water is not just the title of Austin’s book; it is a command. The only question now is whether or not we will listen.” \u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e—PANK Magazine\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003e“‘\u003c\/span\u003eExpect poison of the standing water,\u003cspan\u003e’\u003c\/span\u003e Blake warned, highlighting the dangers of imaginative stagnation. I’m now tempted to believe that Blake himself has sent us Derrick Austin and his remarkable collection, \u003cem\u003eTrouble the Water\u003c\/em\u003e. At once gospel and troubadour song, these deeply spiritual and expansively erotic poems are lucid, unflinching, urgent. This is an extraordinary debut.\u003cspan\u003e”\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e—Mary Szybist, winner of the National Book Award\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch6\u003ePublication Date: April 12, 2016\u003cbr\u003eISBN: \u003cstrong\u003e978-1-942683-04-9\u003c\/strong\u003e\n\u003c\/h6\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e© BOA Editions, Ltd. 2016\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"BOA Editions, Ltd.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":8420423685,"sku":"9781942683049","price":17.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0982\/0178\/products\/TroubletheWater_FinalFront.jpg?v=1527683771"},{"product_id":"when-i-grow-up-i-want-to-be-a-list-of-further-possibilities","title":"When I Grow Up I Want to Be a List of Further Possibilities","description":"\u003ch3\u003eThis title is available on audiobook! Get your copy here, or wherever you listen to audiobooks!\u003ciframe width=\"100%\" height=\"166\" src=\"https:\/\/w.soundcloud.com\/player\/?url=https%3A\/\/api.soundcloud.com\/tracks\/1207935844\u0026amp;color=%23353b41\u0026amp;auto_play=false\u0026amp;hide_related=false\u0026amp;show_comments=true\u0026amp;show_user=true\u0026amp;show_reposts=false\u0026amp;show_teaser=true\"\u003e\u003c\/iframe\u003e\n\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"font-size: 10px; color: #cccccc; line-break: anywhere; word-break: normal; overflow: hidden; white-space: nowrap; text-overflow: ellipsis; font-family: Interstate,Lucida Grande,Lucida Sans Unicode,Lucida Sans,Garuda,Verdana,Tahoma,sans-serif; font-weight: 100;\"\u003e\n\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/soundcloud.com\/user-572920496\" title=\"BOA Editions\" style=\"color: #cccccc; text-decoration: none;\" target=\"_blank\"\u003eBOA Editions\u003c\/a\u003e · \u003ca href=\"https:\/\/soundcloud.com\/user-572920496\/self-portrait-as-so-much-potential-by-chen-chen\" title='\"Self-Portrait As So Much Potential\" by Chen Chen' style=\"color: #cccccc; text-decoration: none;\" target=\"_blank\"\u003e\"Self-Portrait As So Much Potential\" by Chen Chen\u003c\/a\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003ch4\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eWinner of the \u003c\/strong\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/www.boaeditions.org\/pages\/a-poulin-jr-poetry-prize\" target=\"_blank\"\u003eA. POULIN, JR. POETRY PRIZE\u003c\/a\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eWinner of the GLCA New Writers Award\u003c\/strong\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eWinner of the Thom Gunn Award for Gay Poetry\u003c\/strong\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eLonglisted for the National Book Award for Poetry\u003c\/strong\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eFinalist for the Lambda Literary Award for Gay Poetry\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eA Barabara Gittings Literature Award Honor Book\u003c\/b\u003e\n\u003c\/h4\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn this ferocious and tender debut, Chen Chen investigates inherited forms of love and family—the strained relationship between a mother and son, the cost of necessary goodbyes—all from Asian American, immigrant, and queer perspectives. Holding all accountable, this collection fully embraces the loss, grief, and abundant joy that come with charting one’s own path in identity, life, and love.\u003cstrong\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eExcerpt\u003cstrong\u003e from \"When I Grow Up I Want To Be A List Of Further Possibilities\"\u003c\/strong\u003e\n\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003eTo be good\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003eex\/current friend for R. To be one last\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003einspired way to get back at R. To be relationship\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003eadvice for L. To be advice\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003efor my mother. To be a more comfortable\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003ehospital bed for my mother. To be\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003eno more hospital beds. To be, in my spare time,\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003eAmerica for my uncle, who wants to be China\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003efor me. To be a country of trafficless roads\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003e\u0026amp; a sports car for my aunt, who likes to go\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003efast. To be a cyclone\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003eof laughter when my parents say\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003etheir new coworker is \u003c\/span\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003elike that,\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003e they can tell\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003ebecause he wears pink socks, see, you don’t, so you can’t,\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003ecan’t be one of them.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003e To be the one\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003emy parents raised me to be—\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003ea season from the planet\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003eof planet-sized storms.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003eTo be a backpack of PB\u0026amp;J \u0026amp; every \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003ething I know, for my brothers, who are becoming\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003etheir own storms. To be, for me, nobody,\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003ehomebody, body in bed watching TV. To go 2D\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003e\u0026amp; be a painting, an amateur’s hilltop \u0026amp; stars,\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003eSimple decoration for the new apartment\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003ewith you. To be close, J.,\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003eto everything that is close to you—\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eblue blanket, red cup, green shoes\u003cbr\u003eWith pink laces.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003eTo be the blue \u0026amp; the red.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003eThe green, the hot pink.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003e\u003cstrong\u003ePraise for \u003cem\u003eWhen I Grow Up I Want to Be a List of Further Possibilities\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003e“\u003c\/span\u003eWhat does Millennial poetry look like? One answer might be this wild debut from Chen Chen. He seems to run at the mouth, free-associating wildly, switching between lingo and \u003cspan\u003e‘\u003c\/span\u003ehigher\u003cspan\u003e’\u003c\/span\u003e forms of diction. Nothing\u003cspan\u003e’\u003c\/span\u003es out of bounds or off limits, no culture too \u003cspan\u003e‘\u003c\/span\u003epop\u003cspan\u003e’\u003c\/span\u003e to find its place in poetry . . . nor anything too silly to point the way toward serious aims. And yet this is a deeply serious and moving book about Chinese-American experience, young love, poetry, family, and the family one makes amongst friends.\u003cspan\u003e” \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e— NPR Books\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"I so deeply love this poet's imagination where old shoes might walk back up the steps of a house, where one speaker pledges 'allegiance to the already fallen snow' and another says 'Let's put our briefcases on our heads, in the sudden rain, \/\/ \u0026amp; continue meeting as if we've just been given our names.' In precise and gorgeous language, Chen Chen shows us that the world is strange and bright with ardor. He reminds us of the miracle of the sensual and sensory. This is a book I will return to whenever I forget what a poem can do, whenever I am in need of a song or hope. If a peony wrote poems in a human language, I think that these would be his poems. If the rain wrote poems...I mean: \u003cem\u003ethis\u003c\/em\u003e is an important work by an astonishing and vital voice.\" \u003cstrong\u003e— Aracelis Girmay\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003e“\u003c\/span\u003eThe radioactive spider that bit Chen Chen [isn’t that how first books get made?] gave him powers both demonic and divine. The bite transmitted vision, worry, want, memory of China, America’s grief, and\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cem\u003ePeople\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003emagazine, as well as a radical queer critique of the normative. What a gift that bite was—linguistic, erotic, politic and impolitic, idiosyncratic and emphatic. What a blessing and burden to write out of the manifold possibilities of that contact.\u003cspan\u003e” \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e— Bruce Smith\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"Chen Chen refuses to be boxed in or nailed down. He is a poet of Whitman’s multitudes and of Langston Hughes\u003cspan\u003e’\u003c\/span\u003es blues, of Dickinson\u003cspan\u003e’\u003c\/span\u003es \u003cspan\u003e‘\u003c\/span\u003eso cold no fire can warm me\u003cspan\u003e’\u003c\/span\u003e and of Michael Palmer’s comic interrogation. What unifies the brilliance of \u003cem\u003eWhen I Grow Up I Want to Be a List of Further Possibilities\u003c\/em\u003e is a voice desperate to believe that within every one of life’s sadnesses there is also hope, meaning, and—if we are willing to laugh at ourselves—humor. This is a book I wish existed when I first began reading poetry. Chen is a poet I’ll be reading for the rest of my life.\u003cspan\u003e”\u003c\/span\u003e \u003cstrong\u003e—Jericho Brown\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003e“\u003c\/span\u003eChen Chen is already one of my favorite poets ever. Funny, absurd, bitter, surreal, always surprising, and deeply in love with this flawed world. I\u003cspan\u003e’\u003c\/span\u003em in love with this book.\u003cspan\u003e” \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e— Sherman Alexie\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch6\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/h6\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003ePublication Date: April 11, 2017\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eISBN: 978-1-942683-33-9 \u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e© BOA Editions, Ltd. 2017\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"BOA Editions, Ltd.","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":46623879921893,"sku":"9781942683339","price":19.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Audiobook","offer_id":46623879954661,"sku":"","price":5.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Signed Paperback","offer_id":47597515210981,"sku":null,"price":30.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0982\/0178\/products\/WhenIGrowUp_FinalFront.jpg?v=1527683783"},{"product_id":"cenzontle","title":"Cenzontle","description":"\u003ch4\u003eAn NPR Best Book of 2018\u003c\/h4\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn this highly lyrical, imagistic debut, Marcelo Hernandez Castillo creates a nuanced narrative of life before, during, and after crossing the US\/Mexico border. These poems explore the emotional fallout of immigration, the illusion of the American dream via the fallacy of the nuclear family, the latent anxieties of living in a queer brown undocumented body within a heteronormative marriage, and the ongoing search for belonging. Finding solace in the resignation to sheer possibility, these poems challenge us to question the potential ways in which two people can interact, love, give birth, and mourn—sometimes all at once.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch4\u003eFrom \"Cenzontle\u003cstrong\u003e\"\u003c\/strong\u003e\n\u003c\/h4\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBecause the bird flew before\u003cbr\u003ethere was a word\u003cbr\u003efor flight\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eyears from now\u003cbr\u003ethere will be a name\u003cbr\u003efor what you and I are doing.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch4\u003e\u003cstrong\u003ePRAISE FOR \u003cem\u003eCENZONTLE\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/h4\u003e\n\u003ch5\u003e\u003cspan\u003e\u003cem\u003eWinner of the 2019 GLCA New Writers Award in Poetry\u003cbr\u003eWinner of the 2018 NCIBA Golden Poppy Book Award for Poetry\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003eFinalist for the 2018 California Book Award for Poetry\u003cbr\u003eFinalist for the 2018 Lambda Literary Award for Bisexual Poetry\u003cbr\u003eFinalist for the 2018 Thom Gunn Award for Gay Poetry\u003cbr\u003eFinalist for the 2018 Foreword INDIES Award for Poetry\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/h5\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003e\"Castillo resists resignation to silence; his poems embody a belief in art’s transformative ability. Lush musicality renders agricultural labor, corporeal punishment, and romantic difficulties beautiful. Forged in Keatsian negative capability, Castillo’s poetics often involve finding the description that will lift the painful or unjust into music.\" \u003cstrong\u003e—\u003cem\u003ePublishers Weekly\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003e“I know this book changed me. The book itself knows change, how to change itself, knows so well how transformation—vast essential change which would seem to oppose a self—brings a person ever closer to their truth.” —\u003cstrong\u003eBrenda Shaughnessy, from the Foreword\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003e“In the spirit of Whitman, Marcelo Hernandez Castillo slips in silently to lie down between the bridegroom and the bride, to inhabit many bodies and many souls, between rapture and grief. These are poems that open borders both personal and political, a map of silences and celebrations. ‘You called it cutting apart \/ I called it song.’” —\u003cstrong\u003eD. A. Powell\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\"In this exquisite debut collection, longing twins with inheritance to consider the interiority of nationhood and the legacy of masculinity and exile. Castillo’s finely-honed poems celebrate and reveal the contours of physical and historical intimacies, a feast for the eyes and heart.” —\u003cstrong\u003eCarmen Giménez Smith\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch5\u003e\u003c\/h5\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e© BOA Editions, Ltd. 2018\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"BOA Editions, Ltd.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":45891045321,"sku":"9781942683537","price":17.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0982\/0178\/products\/9781942683537_FC.jpg?v=1527683197"},{"product_id":"all-its-charms","title":"All Its Charms","description":"\u003cp\u003eA luminous new collection from Keetje Kuipers, \u003cem\u003eAll Its Charms\u003c\/em\u003e is a fearless and transformative reckoning of identity. By turns tender and raw, these poems chronicle Kuipers’s decision to become a single mother by choice, her marriage to the woman she first fell in love with more than a decade before giving birth to her daughter, and her family’s struggle to bring another child into their lives. \u003cem\u003eAll Its Charms\u003c\/em\u003e is about much more than the reinvention of the American family—it’s about transformation, desire, and who we can become when we move past who we thought we would be.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch4\u003eLandscape with Sage and the Names of My Children\u003c\/h4\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI picked all the flowers, I palmed all the stones.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI dropped the nameless insects onto my tongue\u003cbr\u003eand felt their black wings unfurl. I held the dead\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ebuck by his antlers and dragged him through the sage, \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ebrought my teeth to the tender bridge of ribs and fed\u003cbr\u003euntil the glossy maggots overtook me. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI climbed the red rocks robed in their red dust. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI put the earth—all its charms—within me, \u003cbr\u003einto each waiting pocket. Lip and ear. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhat will happen when my body can no longer\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ehold this fragrant salt, its hardened tears, \u003cbr\u003einside? Let mine into the dirt. The names\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI’ve chosen for my children are already fast\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eacross the sky like the ochre feathers that frame\u003cbr\u003ethe blackbird’s shrug. There is no such thing\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eas a scar, no matter how much I want\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eto be one. Every birth—even the wings\u003cbr\u003eof the caddis lifting from the river\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ein a shroud—a momentary hunger.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch4\u003ePraise for Keetje Kuipers and \u003cem\u003eAll Its Charms\u003c\/em\u003e \u003cscript src=\"\/\/lithub.com\/b\/v1\/bookmarks.js?ver=1.3\"\u003e\u003c\/script\u003e\n\u003c\/h4\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"bm-reviews\" data-isbn=\"9781942683766\" data-width=\"auto\" data-link=\"true\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e“A precise and elegant look at motherhood, love, and what it means to live.” —\u003ci\u003eSeattle Met\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e“Keetje Kuipers’s poems are daring, formally beautiful, and driven by rich imagery and startling ideas.” \u003cb\u003e—Tracy K. Smith, U.S. Poet Laureate, author of \u003ci\u003eWade in the Water\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e “Keetje Kuipers’s \u003ci\u003eAll Its Charms\u003c\/i\u003e is one of the finest books of poetry I know. It springs from the land of the American West like a cottonwood tree or a pronghorn calf and shimmers before us. Her exquisite ear makes each poem strike notes of delight that surprise, and her voice beguiles whether speaking to an invisible unbegotten girl, or seeing ‘the nasturtiums sweating on the vine,’ or hearing a father’s ‘tin pan trembling heart.’ Over and over again the poet sings and causes some bristling elegant new thing to appear before us. It is that ancient impossible magic that charms water from stones and makes art endure. Here is a perfect book of poems.” \u003cb\u003e—Steve Scafidi, author of \u003ci\u003eTo the Bramble and the Briar\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003e“\u003c\/span\u003eIn \u003cem\u003eAll Its Charms\u003c\/em\u003e, the third volume from this remarkable poet, we enter with serious pleasure into an unfolding tapestry of resourceful and intelligent figuration, her gorgeous language tying together elements of the natural world with the glorious ether of the metaphysical. Connecting body to landscape, seaspawn and seawrack to striations of the uterus, baby to the blossom of milk from her breast, Kuipers is a Lucretius of motherhood and sexuality, seeking consolation not for the limit of death, but from the trials of incarnation, tasting their splendor on skin and tangles of hair emanating from love’s body. Her poetry is a garland of milk petalled down her shirtfront, the page of life she’s written on the body. She makes me feel... She makes me feel like a natural woman.\u003cspan\u003e”\u003c\/span\u003e \u003cb\u003e— Garrett Hongo, author of \u003ci\u003eCoral Road\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e“I exited \u003ci\u003eAll Its Charms\u003c\/i\u003e begrudgingly, so charmed was I by the world inside its pages. Keetje Kuipers delights in the usually overlooked moments in nature and human nature—the small town drag show, the clear cut landscape with ‘yellow Cat dozers popping up on distant hillsides \/ like morels to be collected after the first warm days,’ the daughter's spilled juice the speaker wipes with ‘the old plaid boxers of the man I thought I'd marry.’ In these small moments, she locates our big truths. Her vision is original, and her voice—precise, questioning, sensual, wry—is one I'd follow anywhere. This book is a delicious accomplishment.” \u003cb\u003e—Beth Ann Fennelly, author of \u003ci\u003eHeating \u0026amp; Cooling: 52 Micro-Memoirs\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e“\u0026gt;“Keetje Kuipers’s luminous new collection more than fulfills its title’s promise. Kuipers works powerful lyric magic, transforming bodies— human and animal, living and dead— into rivers, trees, molten glass, angels, ‘a cup of coldening cider.’ Landscapes too undergo metamorphoses, ‘the sidewalk grows a golden fur’; ‘magnolias collapse their heavy bosoms.’ Time itself comes alive, ‘the last fleshy hours of another day ripening…’ In voluptuous detail, Kuipers describes her own pregnancy and motherhood. Her breastmilk is ‘ a sticky flower blooming,’ a nursing bra ‘flapping and fearless, one wing taking flight…’ Even when she’s describing death, her images delight, maggots are ‘glossy’ a sparrow’s heart ‘a jewel hidden in haste.’ An awareness of life’s fragility, of the passage of time, runs through these poems, yet the reader feels the pulse of life’s robust insistence.  \u003cem\u003eAll Its Charms\u003c\/em\u003e is a book of ‘plentitude, mass, sweetness contained.’” \u003cb\u003e—Ellen Bass, author of \u003ci\u003eLike a Beggar\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e“Keetje Kuipers's collection charms not with flattery, but more like a good friend who cares enough to tell the hand-to-God truth to your face. This flint-eyed but tender honesty comes across in Kuipers’s minute observations of the American landscape as well as of the pleasures and disappointments of the body. The poems in \u003ci\u003eAll Its Charms\u003c\/i\u003e are also bracingly candid about the polarities of parenthood: the movement between joy at new life and fear at the army of small, lurking dangers that threaten it. The language and images may be startling in these pages, but the insights are austere and lay bare a necessary corner of the human world.” \u003cb\u003e—Iain Haley Pollock, author of \u003ci\u003eGhost, like a Place \u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI find something new to love every time I open this book. \u003ci\u003eAll Its Charms\u003c\/i\u003e is a collection of poems from a wonderful poet at the height of her powers. It is a book to be read in a sitting, then revisited, again and again, slowly, and savored.” \u003cb\u003eChris La Tray, \u003ci\u003eThe Missoulian\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch6\u003e\u003cspan\u003e© BOA Editions, Ltd. 2019\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/h6\u003e","brand":"BOA Editions, Ltd.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":12554962960465,"sku":"","price":17.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0982\/0178\/products\/AllItsCharms_CVR-web.jpg?v=1538569384"},{"product_id":"documents","title":"Documents","description":"\u003ch4\u003eWinner of the A. Poulin, Jr. Poetry Prize\u003c\/h4\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eRooted in the experience of living in America as a queer undocumented Filipino, \u003cem\u003eDocuments\u003c\/em\u003e maps the byzantine journey toward citizenship through legal records and fragmented recollections. In poems that repurpose the forms and procedures central to an immigrant’s experiences—birth certificates, identification cards, letters, and interviews—Jan-Henry Gray reveals the narrative limits of legal documentation while simultaneously embracing the intersections of identity, desire, heritage, love, and a new imagining of freedom.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch4\u003eFrom \"Across the Pacific Ocean\"\u003c\/h4\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAugust 16, 2013:\u003cbr\u003eOne kilometer from your\u003cbr\u003eport of call, two ships collide\u003cbr\u003ein the middle of the night.\u003cbr\u003eThe hull of the ferry Thomas Aquinas \u003cbr\u003eis now a mouthless whale.\u003cbr\u003eChildren slept in her belly.\u003cbr\u003eAnd there were others…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e*\u003cbr\u003eHow do you weigh an ocean?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e*\u003cbr\u003eI have no poems for the Atlantic.\u003cbr\u003eOr New York. Or Europe either.\u003cbr\u003eI look westward:\u003cbr\u003efrom home to home.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e*\u003cbr\u003eOn the plane, I ate cubed fruit from a plastic cup.\u003cbr\u003eI drank true milk. I looked out the window\u003cbr\u003elearned to pronounce my names\u003cbr\u003eand how to spell them.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e*\u003cbr\u003eThe only way to know a song is to sing it.\u003cbr\u003eThe only way to know the ocean is to swim it.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e*\u003cbr\u003eI cannot wait any longer for the tides to rise to me.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch4\u003ePraise for\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cem\u003eDocuments\u003c\/em\u003e\n\u003c\/h4\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e“As a Filipino-American conscious of his multiple identities and the trove of experiences and external forces that shaped him, Gray uses the unfettered landscape of poetry to release himself and others from the limitations that aggrieve undocumented immigrants.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e—\u003ci\u003eNew City Lit\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e“\u003ci\u003eDocuments\u003c\/i\u003e opens every closet and drawer and says ‘search me.’ It says '[hide History].' It is a full disclosure and a redaction, a history and its endless revisions.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—D.A. Powell, from the Foreword\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e“Jan-Henry Gray is a remarkable poet. His work makes visible the emotional and intellectual chaos of living as an undocumented queer man. His lyrical testimony fuses anxiety and yearning into an archive of familial history and self-discovery. His poems will help increase the visibility of those made invisible by our society. Gray is a resourceful poet. He transforms legal forms and interview questions into texts that reveal the dehumanizing power of language. Gray is a skeptical poet. Rightfully, he loathes borders and binaries, but he’s also aware of the limits of poetry. ‘Freedom from forms,’ writes Gray in a lyric essay near the end of \u003ci\u003eDocuments,\u003c\/i\u003e which is ‘queer, dense, full of strange currents.’ The essay beautifully reminds us to always seek freedom from all kinds of constraints on our living and our thinking.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Eduardo C. Corral\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e“‘How do you weigh an ocean?’ Jan-Henry Gray asks while contemplating the distance between the United States and the Philippines, from where the author immigrated without documents. In this imagistically adventurous, formally experimental, and emotionally acute debut poetry collection, Gray weighs the distance from one location to the next. The brilliance of \u003ci\u003eDocuments\u003c\/i\u003e rests within its ability to remind us that poetry is everywhere, from how ‘we breathe and cloud the windows’ to how ‘I lift my palms upwards, as if to say: Let us sing a song made up of a single word.’ I am so thankful for this book and how important it is for the literary world, especially the growing canon of migrant literary activists!”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Christopher Soto\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e“‘The Philippines is ghost-country,’ writes Jan-Henry Gray, in this gorgeous debut collection, and indeed, Gray's speakers can be thought of as ghostly, muted and aching for connection, in the specifics of place, in language, in poetry. These are poems of thwarted belonging, and the emotional consequences of institutional and social invisibility. Finely rendering emotional complexities and specific details of lives taken for granted or outright ignored, Gray's poems are documents of human souls aspiring to José Garcia Villa's aphorism and assertion, ‘have come, am here.’”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Barbara Jane Reyes\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch6\u003e\u003cspan\u003e© BOA Editions, Ltd. 2019\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/h6\u003e","brand":"BOA Editions, Ltd.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":12558357037137,"sku":"9781942683742","price":17.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0982\/0178\/products\/Documents_CVR.jpg?v=1538569413"},{"product_id":"how-to-be-better-by-being-worse","title":"How to be Better by Being Worse","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eFinalist for the John A. Robertson Award for Best First Book of Poetry from the Texas Institute of  Letters\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSelected by Richard Blanco as winner of the 2019 A. Poulin, Jr. Poetry Prize, Justin Jannise turns the self-help manual on its head in \u003cem\u003eHow to be Better by Being Worse\u003c\/em\u003e.\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThese poems flout, subvert, question, and ignore the rules with exploratory energy. Queer experiences are celebrated—from crushing on long-dead, sad-eyed poets to drag divas dancing at Halloween parties—gender constructs are questioned, and familial transgressions are laid bare for the world.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eDelightfully modulating between flippant, sincere, and back again, \u003ci\u003eHow to Be Better by Being Worse\u003c\/i\u003e freely indulges in harmless wickedness as its speaker grows in self-awareness, slowly learning to let go of inherited shame while continuing to seek self-forgiveness for the harms he has caused the outside world.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003ePraise for Justin Jannise\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e“There’s an abundance of \u003ci\u003egood\u003c\/i\u003e poetry being written today. Poetry that exhibits \u003ci\u003egood\u003c\/i\u003e style, exercises \u003ci\u003egood\u003c\/i\u003e technique, and evokes \u003ci\u003egood\u003c\/i\u003e sentiments. But Jannise has done more than write just another \u003ci\u003egood\u003c\/i\u003e book of poetry—he’s written a \u003ci\u003egreat\u003c\/i\u003e book, and beyond that, quite a \u003ci\u003ememorable\u003c\/i\u003e one.” \u003cb\u003e—Richard Blanco, from the Foreword\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e“This thoroughly delightful debut collection by Justin Jannise is full of wit and fire and play. He has an impressively off kilter sensibility that pierces the banality of American-style absurdities and pop culture's often vacuous signs and icons like a particularly scathing and funny X-ray (an illuminating device that he notably points at his speaker as well). Equally as impressive, his poems have real formal integrity and a structural intelligence that speaks of this poet's authentic engagement with the art. Jannise's \u003ci\u003eHow to Be Better by Being Worse\u003c\/i\u003e reminds me again that poetry is supposed to be for its reader, first and foremost, a \u003ci\u003epleasure\u003c\/i\u003e.” \u003cb\u003e—Erin Belieu, author of \u003ci\u003eCome Hither Honeycomb\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch4\u003eWhen I said I needed more, I meant coffee\u003c\/h4\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ebut we were midway through “real talk”\u003cbr\u003eand, logically, I might have been responding\u003cbr\u003eto your desire to see less of me.\u003cbr\u003eThe dark film developing at the base\u003cbr\u003eof my mug was taking me back to Kansas,\u003cbr\u003ea clapboard bed-and-breakfast, the streets\u003cbr\u003ethat day or night were dead empty.\u003cbr\u003eBetween the two of us, we had enough\u003cbr\u003eto live there for a month.\u003cbr\u003eHow many dime-store novels do you think\u003cbr\u003ewe could have read aloud to each other\u003cbr\u003ein that floral-patterned room, between meals\u003cbr\u003eand lying down as long as we could stand it,\u003cbr\u003ewrapped up in ourselves like the damp towels\u003cbr\u003ewe let fall to the floor?\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"BOA Editions, Ltd.","offers":[{"title":"Cloth","offer_id":44955982332133,"sku":"9781950774234","price":17.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"9781950774340","offer_id":44955982364901,"sku":"9781950774235","price":17.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0982\/0178\/products\/9781950774234_FC.jpg?v=1603292507"},{"product_id":"tenderness","title":"Tenderness","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eWinner of the Isabella Gardner Poetry Award\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cem\u003eIn a country where violence and the threat of violence is a constant weather for queer Black people, where can the spirit rest?\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWith lush language, the meditative poems in the Isabella Gardner Award-winning \u003ci\u003eTenderness\u003c\/i\u003e examine the fraught nature of intimacy in a nation poisoned by anti-Blackness and homophobia. From the bedroom to the dance floor, from the natural world to The Frick, from Florida to Mexico City, the poems range across interior and exterior landscapes. They look to movies, fine art, childhood memory, history, and mental health with melancholy, anger, and playfulness.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eEven amidst sorrow and pain, \u003ci\u003eTenderness\u003c\/i\u003e uplifts communal spaces as sites of resistance and healing, wonders at the restorative powers of art and erotic love, and celebrates the capaciousness of friendship.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003ePraise for \u003cem\u003eTenderness\u003c\/em\u003e\n\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e“This is a stunning collection for these challenging times when intimacy has escaped us but will, eventually, return. Let this book be your primer.” \u003cb\u003e—NPR's 2021 Poetry Preview\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e“Derrick Austin is to a blank page what Titian was to a white canvas. In both of their works, audiences will find an exemplary adroitness with portrait, landscape, and myth. \u003ci\u003eTenderness\u003c\/i\u003e, Austin’s second poetry collection, weaves a sinuous lyric that navigates both the physical and metaphysical surroundings of a traveler desirous of understanding, desirous of being understood. The reader senses a certain urgency in the question of how to find tenderness and connection in a world intent on the project of othering. Austin skillfully excavates the rhizomatic truth of belonging and the vulnerable places where God can be found—a touch, a glance, a history, a remembrance.” \u003cb\u003e—Airea D. Matthews\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e“It's nice to know that poetry is still a place to go and find some \u003ci\u003eTenderness\u003c\/i\u003e, and Derrick Austin's gentle touch is filled with genuine compassion and those soft wounds of the heart that act as release. ‘A heaven wider than androgyny is sugar on my tongue.’ The world is not shut out but let in, writ in dew and dust, ecstatic invocations and quiet elegies, hurricanes and the calm just after. After all, tenderness is not only sweet. It is also the place where we recognize the threshold of pain. ‘There's a snowbank \/ of roses on the sidewalk \/ where America unmade me.’” \u003cb\u003e—D. A. Powell\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch4\u003eIs This or Is This True as Happiness\u003c\/h4\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWhen we finally make it, we sit on cold stones.\u003cbr\u003eThe river curling over and under our feet\u003cbr\u003eeven colder. His secret place.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe air has that early fall smell, things beginning\u003cbr\u003eto rot, the wet soil nourishing itself.\u003cbr\u003eWe’re trespassing.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnything could happen\u003cbr\u003eto me in this white ass town. I’m terrified\u003cbr\u003eif he knows that and terrified if he doesn’t.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMy body is puffy, unremarkable.\u003cbr\u003eI’ve grown distant and sullen.\u003cbr\u003eA witch told me gin placates the dead.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhose dead have I been trying to drown\u003cbr\u003edrinking my own elegy?\u003cbr\u003eHe asks if I’m happy, and I say yes. \u003ci\u003eSee how easy it is\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eto get here\u003c\/i\u003e, he says. \u003ci\u003eYes\u003c\/i\u003e,\u003cbr\u003eI say. \u003ci\u003eBut you have to take me back\u003c\/i\u003e.\u003cstrong\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"BOA Editions, Ltd.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":39658153115819,"sku":"","price":17.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0982\/0178\/products\/Tenderness_CVR_Final_SM_RGB-min.jpg?v=1618858545"},{"product_id":"a-shiver-in-the-leaves","title":"A Shiver in the Leaves","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eNestled against the backdrop of Seattle's flora, fauna, and cityscape, Lue Hughes' debut poetry collection wrestles with the interior and exterior symbiosis of a gay Black man finding refuge from the threat of depression and death through love and desire.\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eHughes draws readers into a Seattle that is heavily entrenched in violent anti-Blackness, and full of vulnerable and personal encounters from both the speaker’s past and present. With reverent and careful imagery, Hughes fashions deeply saturated, tender vignettes that reckon relationships between family and friends, lovers, nature, and the police-state.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eA Shiver in the Leaves \u003c\/i\u003eis stunningly cinematic in its layered portrayal of the never-ending dualities of a queer Black poet’s life in the city. Hughes's interrogation of selfhood renders a sharply intimate and viscerally powerful reimagining of what it means to be alive in a body, and what it can mean \u003ci\u003eto live\u003c\/i\u003e.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003ePraise for \u003cem\u003eA Shiver in the Leaves\u003c\/em\u003e\n\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003e\"It’s hard to believe that this is Luther Hughes’ debut poetry collection, but his commitment to craft, and the poetry world in general, is nothing new. He does it all, as a writer, editor, podcaster, founder of Shade Literary Arts, and of course, practitioner of this particular art. Is it fair to say that I can’t wait for his next collection when this one is so new?\" \u003c\/span\u003e—\u003cstrong\u003eMandana Chaffa, for Chicago Review of Books\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"Brutality and tenderness intertwine in this collection, which illuminates the inner life of a young gay Black man navigating desire, depression, family, and faith. Although the poems are haunted by historical and contemporary violence, they are also often rapturous, revelling in the pleasures of nature and of the body.\" —\u003cstrong\u003eThe New Yorker's Best Books of 2022\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003e“This is a book of hope, of triumph, even as each day that we wake is a triumph over how things might have been otherwise. ‘Look at all my colors,’ Hughes says, reminding us that black contains \u003c\/span\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003eall \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003ecolors, is in that way its own abundance. That abundance includes the erotic, the familial, relationships variously sought and regretted, relationships with others as much as with ourselves, the self as an ever-restless interior of light and shadow. That abundance includes, as well, the hard-won poems of \u003c\/span\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003eA Shiver in the Leaves\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003e, whose music is finally, beautifully, brutally, Hughes’s own.” \u003c\/span\u003e—\u003cstrong\u003eCarl Phillips, from the \u003cem\u003eForeword\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003e“Luther Hughes’ debut poetry collection resounds with longing—for love, for tenderness, and most of all for mercy. ‘Hunger declares itself,’ and despite his speaker’s attempts to lose himself, despite becoming, for a time, a space where others can be lost, he finds himself, and in so doing is found. Achingly vulnerable, \u003c\/span\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003eA Shiver in the Leaves\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003e reminds us that ‘\u003c\/span\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003eIt’s never enough to love a thing, \/ you must do the work, too\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003e,’ and we hold some measure of our own salvation in our hands.” \u003c\/span\u003e—\u003cstrong\u003eDonika Kelly, author of \u003ci\u003eThe Renunciations\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch4\u003eIn Seattle\u003c\/h4\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003eWhat can I say? I forget all their names.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003eIt was bound to happen. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003eEverything leaves\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003e—\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003ethe wet mouth of rain, the throat that threw, \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003eIt\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003e’\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003es never enough to love a thing\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003e, \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003eyou must do the work\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003e,\u003c\/span\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003e too\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003e—\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003eexcept the trees that, in this city,\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003ebecome an emerald rush of hands reaching out. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003eHow many times must it be said? \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003eThere is [blood] parading the streets\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003e, I reply.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003eThe market bricks with whirs and wears \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003ethe violent churning of noise on its lips like balm. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003eI drink a cup of coffee, \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003esitting on a bench overlooking The Sound. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003eThere is so much blue.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"BOA Editions, Ltd.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42485464105189,"sku":"","price":17.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0982\/0178\/products\/AShiverFinalSmall.jpg?v=1644944167"},{"product_id":"your-emergency-contact-has-experienced-an-emergency","title":"Your Emergency Contact Has Experienced an Emergency","description":"\u003ch3\u003eAudiobook now available! \u003ciframe width=\"100%\" height=\"166\" src=\"https:\/\/w.soundcloud.com\/player\/?url=https%3A\/\/api.soundcloud.com\/tracks\/1600377459\u0026amp;color=%23ff5500\u0026amp;auto_play=false\u0026amp;hide_related=false\u0026amp;show_comments=true\u0026amp;show_user=true\u0026amp;show_reposts=false\u0026amp;show_teaser=true\"\u003e\u003c\/iframe\u003e\n\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"font-size: 10px; color: #cccccc; line-break: anywhere; word-break: normal; overflow: hidden; white-space: nowrap; text-overflow: ellipsis; font-family: Interstate,Lucida Grande,Lucida Sans Unicode,Lucida Sans,Garuda,Verdana,Tahoma,sans-serif; font-weight: 100;\"\u003e\n\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/soundcloud.com\/justine-alfano\" title=\"BOA Editions\" style=\"color: #cccccc; text-decoration: none;\" target=\"_blank\"\u003eBOA Editions\u003c\/a\u003e · \u003ca href=\"https:\/\/soundcloud.com\/justine-alfano\/your-emergency-contact-sample\" title=\"Your Emergency Contact _ Sample\" style=\"color: #cccccc; text-decoration: none;\" target=\"_blank\"\u003eYour Emergency Contact _ Sample\u003c\/a\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eWhat happens when everything falls away, when those you call on in times of need are themselves calling out for rescue? \u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003eIn his highly anticipated second collection, Chen Chen continues his investigation of family, both blood and chosen, examining what one inherits and what one invents, as a queer Asian American living through an era of Trump, mass shootings, and the COVID-19 pandemic. Always at work in the wrecked heart of this new collection is a switchboard operator, picking up and connecting calls. Raucous 2 a.m. prank calls. Whispered-in-a-classroom emergency calls. And sometimes, its pages record the dropping of a call, a failure or refusal to pick up. With irrepressible humor and play, these anarchic poems celebrate life, despite all that would crush aliveness. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003eHybrid in form and set in New England, West Texas, and a landlocked province of China, among other places, \u003c\/span\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003eYour Emergency Contact Has Experienced an Emergency\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003e refuses neat categorizations and pat answers. Instead, the book offers an insatiable curiosity about how it is we keep finding ways to hold onto one another.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003ePraise for \u003cem\u003eYour Emergency Contact Has Experienced an Emergency\u003c\/em\u003e\n\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp style=\"text-align: left;\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003e\"Inviting, funny, “trying to be marvelous,” Chen Chen’s second volume lives up to its provocative title.\" \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e—Stephanie Burt, for Boston Globe's The Best Books of 2022\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp style=\"text-align: left;\"\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003e\"I revel in Chen’s capaciousness, his lightning-fast modulations between silly and sober, his capacity to make poetry that is no less serious for being fun.\" \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e—Craig Morgan Teicher, poet and critic, for NPR's 2022 Books We Love\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003e\"\u003cspan\u003eThese questioning, funny, and deeply humane poems pack a fantastic punch.\" \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003e\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003ePublishers Weekly\u003c\/i\u003e, ★ Starred Review\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003e“Chen Chen is one of my favorite poets writing today. His intuitive sense of humor makes me laugh out loud while reading his poems which brim with pathos. Humor cross-sections a heart, coating it with laughter while also ripping it in half...Ultimately, Chen's poems are honest, without the performative film that layers so much today, and his poems leave me speechless and transformed.” \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Victoria Chang, author of \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eOBIT\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003e“These poems can do so much, they can tell you, for example, ‘what bees wear at night \/ when they want to feel sexy,’ these poems can be hilarious, even when grieving. These poems remember they are written in the late empire, inside this grief that is America of the early 2020s, and somehow these poems also console with all the things that grackles bring. Anyone who has a boyfriend or a mother should read these poems. Anyone who’s ever been made uncomfortable in this country in public or in private should read them, too. Anyone who likes to laugh out loud and then realize that they have learned something far more than a joke: that they are wiser from reading the lines: read these poems. Chen Chen is as real as poets can be.” \u003cstrong\u003e—Ilya Kaminsky, author of\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cem\u003eDeaf Republic\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003e“With humor, deep intelligence, and what feels to me like a luminous everyday philosophy, Chen Chen leads me “through the wound of it.” It being life. In America. In the 21st Century. In a body touched by violence and care, grief and desire, hope and heavy knowledge. \u003cem\u003eYour Emergency Contact Has Experienced an Emergency\u003c\/em\u003e is dolorous, riotous, rapturous.” \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Tracy K. Smith, author of \u003cem\u003eSuch Color: New and Selected Poems\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch4\u003ewe’ll be gone after these brief messages\u003c\/h4\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003egod stopped by in his magenta rowboat\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003ei said god you have to stop stopping by\u003cbr\u003eif you’re never going to tell me the meaning of life\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003egod said life is meaningless\u003cbr\u003ewhile language often means too much\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003emy grandmother stopped by \u0026amp; said no\u003cbr\u003ethe meaning of life is love\u003cbr\u003ethe kind that produces children\u003cbr\u003ewhy don’t you have a girlfriend yet\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003emy mother stopped by \u0026amp; said look\u003cbr\u003ehe’s busy with his studies stop asking\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003egod got back in his turquoise steamship\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003elife is a joyful thing he said\u003cbr\u003eit’s probably very good for you\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"BOA Editions, Ltd.","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":46623530975461,"sku":"","price":17.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Audiobook","offer_id":46623531008229,"sku":"","price":5.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Signed Paperback","offer_id":47597501939941,"sku":null,"price":30.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0982\/0178\/products\/YourEmergencyContact_RGB_SM.jpg?v=1644946779"},{"product_id":"good-grief-the-ground","title":"Good Grief, the Ground","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eMargaret Ray is pulling back the curtains on our societal performance of culture, guiding an exposing light to the daily performance that is life in a woman’s body.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003eSelected by Stephanie Burt as the winner of the A. Poulin Jr. Poetry Prize, Margaret Ray’s \u003c\/span\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003eGood Grief\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003e, \u003c\/span\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003ethe Ground \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003einterrogates the everyday violences nonchalantly inflicted unto women through personal, political, and national lenses. Moving between adolescence and adulthood, Ray alternates between dark humor and heart-wrenching honesty to explore grief, anxiety, queer longing, girlhood, escape from a bad marriage, and the dangers of lending language to a thing.  With stunning wit and precision and attention, we see Ray show us what it is to be human: the mess of tenderness and darkness and animosity. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003eOut of the heavy Florida dusk, out of peach juice and late-night swimming pool break-ins and grocery store aisles comes these completely captivating poems. In the words of Stephanie Burt: “Come and see. Take care. Dive in.”\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003ePraise for \u003cem\u003eGood Grief, the Ground\u003c\/em\u003e\n\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003e“It’s hard to stay present in this world: to stay not only alive but alert—to the Florida thunder, to the waves and their corresponding particles, to the ‘lumbering monsters’ of misgovernment in the cereal aisles, to fear and desire and patriarchy’s crossed wires, and to all the ways in which you and I, dear reader, can learn to stand up for ourselves, or even fight back. It’s hard, but Margaret Ray’s first collection makes it happen. Show and tell, f—\/marry\/bury, ‘Cheez-its,’ ‘Sweet Fears’ and advice from her younger self recur as Ray shows us through her—and not only her—world in the American vernacular, the supple free verse, and the technical variety of this stunning, and scary, and honestly fun, collection. Come and see. Take care. Dive in.” \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Stephanie Burt, author of \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eAfter Callimachus: Poems\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003e“This is a book full of heat. No, it’s full of sadness. It’s rich with sensory pleasure. No, it struggles with absence, loss, diminishment. This is a good-humored, tender-hearted book. No, this book is full of edges. This is a book about change. This is a book about staying still. One of the great things about Ray’s lucid, supple narrative lyric poetry is the way it gets the many conflicting tones and emotions of life to co-exist and collaborate to make poems into stages on which all kinds of things can happen. ‘I want to pour\/my life into a different container,\/but it’s still river water,’ one poem announces. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003eGood Grief, the Ground \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003efeels both familiar and quite surprising—and isn’t that what we are ultimately after, in poetry as in life?” \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Daisy Fried, author of \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Year the City Emptied\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch4\u003eMy Younger Self Speaks to Me and I Write Down What She Says\u003c\/h4\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003eYours is still absorbent, I can hear it, \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003efewer sources, maybe. Fewer contacts. You’re\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003eshrinking. \u003c\/span\u003e \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003eYou’re still keenly aware of status, look,\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003eit’s not as if we weren’t once that kid \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003ebefriending the new girls who transferred in\u003c\/span\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003e—\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003enot out of kindness, but from a gambler’s sense \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003ethat if their status turned out to be high, \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003ewe could hitch ourselves to them. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003e(\u003c\/span\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003eHow can I show you my ugliness without\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003emeaning “love me, love me”?)\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"BOA Editions, Ltd.","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":45961794584805,"sku":"","price":17.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Paperback (Signed)","offer_id":45961794617573,"sku":"","price":25.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0982\/0178\/products\/GoodGriefTheGround_sm.jpg?v=1666291346"},{"product_id":"four-in-hand","title":"Four in Hand","description":"\u003ch3\u003eAudiobook now Available! \u003ciframe src=\"https:\/\/w.soundcloud.com\/player\/?url=https%3A\/\/api.soundcloud.com\/tracks\/1527029023\u0026amp;color=%23ff5500\u0026amp;auto_play=false\u0026amp;hide_related=false\u0026amp;show_comments=true\u0026amp;show_user=true\u0026amp;show_reposts=false\u0026amp;show_teaser=true\" height=\"166\" width=\"100%\"\u003e\u003c\/iframe\u003e\n\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"font-size: 10px; color: #cccccc; line-break: anywhere; word-break: normal; overflow: hidden; white-space: nowrap; text-overflow: ellipsis; font-family: Interstate,Lucida Grande,Lucida Sans Unicode,Lucida Sans,Garuda,Verdana,Tahoma,sans-serif; font-weight: 100;\"\u003e\n\u003ca style=\"color: #cccccc; text-decoration: none;\" title=\"BOA Editions\" href=\"https:\/\/soundcloud.com\/justine-alfano\" target=\"_blank\"\u003eBOA Editions\u003c\/a\u003e · \u003ca style=\"color: #cccccc; text-decoration: none;\" title=\"Sample of Four In Hand by Alicia Mountain\" href=\"https:\/\/soundcloud.com\/justine-alfano\/four-in-hand-by-alicia-mountain\" target=\"_blank\"\u003eSample of Four In Hand by Alicia Mountain\u003c\/a\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eComprised of four heroic crowns of sonnets, Alicia Mountain’s \u003ci\u003eFour in Hand\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e is both formal and experimental, ranging from lyric romantic and familial narratives to blank verses of reconfigured found text pulled from financial newsletter emails.\u003c\/strong\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003eLanguage and white space equally captivate with their sparsity and abundance as Mountain pursues the implications of national political identity with intersectional awareness. These poems interrogate our collective complicity in late-stage capitalism, drone warfare, the election of Donald Trump, environmental degradation, mental health crises, and the dawn of Covid-19 through the lens of gay poetic lineage, regionalism, and familial kinships structures.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003eAs in all lived experiences, treacheries and triumphs fade in and out of focus and intimacy, heartbreak, travel, eroticism, joy, and quotidian happenings offer character and momentum across non-linear narrative arcs. Through enthralling images, gripping storytelling, and world-building, \u003c\/span\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003eFour in Hand\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003e carves out necessary space for lesbian gaze, speakership, and personhood. From the back corner of a vast, sprawling, yet gorgeous landscape of thought, Mountain's poems beckon us inside.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003ePraise for \u003cem\u003eFour in Hand\u003c\/em\u003e\n\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e\"The four-sonnet structure of this collection is romantic enough to read aloud in the afterglow of new love, but its subject matter (which touches on everything from Trump’s election to mental illness to the COVID-19 pandemic) provides a welcome snap of reality.\" \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Emma Specter,\u003cem\u003e Vogue\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003e“In Alicia Mountain’s \u003c\/span\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003eFour in Hand\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003e, the speaker tells us that the book is ‘a monument to touch,’ but more pointedly, it plays with an erotics of geography where thunder ‘spanks the hills,’ where one is encouraged to ‘drink the tidal push,’ where ‘tectonic shifts are underway.’ What is Mountain telling the reader about a storm that cannot be felt until the moment we feel ‘wrung out’ by its torrent? About a howl that cannot relieve what a beloved has buried within them? In these four sonnet crowns, each masterfully executed with their own distinct rhetorical and linguistic logics, Mountain enacts an alternative to catharsis; posits a kind of anti-catharsis. There is no rising action and then relief, instead Mountain interpolates what happens when the world does not change, but repeats, and insists on its tired holding patterns. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003eFour in Hand\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003e doesn't simply tackle the failings of global health industries, the precarity of queer spaces, or how the language of risk and resilience end up recoding bodies through capital, it \u003c\/span\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003ecommands\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003e something else of ‘our sharp parts.’ It points us to an elsewhere of possibilities.” \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Megan Fernandes, author of \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eGood Boys\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003e“\u003c\/span\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003eFour in Hand \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003eapplies the gentle pressure of imagination to the possible world. Intimacy and expansiveness, grounded in episodic grace and sensual generosity, fuel Alicia Mountain’s work. Her words present us with beauty and allow us to revel in it, despite feeling ‘held tight like too much hope.’ We are shown emotional and environmental devastation, and given the music to reckon with the painful awareness that transforms best into action, repeated. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003eFour in Hand\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003e is a blood rush, a mode of love in language crafted with care and immersion and insistence, harnessing the power of ‘a swarm\/keeping quiet when I want to howl.’” \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Khadijah Queen, author of \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eAnodyne\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003e“Heroic, indeed. These poems are dauntless. In \u003c\/span\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003eFour in Hand\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003e, Alicia Mountain’s sonnet series refuses the pull of thematic or stylistic singularity \u0026amp; favors instead the unrelenting materiality of interpersonal collage \u0026amp; sociopolitical pastiche. Mountain has not only satisfied the demands of all great crowns, but bettered them: with the language of politics, illness, class warfare, \u0026amp; the intimacy of the lesbian gaze, \u003c\/span\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003eFour in Hand\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003e sweetens the cycle of our times—pandemic within pandemic—\u0026amp; pulls us back inside the volta where we remember our own humanity \u0026amp; haven’t yet forgotten one another’s. What a phenomenal \u0026amp; necessary feat.” \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Meg Day, author of \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eLast Psalm at Sea Level\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003e\"'This book is a monument to touch,\/ even with its hands in its pockets,' she promises. And, indeed, these sprawling, inviting pages deliver by revealing Mountain’s intimate and dynamic voice.\" \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003e\u003cb\u003e—\u003cem\u003ePublishers Weekly\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch4\u003eTrain Town Howl\u003c\/h4\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003eThis book is a monument to touch, \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003eeven with its hands in its pockets.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003eEven with your hair in your eyes as \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003edisguise, there is no making public \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003ehow we push and pull in dark corners.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003eThe beehive whispers when it sees our \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003ehands touch, the train town howls and\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003ehowls. The rough face smiles beside yours. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003eLick my teeth in the daylight. Still no \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003echaser. Still no closer to extinguishing \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003ethe bolt of my lightning you hold captive. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003eI have held the bright storm of you \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003ehot in my hands. I would do it again,\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003ehowever quick, however long it lasts. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"BOA Editions, Ltd.","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":46623853117669,"sku":"978-1-950774-86-9","price":17.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Audiobook","offer_id":46623853150437,"sku":"","price":5.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0982\/0178\/products\/FourInHand_CVR_SM.jpg?v=1667501663"},{"product_id":"desire-museum","title":"Desire Museum","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eWinner of the 2024 Lambda Award for Bisexual Poetry.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eConsumed with the accumulation of lost time and unfulfilled longing, \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eDesire Museum\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cb\u003e by Danielle Cadena Deulen is an intricate exploration of things left unfinished or unsatisfied.  \u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003eDivided into four sections and shaped by female-identified embodiment, \u003c\/span\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003eDesire Museum \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003etouches on lost love and friendship, climate crisis, lesbian relationships, and the imprisonment of children at the U.S.-Mexico border. These poems trace the pleasures and pitfalls of sex, the anxieties of motherhood, and the ramifications of interpersonal, sociopolitical, and environmental trauma in women’s lives. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003eIn these pages, Deulen holds up a candle to desire itself, questioning what it means to recognize and embrace one's desires, or what it might mean to let them go. In conversation with Hopkins, Keats, Crane, and Lorca, Deulen seamlessly weaves memories into dreamscapes and blurs the human and natural worlds. With love, wonder, grief, and awe,\u003c\/span\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003e Desire Museum\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003e shows us that to live alongside desire is to refuse to be contained: “I refuse meaning [ ] the first sunrise reiterates the last.”\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003ePraise for \u003cem\u003eDesire Museum \u003c\/em\u003e\n\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003e“Desire Museum is all that is delicious about poetry—small windows through which the fresh \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003ebreath of self-knowledge blows through, the mouthfeel of deft language, the eros of travel. But \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003ethis collection is also astonishing in how it builds mythologies around dissolution, ardor, and \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003eallusion. I have loved wandering in the halls of this book’s illuminating galleries and Deulen’s \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003edeft curation.” \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Carmen Giménez, author of \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eBe Recorder\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003e“Drawing on sources from classical mythology to particle physics, these poems render lost loves \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003eand lost letters, abandoned places and selves. Beasts abound—a fox, a tiger, an octopus, a cow. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003eThere are sleepless nights and regretful kisses, the voices of Keats and Hopkins, Lorca, and \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003eCrane. All along, Deulen confronts ardor’s ghosts, interrogating the myriad ways hunger and \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003eheartbreak get transmuted into art and memory. Sometimes funny, always smart, endlessly \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003einventive, \u003c\/span\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003eDesire Museum\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003e is a restless and intoxicating book!” \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Bruce Snider, author of \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eFruit\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003e“Danielle Cadena Deulen’s luminous collection\u003c\/span\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003e Desire Museum\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003e assembles and remixes the past, \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003econstructing not pristine displays under glass to be admired at a distance, but dynamic exhibits \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003ethat shimmer beneath our hands. How many selves can one life contain? What remains after \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003egreat loss? At once dreamlike and insistently clear, these poems call across time and space, \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003einviting former lovers, canonical poets, and the ghosts of former selves to commingle in an ever-\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003eshifting present. This is a book to read and remember.” \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Chelsea Rathburn, Georgia Poet Laureate, author of \u003cem\u003eStill Life with Mother and Knife\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"BOA Editions, Ltd.","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":45961586245861,"sku":"","price":17.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Paperback (Signed)","offer_id":45961586278629,"sku":"","price":25.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0982\/0178\/products\/DesireMuseum_CVR_RGB_LG.jpg?v=1679934400"},{"product_id":"where-can-i-take-you-when-theres-nowhere-to-go","title":"Where Can I Take You When There's Nowhere To Go","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eIn Joe Baumann’s newest collection \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eWhere Can I Take You When There’s Nowhere To Go\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cb\u003e, \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cb\u003equeer men explore their sense of who they are and what they want, often in worlds that are tilted askew from what we might expect.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003eThirteen surreal short stories utilize the strange and the bizarre as a backdrop for explorations of loneliness, queer coming-of-age, self-discovery, and loss. In “We Adore These Bodies Until They Are Gone,” people evaporate when suffering isolation and directionless; in “Happy Birthdays,” characters transform into different ages when they consume particular kinds of cake; and in the titular story, a pair of lonely teenagers come together at a party after one of them gifts the other with a small cloud he has spun out of his own hands. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003eBaumann’s tender vignettes of love, anger, grief, and desire are a stunning ode to the places and people that can give us solace within an absurd and chaotic world.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003e\u003cstrong\u003ePraise for\u003cem\u003e Where Can I Take You When There's Nowhere To Go\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e“In his rich, beautiful short story collection, \u003ci\u003eWhere Can I Take You When There’s Nowhere To Go\u003c\/i\u003e, Joe Baumann accentuates the mysteries of human relationships with a skillful and magical hand. Similar to the work of Aimee Bender and Judy Budnitz, Baumann draws readers into intimate spaces, enabling personal connections through the fantastical access he provides—the magical manifestations of grief and loneliness, love and passion, trauma and shame, solidarity, individuality, and the myriad modes of desire. Within this extraordinary collection, individuals evaporate, conjure clouds, consume whole bodies, harbor additional hearts, and produce blood that sings. Baumann’s stories are layered with humor and heavy with the challenges and triumphs of social and self-acceptance. \u003ci\u003eWhere Can I Take You When There’s Nowhere To Go\u003c\/i\u003e is as original as it is enjoyable to read—a rare combination that should be savored and shared as widely as possible.\" \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cspan\u003e—Aaron Tillman, author of \u003ci\u003eConsolation Miracles\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eEvery Single Bone in My Brain\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cspan\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e“In \u003ci\u003eWhere Can I Take You When There’s Nowhere To Go\u003c\/i\u003e, Baumann uses the fantastic to represent with heart-wrenching precision those ‘tangling feelings’ that threaten to destroy his characters. Some evaporate, some sprout roots on their heads, some change into mirrors, and some create clouds with their fingers—not by accident or scientific experiment but because these are phenomena in their worlds that transform and express raw human emotion with determined and sometimes redemptive clarity. Reading this collection means apprehending again and again the hunger of despair, the miracle of love.\"\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cspan\u003e—Maria Brandt, author of \u003ci\u003eAll the Words\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"BOA Editions, Ltd.","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":45961630154981,"sku":"","price":17.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Paperback (Signed)","offer_id":45961630187749,"sku":"","price":25.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0982\/0178\/products\/WherecanItakeyoufinalSM.jpg?v=1679937842"},{"product_id":"transitory","title":"Transitory","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eGrounded in protest and solidarity, Subhaga Crystal Bacon’s Isabella Gardner Award-winning \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eTransitory\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cb\u003e is a collection of elegies memorializing 46 transgender and gender-nonconforming people murdered in the US and Puerto Rico in 2020.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003eEpistolary in nature, these commemorative poems  are “gleaned sketches” attempting to reconstruct lives and deaths from the typically scarce information made available on the internet. Interspersed with the elegies are personal explorations of gender identities and sexualities from a Queer elder who has lived through the post-Stonewall years of sexual liberation, the second wave of feminism, and the recent rapid increases in awareness about gender and sexualities met almost equally with anti-trans and anti-Queer violence. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003eSeen through the lenses of whiteness and privilege from the last quarter of a lifetime, these poems navigate the desire to be at home in our bodies, to be loved and desired without danger, and most of all to live free, healthy, and welcome in the world we inhabit.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003ePraise for \u003cem\u003eTransitory \u003c\/em\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\n\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003e“Having roots in documentary poetics, and approached with deep lyric intensity, the poems in \u003c\/span\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003eTransitory \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003estand as elegies to the transgender people murdered in the U.S. in 2020, from Nina Pop, ‘Missouri drawl, the way you drank \/ from that tall Styrofoam cup and straw, your face lit by car lights,’ to Brian “Egypt” Powers of Akron, Ohio, ‘Paula Abdul back-up dancer was his childhood dream,’ and onward. The poems are written in a whirlwind of forms, containing facts from public records and snippets of dialogue from the murdered victims, their loved ones, and strangers, and the details— ‘fingerless black gloves,’ ‘Her love for My Little Pony,’ that compose a life. The forms provide elegance. Dignity. The details, affinity. I tried to read \u003c\/span\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003eTransitory\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003e as I usually approach books of poetry, but this collection asked me to supplement my reading with research. I sought news stories, faces. I wanted to know. To have known so deeply that I could feel each loss with profundity. I found myself in keeping with Subhaga Crystal Bacon, who writes, ‘I need to name this, the brutality of tallying the dead…not just counting, but incanting.’” \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Diane Seuss, author of \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003efrank: sonnets\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003e“Subhaga Crystal Bacon’s brilliant new book is poetry beyond the unrelenting pressure of news \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003ecycles, giving names to harrowing statistics of murdered trans people, returning life to the air ---\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003efor a moment --- in the breath of a poem. When politicians sanction violence by criminalizing \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003etrans and queer bodies and branding us subhuman, Bacon puts the love and the real live \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003ebeating hearts back into their bodies, turning every No into an emphatic Yes! I love this book!” \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e—\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cb\u003eCAConrad, author of \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eWhile Standing in Line for Death\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003e“\u003c\/span\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003eThese poems witness these horrors, and honor the dead in the complexity and real joy of their lives, creating a timeline, shared eulogy, and act of resistance. Combining traditional forms and erasures with the pleasures and close calls of her own past, Bacon highlights not just these acts of violence but also everyday moments in the lives of those lost: \"studying nursing,\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cb\u003e\" \"\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003edriving a taxi,\" \"showing off in short shorts and shearling boots,\" or looking forward to cleaning the house: \"\u003c\/span\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003ea Saturday morning deep clean that’s a whole vibe\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003e.\" Slowing down long enough to look at this one year's worth of loss allows us to recognize the enormity of our collective grief.” \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Jill McDonough, author of \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eHere All Night\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"BOA Editions, Ltd.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":43986127945957,"sku":"","price":17.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0982\/0178\/products\/Transitory_CVR_LG.jpg?v=1679938475"},{"product_id":"beforelight","title":"Beforelight","description":"\u003cp data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e\u003cb style=\"font-size: 0.875rem;\"\u003e\u003ci\u003eBeforelight\u003c\/i\u003e explores queer childhood as a site of rupture and queer coming-of-age as a process of both becoming and unbecoming. \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-size: 0.875rem;\"\u003eWith wisdom and grace, the speaker in these poems confronts the impacts of fragmented relationships and trauma on his nascent identity, ultimately committing to the self's authenticity as the highest form of devotion. Lush, cinematic, and deeply psychological, these poems grapple with the fragility of our most formative connections—familial, communal, and ancestral—as the speaker searches for communion with himself and tries to discover how not to “make a life out of pain.”\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3 data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003ePraise for \u003cem\u003eBeforelight\u003c\/em\u003e\n\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003e“In\u003c\/span\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003e Beforelight\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003e, Matthew Gellman’s astonishing and sensitive début collection, family narratives unfold with the clarity and mystery of a photo album. Illuminating the brutal silences and blanketing snows of the suburbs, Gellman’s poems make the world of memory startlingly intimate and alive.” \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Richie Hofmann, author of \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eA Hundred Lovers\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003e“The poems in Matthew Gellman's \u003c\/span\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003eBeforelight\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003e radiate with tenderness and desire, speaking evocatively from \u003c\/span\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003ethe starless heat of our mouths\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003e and from the glowing embers of queer quotidian life. His poetry illuminates the contours of filial, sibling, and sexual bonds revealing at the core of his work a finely wrought portrait of a \u003c\/span\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003eboy with apertures \/ yielding more apertures flourishing red and agape.” \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Deborah Paredez, author of \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eYear of the Dog\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cspan data-mce-fragment=\"1\" style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003e“I am moved and startled by the intensity of\u003c\/span\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003e Beforelight\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003e, which is bent on retrospection, and profound in its careful examination of the family and the ways we are both beholden to and estranged from them.  These poems also give voice to the necessity of declaring one’s individuality, and in doing so, they combine sophisticated, psychological insight with rich, original musicality.  This is a daring, memorable new voice in American poetry, and a spellbinding debut.” \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Mark Wunderlich, author of \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eGod of Nothingness\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"BOA Editions, Ltd.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":44435344752869,"sku":"","price":18.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0982\/0178\/files\/Beforelight_Final_3.jpg?v=1701108156"},{"product_id":"lonely-woman","title":"Lonely Women Make Good Lovers","description":"\u003ch4\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eAudiobook Available Now!\u003ciframe width=\"100%\" height=\"300\" src=\"https:\/\/w.soundcloud.com\/player\/?url=https%3A\/\/api.soundcloud.com\/tracks\/soundcloud%253Atracks%253A2380461990\u0026amp;color=%23ff5500\u0026amp;auto_play=false\u0026amp;hide_related=false\u0026amp;show_comments=true\u0026amp;show_user=true\u0026amp;show_reposts=false\u0026amp;show_teaser=true\u0026amp;visual=true\"\u003e\u003c\/iframe\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/h4\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"font-size: 10px; color: #cccccc; line-break: anywhere; word-break: normal; overflow: hidden; white-space: nowrap; text-overflow: ellipsis; font-family: Interstate,Lucida Grande,Lucida Sans Unicode,Lucida Sans,Garuda,Verdana,Tahoma,sans-serif; font-weight: 100;\"\u003e\n\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/soundcloud.com\/justine-alfano\" title=\"BOA Editions\" style=\"color: #cccccc; text-decoration: none;\" target=\"_blank\"\u003eBOA Editions\u003c\/a\u003e · \u003ca href=\"https:\/\/soundcloud.com\/justine-alfano\/lonely-women-make-good-lovers\" title=\"Lonely Women Make Good Lovers - Sample\" style=\"color: #cccccc; text-decoration: none;\" target=\"_blank\"\u003eLonely Women Make Good Lovers - Sample\u003c\/a\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eThe daring and deeply sexy poems in \u003cem\u003eLonely Women Make Good Lovers \u003c\/em\u003eare bold with the embodied, earthy, and startlingly sensual. \u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThese unforgettable love poems—queer, complicated, and almost always compromised—engage a poetics of humility, leaning into the painful tendernesses of unbridgeable distance. As Kuipers writes, love is a question “defined not by what we \/ cannot know of the world but what we cannot know of ourselves.” These poems write into that intricate webbing between us, holding space for an “I” that is permeable, that can be touched and changed by those we make our lives with.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn this book, astonishingly intimate poems of marriage collide with the fetishization of freedom and the terror of desire. At times valiant and at others self-excoriating, they are flush with the hard-won knowledge of the difficulties and joys of living in relation.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003ePraise for \u003cem\u003eLonely Women Make Good Lovers\u003c\/em\u003e\n\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"Kuipers’s wickedly erotic and ingenious fourth collection...tackles love in its varied forms with originality and hard-won wisdom (Apr 2024).\" \u003cstrong\u003e\u003cem\u003e—Publishers Weekly, starred review\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e“The poems are elegant, earthy, and pertinent. Kuipers moves language marvelously, and I love her understatedness, making lyrics of what could be ‘politicized’ texts, which are all the more persuasive for the transformation.” \u003cstrong\u003e—Marilyn Hacker, National Book Award and PEN\/Voelcker Award-winner\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e“How does romantic love bring us together—or isolate, or confound? What if there's a baby on the way? What if we come to each other naked as birds in flight, as stripped logs, as old photographs, as pure ideas? What does a grown-up, clear, thoughtful, emotionally available, gifted lesbian poet get when— decades after Adrienne Rich—she comes up, still wearing her tanks, and takes her mask off, after the proverbial wreck, and makes ‘a pact with the world,’ with her wife, with their earth and air? This poet is your poet. Here are your poems.” \u003cstrong\u003e—Stephanie Burt, author of \u003cem\u003eWe Are Mermaids\u003c\/em\u003e and Professor of English at Harvard University\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e“Keetje Kuipers’ \u003cem\u003eLonely Women Make Good Lovers\u003c\/em\u003e is a staggering, unpredictable, and inexorable collection. Caught in the nexus of hunger and ruin, Kuipers’ speaker explores the atmosphere between what she knows or almost knows and what cannot be explained. Recognition of the self, of others, Kuipers shows us, is a practice. A compelling read, these poems are nimble and vulnerable, mapping a return to the self, a return to longing, a return to the archive of what the body remembers.” \u003cstrong\u003e—Donika Kelly, Kate Tufts Discovery Award-winner and author of \u003cem\u003eThe Renunciations\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"BOA Editions, Ltd.","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":46710430826725,"sku":"","price":19.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Ebook","offer_id":46710430859493,"sku":"","price":5.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Hardcover","offer_id":46724687036645,"sku":"","price":25.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Audiobook","offer_id":52087525540069,"sku":null,"price":5.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0982\/0178\/files\/LonelyWomenMakeGoodLovers_FrontCover_SS25.jpg?v=1729276219"},{"product_id":"the-museum-of-future-mistakes","title":"The Museum of Future Mistakes","description":"\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eGruesome scenarios take a tender turn; beautiful moments become sources of derision.\u003c\/strong\u003e \u003cstrong\u003eWinner of the Boa Short Fiction Prize, \u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cem\u003eThe Museum of Future Mistakes\u003c\/em\u003e is packed with inventive narrative choices and sharp lyricism, upending expectations on every page. \u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eIn “Brother and Not-Brother,” the residents of an entire city transform into perfect copies of the narrator’s deceased brother; these uncanny doppelgängers spark meditations on childhood scars, grief taking root within the body, and how painful memories can bloom into joy, laughter, and love. In “The Last Dinosaurs of Portland,” two anthropomorphic dinosaurs yearn for companionship and empathy while fighting for a meager existence under the weight of past traumas. In “Three-Month Autopsy,” a character visits ex-lovers and returns Ziploc baggies full of their body parts, exploring infatuation, jealousy, regret, and the contours of both giving and receiving within a relationship.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eThrough these and other fabulist and magical realist stories, James R. Gapinski considers our physical relationship with our own bodies, how we process love and loss, and the fragility of identity amid moments of personal crisis. With elements of the grotesque and the surreal, fans of Carmen Maria Machado and Kelly Link will find much to admire in this award-winning collection.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3 dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\n\u003cspan\u003ePraise for \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cem\u003eThe Museum of Future Mistakes\u003c\/em\u003e\n\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e“\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cem\u003eThe Museum of Future Mistakes\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cspan\u003e is an eclectic romp through the challenges of dating, loving, and simply trying to exist in a strange, at times hostile, world. As inventive as they are deeply felt, these stories find beauty in the absurd and absurdity in the status quo. As these bite-sized stories build upon one another, the collection accrues a propulsive weight. I wanted to slow down and savor each piece, but I could never stop at just one.” \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e—Gwen E. Kirby, author of \u003cem\u003eShit Cassandra Saw\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e“In \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cem\u003eThe Museum of Future Mistakes\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cspan\u003e, James R. Gapinski takes a blade to the seams of ordinary lives to reveal the uncanny nature of the storm that roils beneath the surface for us all. Dead brothers, haunted fingernails, injuries that produce vines, lonely dinosaurs, a magical laundromat, and so much more, spill forth from Gapinski’s singular imagination and ask us to confront our grief, our vulnerability, our identity, and our leaps into love. Shot through with a mischievous sense of humor and a keen grip on the alienation that permeates modern life, all of these stories coalesce into the revelation that there is a fragile beauty underpinning every moment that we experience. A stunning and utterly original collection.”\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e—Talia Lakshmi Kolluri, author of \u003cem\u003eWhat We Fed To The Manticore\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e“By juxtaposing the mundane with the fantastical, James R. Gapinski captures the unique alienation of navigating reality from the margins. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cem\u003eThe Museum of Future Mistakes\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cspan\u003e is a compulsively readable journey through everyday devastations, pyrrhic victories, and the absurdity of modern life.”\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e—Jasmine Sawers, author of \u003cem\u003eThe Anchored World: Flash Fairy Tales and Folklore\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"BOA Editions, Ltd.","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":47810853339365,"sku":null,"price":19.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Hardcover","offer_id":47810853372133,"sku":null,"price":25.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Ebook","offer_id":48134931284197,"sku":null,"price":5.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0982\/0178\/files\/TheMuseumOfFutureMistakes_CVR_1200px_RGB_SM.jpg?v=1743790892"},{"product_id":"this-elegance","title":"This Elegance","description":"\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eInterweaving the sacred and the erotic, \u003cem\u003eThis Elegance\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cem\u003e \u003c\/em\u003eengages with visual arts through the concept of \u003cem\u003esacra conversazione\u003c\/em\u003e \u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cspan\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e(“sacred conversation”), a style of Renaissance painting that imagines divine communion across time and space. \u003c\/strong\u003eHere, artists, thinkers, and pop icons commune in a similar sacred dialogue—Kathleen Collins, André Leon Talley, Richmond Barthé, Lyle Ashton Harris, Juan de Pareja, Janelle Monáe, Symone, and others appear as guiding spirits and creative kin.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFor a Black, queer person so often dislocated from time and place, pleasure becomes an act of resistance—a grounding in the now. \u003cem\u003eThis Elegance\u003c\/em\u003e is a love song—an offering to Black artistry, a tribute to visionary lives, and a testament to the power of beauty in even our most precarious moments.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003ePraise for Derrick Austin\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e “Austin’s poems are bounded by conditions of extremity, but unfold, with delicacy and in repose, between those conditions.\" \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e—Ray McDaniel, \u003cem\u003eThe Constant Critic\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e“In Austin’s hands, the exquisite can be ominous while the grotesque can turn charming, and his poems wisely assert that the world is unforgiving and yet full of mercy—that one can question beauty and yet still be beholden to it.” \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e—\u003cem\u003ePublishers Weekly\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e“Austin is a lyrical architect, rendering with urgency and plain-spokenness what is arguably the most challenging kind of loneliness: that experienced amidst others.” \u003cstrong\u003e—Phillip B. 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