New Books Network
Poetry
Performing Arts April 19, 2021

Owed

Joshua Bennett

Hosted by Andy Boyd
Owed (Penguin, 2020) is the second collection of poems by Dr. Joshua Bennett, poet, professor, and artist. This volume is a wide-ranging, celebratory book focused on what Bennett calls "the Black quotidian," …

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Poetry April 13, 2021

Hotel Almighty

Sarah J. Sloat

Hosted by Andrea Blythe
Visually arresting and utterly one-of-a-kind, Sarah J. Sloat's Hotel Almighty (Sarabande Books) is a book-length erasure of Misery by Stephen King, a reimagining of the novel's themes of constraint and …
Literary Studies March 4, 2021

Empathy in Contemporary Poetry after Crisis

Anna Veprinska

Hosted by Britton Edelen
In this episode, I interview Anna Veprinska about her book Empathy in Contemporary Poetry after Crisis (Palgrave Macmillan, 2020) recently published by Palgrave Macmillan. In it, Veprinska examines the representation of empathy …
Dan Hill's EQ Spotlight February 4, 2021

Arias

Sharon Olds

Hosted by Dan Hill
This episode covers a range of topics from Old’s use of line breaks (enjambment that runs contrary to the tedious, end-stopped rhyming lines of hymnals) to the degree to which …
Poetry January 12, 2021

Descent

Lauren Russell

Hosted by Philip Lance
In 2013, poet Lauren Russell acquired a copy of the diary of her great-great-grandfather, Robert Wallace Hubert, a Captain in the Confederate Army. After his return from the Civil War …
The Common Magazine December 18, 2020

Offering

Tara Skurtu

Hosted by Emily Everett
Tara Skurtu is an American poet and writer, writing coach, and public speaker. She speaks to managing editor Emily Everett about “Offering,” her poem from Issue 19 of The Common …
Poetry December 2, 2020

Catrachos

Poems

Roy G. Guzmán

Hosted by Andrea Blythe
Roy G. Guzmán’s Catrachos (Graywolf Press, 2020) is a stunning debut collection of poetry that immerses the reader in rich, vibrant language. Described as being “part immigration narrative, part elegy …
Literature October 20, 2020

Leave It Raw

Shakira Croce

Hosted by Athena Dixon
Like a storm waiting to break over a plain, Shakira Croce pulls at tensions and heartstrings in a debut collection filled with longing, wit, and intelligence. Through masterful imagery, Croce …
Literature October 5, 2020

Freedom Knows My Name

Kelly Harris-DeBerry

Hosted by Athena Dixon
In Freedom Knows My Name (Xavier Review Press, 2020), Kelly Harris-DeBerry creates the world anew from scraps of memories and rhythm. She bounces between the pages, as well as the …
Poetry September 14, 2020

The First Free Women

Poems of the Early Buddhist Nuns

Matty Weingast

Hosted by Yakir Englander
A radical and vivid rendering of poetry from the first Buddhist nuns that brings a new immediacy to their voices. The Therigatha ("Verses of the Elder Nuns") is the oldest …
Literature September 4, 2020

Two Worlds Exist

Yehoshua November

Hosted by Yakir Englander
Yehoshua November's second poetry collection, Two Worlds Exist (Orison Books), movingly examines the harmonies and dissonances involved in practicing an ancient religious tradition in contemporary America. November's beautiful and profound …
Literature August 11, 2020

Finna

Poems

Nate Marshall

Hosted by Rebekah Buchanan
In Finna: Poems (One World), his new collection of poetry, Nate Marshall examines the way that pop culture influences Black vernacular, the role of storytelling, family, and place. Marshall defines …
Poetry August 5, 2020

Bomb Children

Life in the Former Battlefields of Laos

Leah Zani

Hosted by Lachlan Summers
In this episode, I talk with Dr. Leah Zani, a public anthropologist and poet based in California, about her truly wonderful book Bomb Children: Life in the Former Battlefields of …
Literature July 24, 2020

The Spinning Place

Chelsea Wagenaar

Hosted by Andrea Blythe
In The Spinning Place (Southern Indiana Review Press, 2019), Chelsea Wagenaar explores the power of language—in terms of its possibilities and what it fails to express. As a being with …
Literary Studies July 2, 2020

The Age of Phillis

Honorée Fanonne Jeffers

Hosted by Jennifer J. Davis
Jennifer J. Davis speaks with Honorée Fanonne Jeffers, Professor of English at the University of Oklahoma, about The Age of Phillis (Wesleyan UP, 2020), Jeffers’s latest collection of poems centered …
Literature June 29, 2020

Devil's Lake

Sarah M. Sala

Hosted by Athena Dixon
Devil's Lake (Tolsun Books, 2020), the debut collection by Sarah Sala, is an amalgam of American life. The poems move deftly within a world that is equal parts dangerous, celebratory …
Literature May 28, 2020

Black Was Not a Label

Kathryn H. Ross

Hosted by Athena Dixon
Kathryn H. Ross has found a balance. Between past and present. Between self and ancestors. Between self-discovery and continuous growth. In her hybrid collection, Black Was Not a Label, Ross …
Folklore May 25, 2020

The Poetry of Everyday Life

Storytelling and the Art of Awareness

Steve Zeitlin

Hosted by Rachel Hopkin
This is a book of encounters. Part memoir, part essay, and partly a guide to maximizing your capacity for fulfillment and expression, The Poetry of Everyday Life: Storytelling and the …
Literary Studies April 27, 2020

Endless Song

Tiruvaymoli

Archana Venkatesan

Hosted by Raj Balkaran
Endless Song (Oxford University Press, 2019) is Dr. Archana Venkatesan’s exquisite translation of the Tiruvaymoli (sacred utterance), a brilliant 1102-verse ninth century tamil poem celebrating the poet Nammalvar’s mystical quest …
Literature April 23, 2020

The Lampblack Blue of Memory

My Mother Echoes

Sarah Adleman

Hosted by Athena Dixon
The Houston Chronicle’s review of Sarah Adleman’s The Lampblack Blue of Memory: My Mother Echoes (Tolsun 2019) praises that the book “dissects the feelings that have been a part of …