Naming the World and Other Exercises for the Creative Writer, an anthology on writing edited by Bret Anthony Johnston (Random House): Bret Anthony Johnston has turned over the deck and fanned his cards, face-up, across the table. "I don’t believe in talent," he writes. "Truth be told, I’m not at all sure that writing can be…
Alberto Ríos, The Dangerous Shirt, poems: Ríos sends readers down a magical wormhole through mundane reality, creating a book of poems that fuses both magical realism and cultural physics. (Copper Canyon)
Robert Boswell recommends A Gram of Mars, a first collection by Becky Hagenston: “Becky Hagenston writes with grace, conviction, and wit. The complex stories in this collection circle about the central question in our lives-coming to terms with our past, coming to terms with the present. The stories have the stuff of real life and…
Don Lee recommends Once the Shore, stories by Paul Yoon: “These are lovely stories, rendered with a Chekhovian elegance. They span from post-World War II to the new millennium, with characters of different ethnicities, yet each story has a timelessness and relevance that’s haunting and unforgettable. Yoon is a sparkling new writer to welcome and…
Charles Simic, The Renegade: Writings on Poetry and a Few Other Things, essays: In this collection, Simic examines the work and lives of notable poets, novelists, artists, and playwrights in a series of critical portraits. (Braziller)
Gary Soto recommends A Mayan Astronomer in Hell’s Kitchen, poems by Martín Espada: “Martín Espada is a courageous poet who champions with grace the working class, the disheveled, the outcast, the ignored, and the imprisoned-all without sentiment. He gets better with every collection.” (Norton)
Philip Levine recommends Boy, poems by Patrick Phillips. "For me this is a real discovery. In many of the poems—’Nathaniel’ or ‘Matinee’ or ‘Star Quilt’—the language is quiet and accurate, the details precise, and the emotions—though never insisted upon—are there, unquestionable and complex. Phillips never dawdles or repeats himself; he gets down what matters…
Gary Soto, Partly Cloudy, poems: A humorous and tender collection of poems giving testimony to the trials and folly of being in young, sweet, uncontrollable teenage love. (Harcourt)
You might think that Michael Chabon is simply trying to twist your tongue when he writes sentences like this: "She had on one of those glittering, opalescent Intergalactic Amazon leotard-and-tights combinations that seem to be made of cavorite and adamantium and do not so much cling to a woman's body as seal her off from…
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