Messenger by Ellen Bryant Voigt
Ellen Bryant Voigt, Messenger, poems: A glorious arrangement of selections from six previous volumes, culminating in a series of new poems. (Norton)
Review
Tarumba by Jaime Sabines (trans. by Philip Levine, with Ernesto Trejo)
Philip Levine, Tarumba, translation of poems by Jaime Sabines, with Ernesto Trejo: Sabines is a national treasure in Mexico, and this bilingual edition presents the full power of his secretive, wild, bittersweet poems, stepping into his streets, brothels, hospitals, and cantinas. (Sarabande)
Messenger: New and Selected Poems 1976-2006 by Ellen Bryant Voigt
Ellen Bryant Voigt, Messenger: New and Selected Poems 1976?2006, poems: In this collection, a finalist for the 2007 National Book Award, Voigt arranges poems from her six highly praised books alongside a group of astonishing new pieces. (Norton)
For the Confederate Dead by Kevin Young
Kevin Young, For the Confederate Dead, poems: A passionate pilgrimage embracing the contradictions of our “Confederate” legacy and the troubled nation where it still lingers. (Knopf)
Quiver of Arrows by Carl Phillips
Carl Phillips, Quiver of Arrows, selected poems: This generous selection from Phillips’s eight books showcases the twenty-year evolution of one of America’s most distinctive, original voices, meditating on desire and loss, mastery and subjugation, belief and doubt, sex and human reason. (FSG)
rev of. Eternal Enemies by Adam Zagajewski
Eternal Enemies, poems by Adam Zagajewski (FSG): It sounds somewhat disingenuous now to call even a single poem beautiful, let alone an entire book, so it’s not without caution that I say Adam Zagajewski’s latest collection, Eternal Enemies, is exactly that: lovely, luminous, and wholly lacking the easy cynicism lesser poets might ascribe to such…
Zeppo’s First Wife by Gail Mazur
Gail Mazur, Zeppo’s First Wife, poems: This splendid collection of new and selected works draws on Mazur’s four previous books, showcasing her poetic achievements and wry meditations on the everyday. (Chicago)
First Things to Hand by Robert Pinsky
Robert Pinsky, First Things to Hand, poems: This chapbook serves as a kind of literate anthropology, but is also vintage Pinsky: casually erudite, charged with steady passion, a pleasure to read. (Sarabande)
Man and Camel by Mark Strand
Mark Strand, Man and Camel, poems: Strand’s remarkable eleventh collection is a toast to life’s transience, abiding beauty, and the meaning in the sound of language. (Knopf)