Philip Levine recommends The Ha-Ha, poems by David Kirby: “David Kirby has been writing very original and moving poems for at least twenty years, but this new book is his most daring and successful. The world that Kirby takes into his imagination and the one that arises from it merge to become a creation like…
Maxine Kumin recommends Horses and the Human Soul, poems by Judith Barrington: "The poem, Barrington writes, ‘has lodged in my heart like a stone in the shoe.’ It is a perfect image for recollection. Here are the horses of her English childhood and the outbreak of World War II filtered through family reminiscence, her coming…
Margot Livesey recommends Heaven Lake, a novel by John Dalton: “In this immaculately written first novel, Dalton follows a young American, Vincent, who goes to Taiwan as a Christian missionary and ends up making an epic journey to mainland China. Heaven Lake is large in scope, vivid in character, and beautifully plotted.” (Scribner)
Philip Levine recommends From the Meadow, selected and new poems by Peter Everwine: "This collection presents all of Everwine’s poems that he still regards with affection in a career that spans forty years or more, many of the poems never collected before. It includes a few of his remarkable translations from the Hebrew as well…
Alice Hoffman, Blackbird House, stories: Beautiful and haunting, these twelve interconnected narratives span a dozen lives over the course of two hundred years—all inhabitants of a house on a small farm in Cape Cod, Massachusetts, who are transformed by love and passion. (Doubleday)
Joyce Peseroff recommends Letters to Jane, correspondence by Hayden Carruth: "While researching Jane Kenyon’s papers archived at the UNH library, I came across a file of letters written to her by Hayden Carruth during the long months of her illness. Carruth didn’t expect a reply; he didn’t write to be cheery or tell her to…
Fanny Howe, On the Ground, poems: In this bold, yearning new collection, Howe responds to the contrast between American imperialist goals and the realities of life lived “on the ground.” Infused with moving clarity, these poems have unassailable urgency. (Graywolf)
Robert Pinsky recommends Will in the World: How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare, a biography by Stephen Greenblatt: "To recommend a best-seller? Strange in a way, but Ploughshares readers should know that Greenblatt is a real writer. Unlike many a ‘noted scholar’ he writes wonderful sentences and paragraphs. Here is a book about a literary writer that…
Carl Phillips, Coin of the Realm, essays: In this generous and sensual collection, with pieces ranging in subject from Plath to race, Phillips luminously argues that the currency that most holds weight, both in art and life, includes beauty, risk, and authority—values of meaning and complexity that all too often go disregarded. (Graywolf)
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