Editor's Corner

Fanny Howe, Gone, poems: With verve and clarity, Howe illuminates the interstices between the known and unknown worlds with motifs of advance and recovery, doubt and conviction, in her extraordinary new book. (California)

Carl Phillips, The Rest of Love, poems: With his signature terse line and syntax, Phillips examines the myths that we make and return to in the name of desire, delving into the constant tension between abandon and control. (FSG)

Maxine Kumin, Bringing Together, poems: These poems from nine earlier collections crackle with intensity, offering Kumin’s refreshing and singular perspective on everyday experiences, examining the pain of loss, the idealism of youth, and the endurance of the natural world. (Norton)

Jay Neugeboren, Open Heart, memoir: In this inspiring book, Neugeboren thoughtfully recounts his emergency bypass surgery and ruminates on the state of doctor-patient relationships through discussions with four friends from high school, all prominent physicians. (Houghton Mifflin)

C. D. Wright, One Big Self, text and photographs: Wright and photographer Deborah Luster collaborate to produce intimate, haunting, and oddly gorgeous portraits of prisoners in Louisiana, giving voice to their isolation, heartache, and individualism. (Twin Palms)

Chase Twichell, The Lover of God, translations of poems by Rabindranath Tagore: The result of a five-year collaboration between Twichell and a Bengali scholar, Tony Stewart, this fascinating book offers twenty-two poems about a love affair between a young girl and the god Krishna. (Copper Canyon)

Gerald Stern, American Sonnets, poems: In a collection of fifty-nine “sonnets” of twenty or so lines each, most consisting of a single sentence about a single moment, Stern intimately gives tribute to everything from clocks to gangster cousins. (Norton)

Philip Levine, So Ask: Essays, Conversations, and Interviews: With his trademark humor and down-to-earth intelligence, Levine mixes memoir and criticism, reflecting on his working-class Detroit roots, his apprenticeship with John Berryman, his years teaching, and other stages in his formation as a poet. (Michigan)

Paul Muldoon, Moy Sand and Gravel, poems: In his ninth collection, Muldoon works a rich vein that bridges the County Armagh of his youth with suburban New Jersey, where he now lives and teaches. Both whimsical and elegiac, these poems play with form and language with winning mastery. (FSG)