November 2022

Susan Cohen

Democracy of Fire
Broadstone Books, 2022
$16.50/$22.50

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Playlist:

Ellen Bass writes: “A thread of elegy runs through Democracy of Fire, Susan Cohen’s wise and wonderful new poetry collection....Cohen shows us our interconnectedness, a reminder of both the beauty and value of what’s at stake. Yet, paradoxically, this vision makes Democracy of Fire a deeply comforting book.”

Poems read:
“Science News: Dogs Were Domesticated Once from a Lost Population of Wolves”
“Science News: Dung Beetles Navigate by Storing Star Maps in Their Brains”*
“Report on the State of the World’s Children”
“Fire Season with Rolling Blackouts at the Bodega Bar & Grill”

former DMQ Review Contributor*

David Ebenbach

What's Left to Us by Evening
Orison Books, 2022
$16

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Playlist:

This reading features the following election-focused poems, all from my new book What’s Left to Us by Evening which is fundamentally about the simultaneous beauty and brokenness of our world.

Poems read:
“City of Sides”
“Election Day”
“Election Night”
“November Shabbat Morning”

And that mural behind me is by the great artist David Guinn.

former DMQ Review Contributor


Jenna Le

Manatee Lagoon
Acre Books, 2022
$16

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Playlist:

The third full-length collection from physician and poet Jenna Le blends traditional form and the current moment. In Manatee Lagoon, sonnets, ghazals, pantoums, villanelles, and a “failed georgic” weave in contemporary subject matter, including social-media comment threads, Pap smears, eclipse glasses, and gun violence. A recurring motif throughout the collection, manatees become a symbol with meanings as wide-ranging as the book itself.

Poems read:
“November"
“Dispatch From Hanover, New Hampshire"
“Patti Smith, 1976"
“Purses"
“The Reader"