Jill Michelle
Underwater
Riot in Your Throat, 2025
$17
Playlist:
“Visceral and vulnerable, Jill Michelle’s Underwater recreates the enormity of post-traumatic grief, the way it ensnares the body and mind in time. February, which 'floods like broken water in our bed—rafts of sad blood,' becomes a portal to infant loss, parental loss, sexual assault, and divorce, happening always as if for the first time.” —Eugenia Leigh
Poems read:
“Aftermath"
“Bedrest at Winnie Palmer" (first appeared in DMQ Review)
“Clock"
“My Dad Adored Coffee"
former DMQ Review contributor
Frank Rubino
Frank's Lunch Service
Lithic Press, 2025
$20
Playlist:
“I tore through it in one night and really felt so surprised and taken by the dailiness, a poetry written by a guy living through losing parents and having difficult kids and a gay uncle who died of AIDS and a kind of disaffected survivalist brother. The whole thing is told in this straight-ahead way that is always a sweet and strangely clear-headed guy talking to himself …” —from the introduction by Eileen Myles
Poems read:
“Young Women Who Are Kids, KWAYW”
“The Russians”
“Frank's Lunch Service”
Erik Manuel Soto
Inside the Umber Iris
What Books Press, 2025
$18
Playlist:
Inside the Umber Iris, winner of the Gronk Nicandro prize for a first book of poetry, is a collection that traverses the realms of the subconscious and mythology. Tying a lyrical and surrealist style to themes of generational trauma and folkloric genealogy, while continuously weaving pain and passion through every stanza, the poet constructs a striking odyssey with high emotional stakes.