September 2023

Gillian Conoley

Notes from the Passenger
Nightboat Books, 2023
$17.95

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Gillian Conoley's Notes from the Passenger reads as if written “in an aura of intimacy," intimacy with the daughter, the lover, the reader, the dead, and with the spirit, sometimes called God, sometimes called “the messenger." In wide-open poems that expose the junk and the beauty of the material world, the violence and the grace within the social, Conoley embraces “mortality . . . with is rosy edge of want" while catapulting toward the infinite, what she calls the “next next world."
–Julie Carr

Conoley uncannily reveals our historic epoch: What is true? What is agency? What, in fact, constitutes the living?
–Rodrigo Toscano

Jessica Cuello

Yours, Creature
JackLeg Press, 2023
$18.00

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Yours, Creature is a series of epistolary poems in the voice of Mary Shelley. Some are addressed to her mother, the feminist and activist Mary Wollstonecraft, others to her creature from Frankenstein.

Poems read:
“Dear Mother, [I had a dream]"
“Dear Creature, [The sea of ice]"
“Dear Creature, [After everyone forgot]"
“Dear Creature, [P. and I read]"
“Dear Creature, [Because of what I did]"

Sandra Marchetti

Aisle 228
Stephen F. Austin State University Press, 2023
$18

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Aisle 228 is a book of poems about the Chicago Cubs, listening to baseball on the radio, and going to games with my father.

“Sandra Marchetti writes like a poet who knows the strike zone. The poems are new and smooth like a ball ready to be rubbed by a pitcher. Sandra Marchetti writes from inside the ballpark, that holy sacred place. Let her poems guide you from the aisle to the altar.”
–E. Ethelbert Miller

Poems read:
“Arizona"
“Broadcast"
“Save"
“First Poem"
“Elysian Park"

August 2023

Mildred Kiconco Barya

The Animals of My Earth School
Terrapin Books, 2023
$17

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The Animals of My Earth School is structured in four parts of the Animal Kingdom: Insecta, Mammalia, Reptilia, and Aves. The poems explore relations between humans, animals, and their belonging in the natural world through contemporary issues of ecological balance, environmental harmony, social justice, and sustainability.

Poems read:
“Giant Stag Beetles”
“Creation”
“Dream of Lizard Solidarity”
“Falling in Love”

Tresha Faye Haefner

When the Moon Had Antlers
Pine Row Press, 2023
$20.00

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“I am blown away by Tresha Haefner’s collection, by her brave bolts of imagination and the forceful contretemps of her unexpected insights that range from personal confessional to environmental visionary. This poet interprets the world with sensitivity, joy, and a flair for invention.”
–Michelle Bitting

“These are poems we need to listen to, where ecopoetics, melancholy, and spirituality hold hands and connect us to a world where there are people who will hug us/then melt back into the night.”
–Kelli Russell Agodon

Poems read:
“Questions for a Search Engine"
“My New God Plays the Ukulele" “Let"
“How Animals Write Poetry"

Peter Johnson

While the Undertaker Sleeps: Collected and New Prose Poems
MadHat Press, 2023
Hardcover, $33.95
Paperback, $23.95

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“These are poems of everyday miracles. The excitement of prose poetry is that it transgresses the rules to let the reader catch a glimpse of what could be called the true life of the imagination. This is what Peter Johnson gives us. What more could we ask of a book of poems?"
–Charles Simic

“Johnson's prose poems are comic, sexual, and endlessly inventive. They are poems of appreciation and discovery; poems that prove there is such a thing as the American prose poem."
–Russell Edson

former DMQ Review contributor

July 2023

James Brasfield

Cove: Poems
Louisiana State University Press, 2023 $17.95

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“By exploring the translation of the sensory world into art, Brasfield faces the passage of time and the transitory nature of experience, thought, and memory. The poems find ‘angles of vision' to rescue a present instant in its essential fluidity, to go deep enough, without distraction, into the moment and reveal touchstones of being. Throughout Cove, Brasfield embraces the enduring effort to create an experience of language that is rich, lasting, and true, as life speeds into and through the future."

Poems read:
“Etruscans at Monterchi”
“Amalgam”
“Winter Precipice”
“Founding Cities”
“The Ritual”

former DMQ Review contributor

Mara Adamitz Scrupe

REAP: a Flora
Shipwreckt Publishing, 2023
$18.95

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The poems in REAP straddle the global and the personal, emerging from research in the natural sciences, social histories, geology, biology, and horticulture, alongside the poet's fascination with remnants of material culture. An avocational naturalist Adamitz Scrupe utilizes her considerable experiences identifying, documenting, and drawing indigenous wildflowers to ground the collection: from birth references in the first section, to allusions of inevitable decay in the last grouping of poems, REAP expresses the poets’ devotion to the study of nature as a locus for human ecology, underpinning intimate linkages between people, plants and animals, and the interdependencies of all species.

Tracy Youngblom

Boy
CavanKerry Press, 2023
$18

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The death of a youngest sibling as a child, an alcoholic and distant father, a grief-stricken family, a tentative faith: these are the building blocks of the narrative of Boy, a sequence of poems that explores how death and loss color memory and influence the ways family members relate to each other and to their shared history.

former DMQ Review contributor

June 2023

Doug Ramspeck

Blur
The Word Works, 2023
$19.00

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“The reader comes of age a hundred times in Doug Ramspeck’s poignant new book of poems. Mythic and elegiac, Ramspeck intertwines images from the natural world with familial and fraternal memories, with a haunting lyricism that hallows both past and present. ‘What we can’t see is everywhere,’ he reminds us: always precise, always moving, these poems are ‘epistles of moonlight’ from one of America’s most gifted and prolific poets.”
– Mark Wagenaar

Poems read:
“Divining the Mountain”
“dream of the ten rivers”
“Winter Trance”

former DMQ Review Contributor

Gemma White

Oh My Rapture
Interactive Press, 2022
AU$26

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“In Oh My Rapture, Gemma White stages the politics of fandom in percussive, edgy and unforgettable poems. White performs intense moments of intimacy and yearning against a backdrop of grief, so that lines such as ‘you dumped me in the psych ward’, ‘you kissed me in Dixons Recycled Music’, and ‘my madness is a burnt orange fox’ become deep entanglements of desire.”
– Cassandra Atherton

Poems read:
“Poem 9”
“Poem 26”
“Poem 25”
“Poem 2”

Megan Wildhood

Bowed As If Laden With Snow
Cornerstone Press, 2023
$23

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Poems read:

“Mystery Confirmed” (from the space in the Venn Diagram of my terror of the passing of time and my interests overlap)
“But I Am Still Connected To You” (a tribute to my late grandfather)
Birthday” (another reflection on the passing of time)
“We Are Not World Enders” (processing being told both that the world could end at any moment since we were children and that it was our oyster)
“How To Talk About The Weather” (an homage to my favorite section of the SAT before they changed it)

May 2023

Rosie Prohías driscoll

Poised for Flight
Finishing Line Press, 2022
$19.99

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“The poems in Rosie Prohías Driscoll’s debut collection are stepping stones through the liminal spaces which marry the past and present: dual heritages, bilingual explorations into the ways we carry our ancestors in language, memory, and faith. Through a language of her own belonging and with skillfully crafted images and metaphors, Prohías Driscoll fathoms the power of transience and inheritance, all of us pajaritos in flight."
– Richard Blanco,
2013 Presidential Inaugural Poet

Poems Read:
“Papá del Loro"
“Feathers"
“Diagramming Sentences"
“Word Blossoms"

Jeannine Hall Gailey

Flare, Corona
BOA Editions, 2023
$17.00

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Flare, Corona describes the last six years in which I was diagnosed with terminal liver cancer, then multiple sclerosis, then the coronavirus pandemic happened. So it's a really upbeat book! Just kidding, but it is all about survival in a variety of circumstances.

Poems Read:
“In a Plague Year, I Found Foxes" “Irradiate"
“Calamity"

Matthew Thorburn

String
Louisiana State University Press, 2023 $18.95

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A book-length sequence of poems, String tells the story of a teenage boy’s experiences in a time of war and its aftermath. He loses his family and friends, his home and the life he knew, but survives to tell his story. Written in the boy’s fractured, echoing voice—in lines that are frequently enjambed and use almost no punctuation—String embodies his trauma and confusion in a poetic sequence that is part lullaby, part nightmare, but always a music that is uniquely his.

Poems read:
“Once”
“The Magician”
“Pale Stars”
“Shatterings”

April 2023

Amy Barone

Defying Extinction
Broadstone Books, 2022
$18.50

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Defying Extinction is a collection of 61 poems that pay homage to survivors of all genres—animal, object, spirit, place, the arts, the human heart. Witty and colorful, the poems shine with hope and resignation, underscoring the essence of remembering and then moving on.

“The title of Amy Barone’s new collection of poems, Defying Extinction, is absolutely perfect! … This is a vital book in these harsh times. Please check it out.”
—Ron Kolm

Poems read:
“Survivors”
“Sanctum”
“Bearly”
“Island Exiles”
“Handkerchief”
“Defying Extinction”

Ronda Piszk Broatch

Chaos Theory for Beginners
MoonPath Press, 2023
$16.99

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As a kid I used to lie in bed at night and wonder what held the bag that contained all the stars, planets, and us? Now my nighttime reading is often focused on planets and Planck lengths, though my understanding of the math behind them lacks. I adore the scientists who do. Some of their beautiful equations are featured, over a backdrop of fractals, on the cover I created for this book, Chaos Theory for Beginners.

Poems read:
“The Photographer Who Made Sense of the Universe”
“Sonnet with General Relativity”
“It was the year of time travel”

Current and former DMQ Review contributor.

Molly Tenenbaum

The Arborists
MoonPath Press, 2023
$16.99

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The Arborists studies ephemera—notes, letters, and artwork that particular lives leave behind; and also sensory ephemera of a life—the taste of pie, the depths of flowers. The book visits with family and friends, some passed on, and wants to know what “map we would make / if you attached a flame to us and filmed us in the dark” (“Equation”). In The Arborists, hornets eat the wood of the house while the people in the house continue making themselves as best they can into mattering.

Poems read:
“There Will Be Beauty"
“A Cat Is Always in the Room"

Former DMQ Review contributor.

March 2023

Tim Hunt

Voice to Voice in the Dark
Broadstone Books, 2022
$18.50

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We often talk about the need to construct a usable past, but even more we need to discover a usable present, and that’s partly a matter of reimagining the past to understand how we lived it and how it lives in us. The poems in Voice to Voice in the Dark try to explore this dialogue.

Poems read:
“Song of the Open Road”
“A Grammar of Things”
“A Photo You Meant to Take”
“The Story”

Jessica Murray

Breakfast in Fur
Galileo Press, 2022
$16.42

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“Aristotle claimed learning gives the human animal the liveliest pleasure. Breakfast in Fur celebrates this strange gift. The pleasures of this book surprise and delight as they defy conventions of self-searching and introspection. Jessica Murray plumbs discordant sources in our strange world, from pornography to ceramic art, from marriage to childbirth to friendship to fleeting glance. A spiritual autobiography of great daring that celebrates the well-made mistake rather than protecting the untaken chance, at its best moments, it is coldly wild, and full of vivid experiment.”
–Katie Peterson

Poems read:
“The State With the Prettiest Name" “After Reading Sally Mann's Memoir"

Adam Scheffler

Heartworm
Moon City Press, 2023
$14.95

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“Adam Scheffler's addictively re-readable poems take us into the daily jumble of Walmarts, dogparks, and the alluring, dubious friendliness of the internet. The "heartworm" of this book's title solicits attention and, even, prescription for all that gnaws at you. These are poems to read when you can't tell excitement from agitation. You are not alone.”
–Elisa New, Director and Host of PBS’s Poetry in America

Poems read:
“I Want to be Jeff Goldblum”
“Dear Florida”
“Florence, Kentucky”

February 2023

E. Ethelbert Miller

How I Found Love Behind the Catcher’s Mask
City Point Press, 2022
$9.99

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I’m going to be reading from my book How I Found Love Behind the Catcher’s Mask. This collection of poems is the third book of my baseball trilogy. The titles of the first two books are- If God Invented Baseball and When Your Wife Has Tommy John Surgery. All three books are published by City Point Press.

These poems from How I Found Love Behind the Catcher’s Mask are not just about the American pastime, they are also about the human condition.

Poems read:
“Every Buddhist Is A Baseball Player”
“Radio”
“How I Found Love Behind the Catcher’s Mask”
“The Change UP”
“Beer”
“The Slump”
“The Shooting”
“Just Be Young For Me”

former DMQ Review Featured Poet

Margaret R. Sáraco

If There Is No Wind
Human Error Publishing, 2022
$15.00

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In If There Is No Wind, I explore themes of family, love, and activism by unearthing grief and exploring beauty. The randomness of human brutality can be overwhelming. “Quiet Moment" and “Invocation" offer ways to get through the day.

Poems Read:
“Unleash the Trauma of Our Lives” “Love Valley”
“The Venetian Blinds”
“Canadian Immigration Site Crashed”
“Living in an Age of Fear”
“Invocation”

Jessica L. Walsh

Book of Gods and Grudges
Glass Lyre Press, 2022
$16.00

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I wanted to share poems that mark the property of this book: restlessness, anger, survival, fear. What I created in writing this book was a space for all my battles to play out, a dingy basement for a bare-knuckle fight between all the versions of myself who have allowed me to be here. I'm endlessly grateful that I'm able to share Book of Gods and Grudges with readers, and I thank you.

Poems read:
“On the Pere Marquette”
“No Trees For Shade”
“You'll Be Disappointed”
“When my daughter tells me I was never punk”

January 2023

Joanne Durham

To Drink from a Wider Bowl
Evening Street Press, 2022
$15

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James Crews writes about To Drink from a Wider Bowl, winner of the Sinclair Poetry Prize: “What she has drawn for us here is nothing less than a map of how to navigate our days with honesty, grace, and a deep mindfulness that leaves nothing unnoticed. Her richly layered and musical poems bear the contours of every phase of life… This is a beautiful, timely book you’ll want to pick up again and again.”

Poems read:
“Old Folks”
“Reset”
“Brothers in Arms Valentine’s Day Gun Sale”
“Where They Go”
“Maps”

Kashiana Singh

Woman by the Door
Apprentice House Press, 2022
$12.99

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Playlist:

“For Kabir”
“How a woman delivers hope” “Finding Prayer”

Richard Tillinghast

Blue If Only I Could Tell You
White Pine Press, 2022
$17.00

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Playlist:

“The Boar": Inter-species communications fascinate me. The challenge here was to try and comprehend the thinking of this wild boar, and how to translate his squeals and roars—and even his thoughts!— into English. It's all whimsical, of course; but I relished the attempt. “Boat": weather and how a Taoist understanding fits into everyday life. “Blue If Only I Could Tell You": I went to art school when I was younger, my girlfriend is a painter, and the meanings of colors play an important part in my understanding of things.