Poetry Contributor: Molly Spencer

Molly Spencer’s starkly lovely collection of poems, If the House, speaks from an undeniably domestic perspective, but her subjects range from the deeply personal to the global and widely felt. Poems navigate the line between memory and presence and explore many kinds of absence: stillness, silence, white space, the foreclosure of a house, the dissolution…

Poetry Spotlight: Keetje Kuipers

Sweet and bittersweet in turns, Keetje Kuiper’s All Its Charms (2019, BOA Editions) is a collection of love notes: reflections on time spent with her wife and daughter, quiet moments of observation, pockets of domestic calm. From this place of tenderness, Kuiper’s intelligent poems peel away self-importance and culpability to acknowledge larger, looming conflicts, from the…

Poetry Spotlight: Anne Barngrover

Anne Barngrover’s Brazen Creature is a fierce contemplation on the relationship between pain and yearning. The pain of the body. The pain of loss. The pain of the woods. The collection refers to our sufferer as The Waiting Girl, whose hair is always singed, and the men throughout are varying degrees of disappointment. Despite a familiar…

Poetry Spotlight: Jill McDonough

Jill McDonough‘s newest collection of poetry, Here All Night, is a unique mix of free verse and sonnets that invites readers into tales of domesticity and community, though not everything is joyous and kind. In Here All Night, McDonough makes brilliant use of humor to analyze the economy, gender discrimination, and the penal system of America. With…

Poetry Spotlight: Katie Peterson

In her most recent poetry collection, A Piece of Good News (Farrar, Straus & Giroux), Katie Peterson generously gathers the elements in our lives that can often feel most disparate: the private and public, the present and past, the personal and the universal. While the poems are almost always grounded in personal experience—driving around town with parents,…

Poetry Spotlight: Michele Battiste

Michele Battiste’s Waiting for the Wreck to Burn explores themes of murder, ruin, and redemption. The narrator navigates two towns—one called Ruination, one unnamed—split by a river that threatens to flood. Poems border the land between life and death and, though haunting, invite the reader on a journey to a new start. In addition to Waiting for the Wreck to…

Contributor Round-up: The 2018 Poetry Books

In celebration of our wonderful poetry contributors, here is a guide to their 2018 books for your wish lists and gift lists. (*Debut poetry collections.) Bonus at the end: a sneak peak at 2019! Diana Khoi Nguyen, Ghost Of (Omnidawn)* Finalist for the National Book Award in Poetry Tarfia Faizullah, Illuminated Villages (Graywolf) Sally Wen Mao, Oculus…

Memorious Speaks: Jennifer Tseng Reads “I never read one word Toni Morrison wrote.”

Welcome to “Memorious Speaks,” a new corner of the blog, which features authors performing poetry and prose published in Memorious. In this edition, Jennifer Tseng reads “I never read one word Toni Morrison wrote.,” her stunning poem from Memorious 27. Read the full text of “I never read one word Toni Morrison wrote.” here.   For original poetry,…

Poetry Spotlight: Contributor Lloyd Schwartz

Acclaimed poet Lloyd Schwartz’s long-awaited fourth full collection of poems, Little Kisses, has recently been released by the University of Chicago Press. From the opening title poem, he again proves himself to be, as the New York Times has praised him, “the master of the poetic one-liner.” The journey of Little Kisses is a constant…

Memorious Speaks: Nicky Beer Reads “Cathy Dies”

Welcome to “Memorious Speaks,” a new corner of the blog, which features authors performing poetry and prose published in Memorious. First up, Nikky Beer reads “Cathy Dies,” her stunning poem from Memorious 27. Read the full text of “Cathy Dies” here.   For original poetry, fiction, art song and art, please visit our magazine at www.memorious.org.