Happy Poems & Other Lies is a poetry collection chronicling an exiled speaker’s battle with family-imposed religious dogma, their quest for acceptance, and journey towards self-discovery through biblical language, surrealism, and absurdism.

A Map to the Spring

by Lim Deok-Gi

A Map to the Spring is a translation of collection of poems praising the vitality of life on Earth—including us humans—by Korean poet Lim Deok-Gi. A Map to the Spring invites readers on a poetic journey through the seasons, intertwining reflections on nature and humanity. Through the lens of the poet’s experiences, the book explores themes of winter and fall, urging readers to pause and contemplate the beauty and significance of life in all its forms. Lim Deok-Gi’s verses serve as a gentle reminder to pay attention to the world around us, lest we overlook the richness and depth of existence. With lyrical prose and profound insights, A Map to the Spring beckons readers to embrace the interconnectedness of all living things and find solace in the ever-renewing cycles of nature.

The History of the Siege

by Eric Pankey

Written and gathered together in an era of pandemic, rising authoritarianism, war, and climate crisis, the prose poems in Eric Pankey’s The History of the Siege chronicle the eschatological age we live in, where everyone, as the Polish poet Zbigniew Herbert argues, “suffers from a loss of the sense of time.” Pankey, in his third collection of prose poems, continues to investigate the formal and rhetorical possibilities of this already subversive genre. In a 1987 interview, Zbigniew Herbert said, “It is vanity to think that one can influence the course of history by writing poetry. It is not the barometer that changes the weather.” While these poems—sometimes solemn, sometimes hermetic, sometimes funny—do not attempt to influence history, they do hope to capture what it is like to live within history, and it looks like, as the old song says, we’re in for nasty weather.

Ember Days

by Mary Gilliland

The rivetting poems of Ember Days begin with ritual and end with prayer as they tunnel through Wednesday’s jammed boulevards, Friday’s cash worthless, Saturday’s prodigal feet. Plant disease incurable as colonialism inhabits nature’s solace; funds for libraries disappear, abandoned houses compel secrets. Woolf’s pen runs dry, Tesla holes up, Lincoln emerges in yet another bardo. Soldiers in Baghdad, models transformed to artists, descendants of forced immigrants, survivors of hurricanes, witnesses for peace—these and other intercessory voices step up to our world’s disasters, level with its possibilities, interrogate faith, justice, militarism, madness, and the perception and affection of intimate relationships.