Even as end-of-the-year booklists become absurdly thick on the ground (on the internet), BookThug elects, unapologetically, to add water to the sea. This time we move into the general’s tent, as BookThug’s distinguished editorial team share their best reads of 2014. If you’re interested in reading like an editor (or like an intern), read on! […]
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BookThug’s Best Reads 2014 (Authors’ Edition)
In deference to what has become a robust tradition on the internet, the gang at BookThug is proud to present a festive bundle of end-of-the-year book lists! In today’s episode, BookThug Allstars Marianne Apostolides, Kate Hargreaves, Erin Mouré, Sandra Ridley, Julie Joosten, and Jacob Wren share what they’ve been reading in 2014. Their lists are […]
Continue readingPhil Hall talks with R. Kolewe about his debut collection Afterletters
Afterletters by R. Kolewe is a collection of poems that works with and through the writings of Ingeborg Bachmann and Paul Celan. In the following interview, BookThug’s Poetry Editor Phil Hall talks with poet R. Kolewe about the relationship between Bachmann and Celan, the relationship Kolewe has to them, about romance and research and about […]
Continue reading“National Poetry Month” #22: Aisha Sasha John
self-portrait self-hugging elegance being a favourite escape elegance itself always wanting it felt true and that’s elegance, grace like a calm wind I am happy to know such elegance and scared, maybe, to show all my elegance how time didn’t halt it. over a season having passed and I’m ripe here still with elegance I’m […]
Continue reading“National Poetry Month” #21: Shannon Maguire
from “Pearl/Buttons” near the hour of dawn a stranger unfamiliar flowers she might have been named Sylvia or Buttons or Applied Computing Astrolabe and near to her the split of daisy bombs 53 reviews of recent accidents and a Book of Hours of detentions at the crossings a small log with names encumbering just beyond the air-stream planes landing amid various species of […]
Continue reading“National Poetry Month” #20: David B. Goldstein
WHAT LUCY USED TO BE What Lucy used to be, I now am. Or rather, I accommodate her foibles; they live on in me now that she is gone. For instance: the thin switch of the horse’s tail. The barn before sunrise, cold as oats. Trepidation in a nearby thrush. We believe that the dust […]
Continue reading“National Poetry Month” #19: Colin Fulton
Friendship You can say it. Our friendship concluded conceptually over the course of several uneventful weeks, and our poems lent recognition to and provided impetus for many world movements. Long before my receptive friend and I could formulate a response, and considering that we had once again failed to meet quorum (despite how very pleasant […]
Continue reading“National Poetry Month” #18: Gary Barwin & Gregory Betts
from The Obvious Flap I am not a slack bard, I don’t want a chorus. Here under the bird world, there is movement between h and m, between humans and l, like the grind of continents as it begins to rain. I rush from one drop to the next, holding my breath in song. Thus […]
Continue reading“National Poetry Month” #17: Kim Minkus
3 nonets from “24 Nonets After Reading Edward Byrne’s Sonnets: Louise Labé” 7 Lying spirit tightly strung you are most dangerous with all the points of your desire I come gently into hazard pure terrible burning pain half hard – the other cruel a thousand parts to cry over afternoons of grief cruel and therefore […]
Continue reading“National Poetry Month” #16: David Dowker & Christine Stewart
a breach (amphibrach) object ache* each abject stratification collapses in the culmination which brings us to the apex of the inverse aversion, spiritualized app- liances hap- hazardly rap- tured, tri- geminal peripherals vibrate or gesticulate, a squip quinty or cryogene plasmate, cryptic inarticulate acetate say golgi embodiment raised inchoate waferthin instrumentality be that as it […]
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