Jennifer jean
Object Lesson
Lily Press, 2021
$12
Playlist:
Jennifer Jean reads from her poetry collection Object Lesson which explores sex-trafficking and objectification in America. She hopes to raise awareness about this persistent human problem. Some poems are based on interviews with survivors at a safe-house where Jennifer volunteered.
Poems read:
“When I taught poetry at the safe house”
“Bird”
“Dear Jasz”
james Gering
Staying Whole While Falling Apart
Interactive Press, 2021
$16 (U.S.)
Playlist:
Staying Whole While Falling Apart is a playful yet serious exploration of loss and grief, of trying to find balance and stability amidst a giddying welter of experiences. You’ll laugh and cry with Aaron Auslander, a kind of everyman, as he tries to make sense of the flux and tumble of his life. The poetry is sharp and it cuts right to the bone, exposing the vulnerabilities and the precarious provisos under which we all can live. This is a potent book animated by courage and finely-honed craft.
—Judith Beveridge, Recipient of the Prime Minister’s Award for poetry 2019
John Sibley Williams
The Drowning House
Winner, Elixir Press Poetry Award, 2022
$17
Playlist:
In The Drowning House, John Sibley Williams grapples with ghosts, the predators outside and in, those closer than our own hearts. In American landscapes haunted by nooses and wolves, burning crosses and floods, Williams holds a light before his path. These are keen-edged poems, kneeling before us, asking forgiveness for what our ancestors have done and have had to live through. He offers himself as a sacrifice for our sins: “here, love, is the tree of my body // to learn to climb. Far from here. From me. To touch / whatever's still up there, beautifully above us."
—Philip Metres