Rebecca Frank

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Articles

From Ghostly Forests to “Zombie Vomit Mad Libs.” Seven Poetry Books to Read in November

Nov 1, 2024 | lithub.com | Rebecca Frank

It seems fitting that as we enter the zone between Halloween and election day, we encounter Zombie Vomit Mad Libs, The Ghost Forest, and Field Guide to Accidents. Throw in Cowboy Park, the one debut in this month’s poetry round-up, and November starts to look like a contender for best titles of 2024. Article continues after advertisementYes, these collections offer up cowboys and zombies, and also velvet ants, sleep guides, Roman recipes (sort of), mad lib poems, and found-line ghazals.
Sounds, Signs, and Elegies: Seven New Poetry Collections to Read This September

Sep 3, 2024 | lithub.com | Rebecca Frank

Let the rush of Fall books begin! Article continues after advertisement September is packed with new poetry collections, alongside anthologies such as Here to Stay: Poetry and Prose from the Undocumented Diaspora, edited by Marcelo Hernandez Castillo, Janine Joseph, and Esther Lin, and the unclassifiable gorgeous and edifying textual exhibit (joined by an exhibit of the same name in Los Angeles) of On the National Language: The Poetry of America’s Endangered Tongues, by B.A. Van Sise, with...
Bamboo Wives, Biddle City, Coachella, and Cyberspace: Six Poetry Collections to Read in July

Jul 1, 2024 | lithub.com | Rebecca Frank

July. Everything slows down, yet smaller presses hum on: this month’s list is dedicated to them, from newer small New York presses like The Song Cave and Changes, to Chicago’s Haymarket Books, to Louisville’s Sarabande Books, now under new leadership with Executive Director and Editor in Chief Kristen Renee Miller stepping up after founder Sarah Gorham’s retirement. July: what better month for poetic travel?
Professors, Priests, Provosts, Manholes, and More: 7 Poetry Books to Read This May

May 2, 2024 | lithub.com | Rebecca Frank

This stack of May books reminds me of why I love the lyric poem, its flexibilities of tone, of voice, of movement, how much it allows for, even in the smallest of spaces, be it line or poem.
Seven Unexpectedly Intimate Poetry Books to Read in March

Mar 4, 2024 | lithub.com | Rebecca Frank

In three of this month’s collections, we find ourselves in the shower with the speaker.
Exploding Head | Poetry Foundation

Jan 17, 2024 | poetryfoundation.org | Cynthia Hoffman |Rebecca Frank

By Cynthia Marie Hoffman “Try not counting these five ducks: nobody gets it. Nobody gets it. Go home. Spring is chronic.
A History of Half-Birds

Jan 16, 2024 | poetryfoundation.org | Rebecca Frank

By Caroline Harper New There’s an untamed luminescence to Caroline Harper New’s debut, A History of Half-Birds, a collection steeped in science and mythology.
Creature | Poetry Foundation

Jan 9, 2024 | poetryfoundation.org | Rebecca Frank

By Marsha De La O “How many times have I sensed myself / as though behind glass, my isolation / excluding others, and always, / it seemed, the real world just beyond?” The speaker of the title poem of Marsha de la O’s Creature is face to face with a Cooper’s hawk that has flown in through her window and is now “trapped / in a paroxysm of fear.” By the poem’s end, the speaker, in conversation with her therapist, understands that it is she who wants to be free.
7 New Poetry Collections to Read in December

Dec 4, 2023 | lithub.com | Rebecca Frank

‘Tis the season—of year end lists. Also, year-end gifts, year-end busyness, all while the rush of late-year books keep tumbling out, reminding us that 2023 definitely isn’t over yet. From these rich stacks I am grateful to gather work by Tacey M.
godhouse | Poetry Foundation

Nov 30, 2023 | poetryfoundation.org | Ruth Ellen Kocher |Rebecca Frank

By Ruth Ellen Kocher “i begin with ocean / floating in the free space of my ribs / somewhere between / ursa major and ursa minor.” So opens Ruth Ellen Kocher’s gripping eighth collection, godhouse, which examines the forces that shape the life of a Black woman raised by a white family: “i begin as a side bet / a detour into cosmos / via the elliptical path of my thumbprint.” In the pointedly named “cephalogenesis,” the speaker’s grandmother calls her mother “whore”; in contrast, the speaker...