The year is coming to a close and you’re wondering what poetry releases you missed in 2021. We asked our staff, editors, and authors which poetry books they loved this year, so scroll down to find your next read!
So the writer in your life already has every book on their list, and more notebooks than they could fill in a lifetime. We talked to writers we know to learn what they’d love to receive this holiday season, so look no further to treat your favourite writer!
1. Literary Magazine Subscriptions
A subscription to a literary magazine or journal is the gift that keeps on giving for your favourite writer, who will receive each new issue throughout the year. Check out The Stinging Fly for twice-yearly issues of new writing, or Prairie Schooner for essays, reviews, poetry, and fiction. Looking for something unique? Try Uncanny Magazine for indie science fiction and fantasy!
2. Coffee
Please give writers coffee. Writers want coffee so much! Equip them with an especially indulgent stock of their preferred roast (Millie Tullis recommends Highlander Grogg), or look into a coffee subscription service. Even better, support their entire caffeine routine and look into finding them the French press, pour-over set-up, or fancy kettle they’ve always wanted. If they’re not a coffee-drinker, try their favourite tea, or a cute, re-useable tea-steeper.
3. Word Games
Bananagrams, Boggle, Scrabble… nab them one of these classics, or try something new with games like Word Smithery or Poetry for Neanderthals, suggests Editorial Board member Sarah Clark.
4. A Gift Card to Their Local Bookshop
It is a truth universally acknowledged that a writer in possession of a local bookstore must be in want of several books. Snag them a gift card to their preferred independent bookseller, and spare yourself the stress of trying to guess which of this year’s releases they have already.
5. A Workshop!
Workshops can be expensive, but they can also help a writer dig into their new project, try out a new technique, or learn from artists they admire. If a writer in your life has been eyeing a certain workshop for a while, consider supporting their registration or other associated costs.
6. A Small Press Subscription
Lots of small, independent presses offer subscriptions that let you snag all of their yearly releases at a reduced cost. For the writer with an insatiable appetite for new books, this gift keeps the reading material coming all year-long and lets them enjoy some of the year’s exciting new releases! Try Glass Poetry Press for a subscription to their Chapbook Series, or Sundress’s very own 2022 Subscription for full-length releases from Stacey Balkun, Mackenzie Berry, Jason B. Crawford, Amanda Galvin-Huynh, Matthew E. Henry, Valerie Ruiz, and Margo Berdeshevsky’s as well as a copy of our handprinted letterpress broadside from this year’s contest winner!
7. A Fountain Pen
Writers might have every notebook under the sun, but what about a gorgeous pen to go with it? If you’re feeling ambitious, grab some ink in their favourite shade to go with it.
8. A Patreon Membership
Why not give your favourite writer extra perks from their favourite writers and creatives—while also supporting all of their great work? Gift a Patreon membership for their favourite authors, podcasters, Youtubers, etc; you can even get them a membership to our own Patreon and all of the cool books and swags we have to offer!
9. Editing Software
Want to give a writer writing their next bestseller—or thinking about drafting it—a leg up in the writing game? Why not get them a subscription to editorial services like Grammarly or the Holy Grail of drafting software, Scrivener?
10. The Gift of Time
Maybe the writer in your life just needs time and a quiet space to start a new project or get some writing in. Offer to do some errands for them or help them block off undistracted time so they can sit down and write knowing you have things taken care of.
The Sundress Academy for the Arts is excited to present “Resisting Genre: Poetry as Hybrid and Experimentation” a workshop led by Clayre Benzadón on December 8, 2021, from 6-7:30 PM. This event will be held over Zoom. Participants can access the event at tiny.utk.edu/sundress (password: safta).
This workshop aims to explore the concept of genre, particularly within the scope of poetry. Does a poem need to be strictly defined as a prose poem? What if it also reads/contains elements of the “lyric essay”? In this workshop, participants will be introduced to this concept of challenging form through the Surrealist and Language poetry lens/movements (discussing poets such as Lyn Heijinian and Frank O ‘Hara). Participants will focus on the hybrid / experimental possibilities embedded within poetry, such as multilingual poetry which not only refers to different languages themselves, but also referring to “language” in broader terms, such as through the medium of coding (ex.: Uri Sacharow’s “Code Monkey Barbie”), or math poetry (ex.: Stephanie Strickland), or through the experimentation of form itself (Cecilia Vicuña, M NourbeSe Philip’s Zong!, text from Layli Long Soldier’s Whereas.
While there is no fee for this workshop, those who are able and appreciative can make direct donations via Venmo @Clayre-Benzadon or PayPal @clayrebenz
Clayre Benzadón received her MFA at the University of Miami. She is a Split Lip Magazine poetry reader and Broadsided Press’s Instagram editor. Her chapbook, Liminal Zenith was published by SurVision Books. She was awarded the Alfred Boas Poetry Prize for Linguistic Rewilding and her full-length collection, Moon as Salted Lemon was a finalist for the 2021 Robert Dana-Anhinga Poetry Prize. She has been published in places including 14poems, SWWIM, Fairy Tale Review, ANMLY, and forthcoming in Grist. Find more about her at clayrebenzadon.com.
My bookshelves are entities that both taunt and comfort me.
On the wall opposite my bed, watching me oversleep, binge-watch Netflix shows, and re-read the same books in my spare time is my “classics” shelf. The books within it represent the reader I try to be. While I’ve read and re-read a handful of them, like Brontë’s Jane Eyre (my all-time favorite), Wilde’s Picture of Dorian Gray, and Shelley’s Frankenstein, many of them remain unopened. I’m not exactly sure why I display them so brazenly– maybe to appear more sophisticated and well-read to the 10 people who visit my room each year. But most likely, it’s to constantly remind myself of all the words I have yet to read.
To the left of the classics is a much larger bookshelf (and I use that term loosely). The two towering stacks consist of guilty pleasures and tattered remnants of my unavoidable teenage YA Fantasy phase. Among my favorites and most heavily read are Gail Carson Levine’s Fairest, Trenton Lee Stewart’s Mysterious Benedict Society, and Maria V. Snyder’s Study series. Sprinkled in are some much-loved oddballs like Eggs by Jerry Spinelli, Richard Adams’ Watership Down, a handful of art books, and maybe a few Terry Pratchett novels.
My poetry collection corner offers some respite. I can flip through an issue of Poetry or my Sylvia Plath anthology if I don’t feel like committing to an entire novel or take one with me to a café or picnic. However, this is the smallest stack of books in my room. I must admit, for most of my life I was content with PoemHunter.com and a few obscure bookstore finds.
I tell myself that the second I graduate college and have more free time, I’ll read every unread book in my assortment. Until then, I’ll endure their judgemental stares from across the room.
Alexa White is an editorial intern with Sundress Academy for the Arts and a senior at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, which is also her hometown. As an aspiring professional writer, she is finishing her BA in Creative Writing with a minor in Studio Art. Alexa has enjoyed painting, photography, and writing, especially poetry, for most of her life and has had both art and poetry published in UTK’s Phoenix literary magazine.
The Sundress Academy for the Arts is excited to present Poetry Xfit hosted by Alexa White. This generative workshop event will take place on Sunday, November 21st, 2021 from 2 to 4 pm EST via Zoom. Join us at the link tiny.utk.edu/sundress with password “safta”.
Poetry Xfit isn’t about throwing tires or heavy ropes, but the idea of confusing our muscles is the same. This generative workshop series will give you prompts, rules, obstructions, and more to write three poems in two hours. Writers will write together for thirty minutes, be invited to share new work, and then given a new set of prompts. The idea isn’t that we are writing perfect final drafts, but instead creating clay that can then be edited and turned into art later. Prose writers are also welcome to attend!
Alexa White is an editorial intern with Sundress Academy for the Arts and a senior at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, which is also her hometown. As an aspiring professional writer, she is finishing her BA in Creative Writing with a minor in Studio Art. Alexa has enjoyed painting, photography, and writing, especially poetry, for most of her life and has had both art and poetry published in UTK’s Phoenix literary magazine.
While this is a free workshop, donations can be made to the Sundress Academy for the Arts here.
Each month, half of our Xfit donations are shared with a community partner. Our community partner for November is Catalyst Sports. Catalyst Sports is a chapter based, volunteer run, 501c3 non-profit organization that acts as an agent of change in the lives of people with disabilities and our communities. Adventure sports provide a fun and exciting platform for challenging ourselves mentally, physically and emotionally. When this challenge takes place alongside a supportive and encouraging community of people, we all discover our abilities, our need for each other and the importance of living active and healthy lives. To learn more, visit this link.
The Sundress Academy for the Arts (SAFTA) is pleased to announce the guests for the November installment of our virtual reading series. This event will take place on Wednesday, November 17, 2021, on Zoom (http://tiny.utk.edu/sundress, password: safta) from 7-8 PM EST.
Joy Jones is a trainer, performance poet, playwright and author of several books, including Private Lessons: A Book of Meditations for Teachers; Tambourine Moon; and Fearless Public Speaking. She has won awards for her writing from the D.C. Commission on the Arts & Humanities, and the Colonial Players Promising Playwrights Competition. Her most recent book is Jayla Jumps In (Albert Whitman & Co, 2020).
Anna Leahy is the author of the poetry collections What Happened Was:, Aperture, and Constituents of Matter and the nonfiction book Tumor. Her work has appeared at Aeon, Atlanta Review, The Atlantic, BuzzFeed, Poetry, Scientific American, The Southern Review, and elsewhere, and her essays have won top awards from Mississippi Review, Los Angeles Review, Ninth Letter, and Dogwood. She directs the MFA in Creative Writing program at Chapman University and edits the international Tab Journal. More at https://amleahy.com.
Kimberly Ann Priest is the author of Slaughter the One Bird (Sundress 2021) and chapbooks The Optimist Shelters in Place (forthcoming Harbor Editions 2022), Still Life (PANK, 2020), Parrot Flower (Glass, 2020) and White Goat Black Sheep (FLP, 2018). Winner of the 2019 Heartland Poetry Prize from New American Press, her work has appeared in North Dakota Quarterly, Salamander, Slipstream, The Berkeley Poetry Review, Lunch Ticket, Borderland, etc. She is an Assistant Professor of First Year Writing at Michigan State University and serves as an associate poetry editor for the Nimrod International Journal of Prose and Poetry. Find her work at kimberlyannpriest.com.
The Sundress Academy for the Arts (SAFTA) is a writers residency and arts collective that hosts workshops, retreats, and residencies for writers in all genres including poetry, fiction, nonfiction, journalism, academic writing, playwriting, and more. The land on which Sundress Publications operates is part of the traditional territory of the Tsalagi peoples (now Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma, and United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee Indians) and Tsoyaha peoples (Yuchi, Muscogee Creek).
Since publishing Passing Through Humansville (Sundress Publications, 2018), poet Karen Craigo has been reflecting on writing, grief, and everyday beauty, and served a two-year term as Missouri’s Poet Laureate. Editorial Intern Saoirse sat down with Karen to chat about her writing process and projects in the past three years.
Saoirse: Thinking back on the publication process from Passing Through Humansville, what was the experience like?
Karen Craigo: Passing Through Humansville was my second Sundress book, and what I found was that the process was every bit as careful and meticulous as it was the first time around. Erin Elizabeth Smith is one of the best editors in the business, and she gave my poems (already thoroughly worked out) a thorough workout! What I mean is that I submitted a collection of finished work that I was happy with, but Erin showed me how to absolutely maximize the potential of each poem. She was also good about trusting me when I was committed to something—a line, an image, a poem—that I felt strongly about. It’s funny; when I look back on my first book, there were three favorite poems of mine that I wanted to keep in there over her suggestion to the contrary, and with the benefit of time, I totally see where she was coming from and would not include those poems today. Isn’t that a heck of a note? But honestly, I trust Erin completely, and I would recommend her to anyone.
S: What would you say surprised you the most about putting Passing Through Humansville and No More Milk out in the world?
KC: I always heard poets talk about how tired they were of their poems almost the moment a book comes out, and I thought that would never happen to me. Just having a book would be such a recharge, I figured! But it did happen, and instantly. Having a beautiful book in hand made me want to make another. Old poems are nice if you’re dead. New poems are what fires me up
S: What has changed for you since Passing Through Humansville was published?
KC: I was tapped for a two-year term as Missouri’s fifth Poet Laureate in 2019, which shocked the hell out of me. Don’t tell the governor, but I’m such an Ohioan at heart! Of course, COVID-19 happened at the same time as my term of office, so nothing worked out as it was supposed to; my projects couldn’t happen, and I didn’t get to enjoy the usual school visits and other public events, since everything was online. I have to say, though, it was an amazing shot in the arm, at least for my self-image. The poetry gets a lot harder to write when there’s a laurel crown on your head, I can tell you.
S: Has the publishing of your books altered your perspective on the literary community? If yes, in what way?
KC: A book makes you feel legitimate—like you have a valid voice in the conversation. I remember that individual poem publications served the same function way back when, but a book kind of takes that feeling to the next level. It’s all nonsense, though. Everyone who loves poetry has something valuable to say on the subject, and there’s no club or society where a book is the price of entry—not one that has anything to do with actually making art, anyway. Writing is such a solitary pursuit, and those feelings, either of inadequacy, adequacy, or super-adequacy, are nonsense.
S: Have you published other full-length works or chapbooks since being published at Sundress?
KC: No, but I have a collection that I’m ready to circulate, and I feel really strongly about it. Fingers crossed!
I recently lost my ex-husband, who was also my best friend, to suicide, and I’ve put together a fat set of poems on grief. It’s a weird grief when it’s an ex; I felt it (and still feel it) so acutely, but I didn’t feel like I had a right to it. I lost my mother shortly afterwards, and that’s certainly a grief I can own, but it made the other stand in such sharp relief that I found myself making a study of sorrow and loss. The result is Ex and What Comes After—and of course what comes after (e)X is Y, or why. The poems ask why over and over.
S: How do they build on the themes you explored in Passing Through Humansville and No More Milk?
KC: Both of those books are really about motherhood—new motherhood and mature motherhood. In this new bunch of poems, I’m focusing very closely on myself and my desires and sources of hurt and glee. It’s liberating.
S: Who are your inspirations right now? Which books are you reading? Which writers stand out to you the most?
KC: I feel most inspired by my contemplative life right now. Every day, I give over as much time as I can to meditation, rumination, and chant. I’m also working these days as a business reporter, and I’m finding so much inspiration there as well. It never really occurred to me before, but a business is a powerful manifestation of what began as a vision. There is a lot about that I’d like to emulate. As far as reading goes, I love literary journals, with a bit of this and a bit of that. It energizes me to read many voices.
S: What are you currently working on?
KC: I’m writing poems about dailiness—what’s ordinary. I should note that by “ordinary,” I’m thinking of the root of the word, “order,” as in “first this happens, then that happens.” I’m writing about my life and trying to come to grips with how holy it is, in other words. Your life is too, by the way.
S: What is one thing you want to try in your current work that you haven’t tried before?
KC: I’d love to play more with form. So many of my poems are skinny, sonnet-length clumps without much use of horizontal space or caesurae or stanzas. I have a feeling that aiming for different shapes of poems will result in different ways of thinking. When I tinker that way, it tends to feel a little contrived for me, but I’d like to get to where I can organically create broad, airy poems.
S: What are you most excited about for the future?
KC: I don’t think a lot about the future. I focus quite a bit on trying to make each day count. Maybe it’s because my older son is 15, and I know I won’t have him home much longer, but I just want to live in the now with the people I love.
S: And finally, what advice/insight would you give to emerging writers?
KC: Sounds either silly or flippant, but I wish writers would write more. We spend a lot of time talking about and participating in community, usually in the virtual sense, and we focus a lot on publishing (necessary—our work deserves an audience). But I feel most fulfilled when I’m centered on poetry and take a break from the community. Our community isn’t always very … communal? We very seldom talk about art and our lives as artists, even though that’s the real stuff. What’s more, I know very few people who live their lives as artists. I know we all need jobs and things, and I’m as busy as anyone I know, but I have to say, when I put poetry at the center and fit everything else in (rather than the opposite, capturing lines on scraps of paper during fleeting breaks from work and family), that’s when things work best. My whole life falls into line in service to the word.
Karen Craigo is a reporter for The Springfield Business Journal in Springfield, Missouri, where she lives with her husband, the fiction writer Michael Czyzniejewski, and their two sons. She is the author of two full-length collections from Sundress Publications—Passing Through Humansville (2018) and No More Milk (2016), plus three chapbooks. She recently ended her term as Missouri’s fifth Poet Laureate.
Saoirse‘s name and passion are the same: freedom. As an exophonic writer, their academic interests revolve around linguistic power dynamics, especially in connection to the land. They are always trying to write, and find, poetry that breaks the English language into articulating its own colonial violence. They are a freelance editor and serve as the Guest Editor for Emerging Voices in Poetry at Oyster River Pages. They are a 2021 Brooklyn Poets Fellow and a finalist for the Sophie Kerr Prize. They find excitement in travel, comfort in a good cup of coffee and love in their newly adopted puppy, Malaika. Find them at saoirseedits.com or on Twitter @saoirseedits.
At Doubleback Review, we believe art never dies. That’s why we only publish poems, stories, essays, and art that were previously published at journals that have gone defunct. We give old art new life and you can join us!
Doubleback Review seeks an Associate Poetry Editor to review poetry submissions, then work with our Poetry Editor and Managing Editor to make the final selections for our twice-yearly publication.
This is a remote, unpaid volunteer position. Editing experience is preferred but not required. We want someone passionate about poetry, self-motivated, and a great communicator. If you’re interested, please send a short cover letter, your resume or CV, and a couple of writing samples (or links to published pieces) to Krista Cox at krista@doublebackreview.com.
In her newest novel The Hive (Keylight Press, 2021), Melissa Scholes Young defines what it truly means to be a family as the Fehlers come together to save their pest-control business. The Hive is a moving portrait of the four Fehler sisters and their mother learning to balance their grief over the sudden loss of family patriarch Robert Fehler with their own aspirations and identities. Told from the perspective of each Fehler woman, their respective stories present the struggle with finding independence in their conservative rural community while continuously being drawn back to the family “hive”.
Through alternating points of view, the reader is able to deeply connect with each of the characters. Maggie, the eldest sister, has worked at Fehler Family Exterminating since she was ten years old and has always been expected to take over the company one day. However, she frequently finds herself being underestimated and overlooked by men in the business because of her gender, especially while trying to save Fehler’s business amidst an economic recession. Maggie’s familiar frustration to make herself heard in a male-dominated society is one that many female readers can relate to. Additionally, her struggle confronts the flaws in the patriarchal-focused mindset that prevents women from chasing their dreams.
By contrast, Jules wants nothing to do with the family business. Despite doing what is expected of her by majoring in business, Jules is drawn to pursuing a creative writing career and anything unrelated to extermination. At college, Jules grows into the person that her small Catholic town prevented her from being—she becomes a vegetarian, establishes her own political beliefs that oppose her family’s, and even falls in love with a Black man, which is frowned upon in her community. While Jules wants nothing more than to escape the hive so she can be herself, the Fehler’s familial ties—and their shaky finances—bring her back home.
Likewise, Kate begins to consider her own identity as she questions her sexuality. Kate’s personality is a mix of her mother’s and father’s: she is extremely analytical and likes to prepare for anything, but she also wishes she was able to take on the “manly” extermination tasks like her father. She often finds herself thinking of her friend Lila, an attraction she attempts to deny in spite of herself. Both Jules and Kate grapple with finding the balance between fulfilling the societal expectations enforced upon them by their community and being their true selves. Both Jules and Kate depict a similar struggle that resonate with readers: the yearning to love who you want to love, the desire to pursue interests that go against the “norm”, and the longing for acceptance.
Meanwhile, Tammy—similar to Jules—wants to get rid the “bug girl” title she and her sisters are referred to for a thriving career of her own. Tammy is determined to win the Miss Cape Girardeau Pageant and have a successful future away from her hometown after graduating high school—one that will hopefully include her boyfriend, Wade. However, her plans are derailed when she finds out that she is pregnant. Determined to hide it from her family for as long as possible, Tammy tries to ignore her new reality, which solidifies the very future she wants to run from, one where she becomes tied down to her town and Fehler Family Exterminating for the rest of her life.
Tammy’s unforeseen future mirrors her mother, Grace’s. Grace resents the family business and her husband, Robert, who she settled to marry at eighteen. Her only concerns are preparing for the seemingly inevitable end of the world and hiding her affair from her family. Grace’s fixation on survival reflects how she feels being tied down to a husband she barely tolerates and a matriarchal position she silently considers running from. Grace’s marriage was forced on her, a union formed out of responsibility and tradition rather than love, so she spends her time preparing for other circumstances that are out of her control. Both Tammy and Grace are forced into uncertain futures they do not want because of religion and to give up their aspirations for the sake of family. They also experience the mental repercussions of actively defying their faith, a guilt expressed so clearly readers can easily empathize with it.
Though each character has their own obstacles they must overcome independently, the Fehler clan comes together in the face of their uncertain futures for Fehler Family Exterminating. With five distinct voices, the Fehler womens’ stories are guaranteed to connect with readers and remind them of the importance of family as the Fehler’s learn that each day is not guaranteed. The Hive centers around the feeling we all crave: a sense of belonging. Whether in your family, your workplace, or your community, the Fehlers’ moving journeys for acceptance is a poignant reminder that everyone has a hive to fly back to.
Victoria Carrubba is a senior English Publishing Studies student at Hofstra University. She is currently a tutor at her university’s writing center and a copyeditor for The Hofstra Chronicle. She has also worked on her university’s literary magazines, Font and Growl, and was previously a fiction editor for WindmillJournal. Outside of work, she can be found reading, dancing, painting, or drinking chai.
The Sundress Academy for the Arts is excited to present “Inviting Imaginings: Short Forms and Historical Materials” a workshop led by Holly Wendt on November 10, 2021, from 6-7:30PM EST. This event will be held over Zoom. Participants can access the event at tiny.utk.edu/sundress (password: safta).
In this workshop, participants will generate new work through the exploration of provided historical materials. While most creative writing conversations about the use of historical materials focus on the novel or book-length nonfiction, the specific aim of this workshop is to decouple the idea of historical source material from the potentially alienating weight of research. With a particular aim of making working with historical ephemera (advertisements, article snippets, journal entries, map fragments, photographs, and daguerreotypes) accessible to anyone, the “Inviting Imaginings” workshop centers curiosity and possibility, rather than authority and definitiveness. These positions of possibility lend themselves well to short forms, such as poems, micro-essays, and flash fiction, and to work that blurs genre lines. Speculation and hybridity are most welcome.
The workshop will begin by providing a framework of openness and inquiry, drawing from examples by writers such as Natasha Tretheway, Pip Williams, Dorsey Craft, Melissa Range, and Ross Gay. The workshop will also guide participants to free, accessible archives and repositories for finding materials for inspiration after the workshop is over.
In the generative portion of the workshop, we’ll seek tensions visible and invisible in the provided prompts, as well as opportunities for invention, play, and experimentation. The workshop will conclude with time for volunteers to share a favorite passage from their newly drafted work or simply discuss their particular approach or entry-point.
While there is no fee for this workshop, those who are able and appreciative can make direct donations to Holly via Venmo @HollyM-Wendt or PayPal at holly.wendt@gmail.com
Holly M. Wendt is Associate Professor of English and Director of Creative Writing at Lebanon Valley College. Holly is a recipient of a Robert and Charlotte Baron Fellowship for Creative and Performing Artists from the American Antiquarian Society and fellowships from the Jentel Foundation and Hambidge Center. Their writing has appeared in Shenandoah, Four Way Review, Barrelhouse, Memorious, Gulf Stream, and elsewhere. Learn more at hollymwendt.com or @hmwendt.
