Thursday's Three on Poetry

Today, Thursday's Three spotlights a trio of poetry collections that will be published in March. All are available to pre-order.

✦ Whereas (Graywolf Press, March 7) ~ I've had this title on my poetry watch list for some time. The debut collection of Layli Long Soldier (Oglala Lakota), winner of the 2016 Whiting Writers Award for poetry, Whereas appropriates language from United States' treaties, congressional resolutions, and apologies to expose the American government's history of duplicitous and unjust treatment of Native peoples and tribes. 

Read an excerpt from Long Soldier's prose poem "Whereas Statements", selected by Matthew Zapruder for his New York Times poetry column (December 2016) . Also see the excerpt at PEN America. The poems "Steady Summer", "Vaporative", and "Irony", all from Whereas, are available at the Whiting Awards site. Listen to Long Soldier read "Resolution (6)" on PBS NewsHour.

Long Soldier, who has published in such periodicals as The American Poet, The American Reader, The ASU Journal, Drunken Boat, The Kenyon Review Online, and Mud City Journal, teaches at Dine College in Arizona. Her chapbook Chromosomory (Q Ave Press) was issued in 2010.

Graywolf Press Page for Whereas

Layli Long Soldier Profiles at Native Arts & Cultures Foundation, Poetry Foundation, Q Avenue Press,  Women's Quarterly Conversation

Layli Long Soldier on FaceBook

✦ Cold Pastoral (Milkweed Editions, March 14) ~ Rebecca Dunham gives witness to the human hands responsible for Deepwater Horizon, Hurricane Katrina, the water crisis in Flint, Michigan, and other disasters.

Dunham has published three other collections: Glass Armonica: Poems (Milkweed, 2013), awarded a Linquist & Vennum Prize for Poetry; The Flight Cage: Poems (Tupelo Press, 2010); and The Miniature Room (Truman State University Press, 2006), winner of the T.S. Eliot Prize. Her poems have appeared in AGNI, Blackbird, Prairie Schooner, Terrain, and Valparaiso Poetry Review, among other literary periodicals. She is a professor of English at the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee.

Rebecca Dunham Profiles at Milkweed Editions and Poetry Foundation

Rebecca Dunham on FaceBook

✦ Magdalene (W.W. Norton, March 28) ~ In this new collection, Marie Howe sets the New Testament's Mary Magdalene in a contemporary setting. Listen to Howe read "Magdalene: The Seven Devils". Read "Magdalene: The Addict & The Affliction" at The American Poetry Review.

A former Poet Laureate of New York (2012-2014), Howe's other collections include The Kingdom of Ordinary Time (W.W. Norton, 2008; reprint 2009). Many of her poems can be found online, including at The American Poetry Review, The New Yorker, NPR, OnBeing, and PBS's Poetry Everywhere.

Marie Howe Profiles at Academy of American Poets, Blue Flower Arts, W.W. Norton, and Poetry Foundation

Marie Howe on FaceBook