Thursday's Three on Poetry

Today, Thursday's Three spotlights a trio of poetry collections to be released in April, which is National Poetry Month. I have them on my reading list; consider adding them to yours.

✭ Afterland (Graywolf, April 4) ~ An editorial member of the Hmong American Writers' Circle, Mai Der Vang's Afterland is the 2016 winner of the Walt Whitman Award from the Academy of American Poets; Carolyn Forche made the selection. The poems address Mai Der Vang's Hmong family, their forced removal from Laos, and their survival as refugees and exiles.

Cover Art

Mai Der Vang at Academy of American Poets, Graywolf, and Poetry Foundation

Mai Der Vang Poems and Interviews Online: The Boiler, The Cincinnati Review, Fairy Tale Review, The Journal, Lantern Review, The Missouri Review, and Poetry Foundation

✭ When I Grow Up I Want to Be a List of Possibilities (BOA Editions Ltd., April 11) ~ This collection, the first by Kundiman Fellow Chen Chen and the winner of the A. Poulin Jr. Poetry Prize, is about love, family, and identity as a Chinese American, immigrant, and queer son. Jericho Brown contributes the Foreword.

Cover Art

Chen Chen's chapbook is Set the Garden on Fire (Wicked Little Heart). A review of the chapbook can be found at The Rumpus.

Chen Chen at Academy of American Poets, PBS NewsHour, and Poetry Foundation

Chen Chen Poems and Interviews Online: Buzz Feed, Connotation Press, Driftwood Press, Poetry Foundation, Pank, and PotLuck Magazine

✭ Tremulous Hinge (University of Iowa Press, April 15) ~ The debut collection of Adam Giannelli, this collection won the 2016 Iowa Poetry Prize. Ranging over such subjects as love, dementia, and stuttering, the poems include self-portraits, meditations, and elegies.

Cover Art

Adam Giannelli Poems Online: The Antioch Review, Colorado Review, The Missouri Review, Tupelo Quarterly (Translation), and Virginia Quarterly Review