Poems: Readings from New Books

Ed Skoog is the author of two previous collections of poetry, Mister Skylight and Rough Day. He has been a Bread Loaf Fellow, the Jennie McKean Moore Writer-in-Residence at George Washington University, and writer-in-residence at the Hugo House. He has taught at the University of Montana, Wichita State University, and Tulane. He also received a fellowship from the Lannan Foundation. His most recent collection of poetry is Rough Day (Copper Canyon Press). Composed during long walks throughout Washington, DC, and careful to err on the side of recklessness, Rough Day finds its essential unity in a fixation on American events and landscapes—from Yellowstone and New Orleans to Kansas and the Pacific Northwest. Throughout, Skoog maintains an openness to discovery that unveils rare and prismatic views into his country.

Maureen Seaton has authored seventeen poetry collections, both solo and collaborative—most recently, Fibonacci Batman: New & Selected Poems. Her honors include the Iowa Poetry Prize, Lambda Literary Awards for both lesbian poetry and memoir, the Publishing Triangle’s Audre Lorde Award, the Society of Midland Authors Award, and an NEA Fellowship. Her work has been included in both the Pushcart Prize Anthology and Best American Poetry. She teaches poetry at the University of Miami.  Caprice: Collected, Uncollected, and New Collaborations (Sibling Rivalry Press) is the quirky love child of Denise Duhamel and Maureen Seaton, award-winning poets who teamed up over twenty-five years ago to practice their collaborative skills on every topic they could joyfully exploit—feminism, gender, sex, witches, religion, the canon, movies, and Olive Oyl, to name just a few. From the erotic to the comedic, the political to the poignant, Caprice presents a fresh look at life from the unpredictable minds of two celebrated writers in their prime.

What does it mean to lose a father? What is the legacy of fatherhood? Nick Flynn’s jagged, lyrical poems attempt to make sense of these questions and the clutter left behind in our lives. In My Feelings (Graywolf Press) Flynn’s fourth book of poetry, the author makes no claims on anyone else’s. These poems inhabit a continually shifting sense of selfhood, in the attempt to contain quicksilver realms of emotional energy—from grief and panic to gratitude and understanding. A major subject is the death of Flynn’s father, a formerly homeless man suffering from mental illness and delusions of his own grandeur, portrayed in Flynn’s award-winning memoir, Another Bullshit Night in Suck City. The Washington Post writes, “My Feelings offers no easy answers, yet the writing and the desire for transcendence make the journey compelling.”