Poems: Readings from New Books

Erin Belieu‘s fourth poetry collection, Slant Six, is an inundation of the humor and horror in contemporary American life. In his latest collection, Reconnaissance: Poems, Carl Phillips maps out the contours of a world in revision, where truth lies captured at one moment and at the next goes free, transformed. In Rowan Ricardo Phillips’s latest collection, Heaven —a Longlist selection for the 2015 National Book Award in Poetry—Phillips swerves elegantly from humor to heartbreak, from Colorado to Florida, from Dante’s Paradise to Homer’s Illiad, from knowledge to ignorance to awe. Kevin Young’s latest collection of poetry, The Book of Hours, reflects on the sudden loss of the poet’s father a decade ago, yet also celebrates the birth of his son.