Support small presses and indie bookstores by picking a read from the list below, which features dozens of new books forthcoming in March from CLMP members. (Take a look at last month’s releases as well.)
Except for This Unseen Thread by Ra’ad Abdulqadir
Ugly Duckling Presse | March 1, 2021
Translated by Mona Kareem, this is the first full-length English publication of Ra’ad’s poetry, which is “hailed for its cinematic portrait of Iraq under sanctions—the bread queues, busy cemeteries, empty schools, and the impossible departures and returns.”
The Magpie & the Child by Catriona Clutterbuck
Wake Forest University Press | March 1, 2021
This poetry collection “is filled with self-examination, suffering, remembered conversations with the living child and very real ones with the dead, each of which record the steps of the emotional journey.”
Late Human by Jean Day
Ugly Duckling Presse | March 1, 2021
Late Human “is a collection of tragi-comic poems on lateness, belatedness, Weltschmerz, and borrowing (with a nod to Ernest Mandel’s 1975 tome on the twilight of capitalism).”
The Supposed Huntsman by Katie Fowley
Ugly Duckling Presse | March 1, 2021
This debut poetry collection draws “inspiration from Brothers Grimm fairy tales and troubadour tradition” and “creates spaces that blur the lines of gender, species, and self.”
By Bus by Erica Van Horn
Ugly Duckling Presse | March 1, 2021
According to Ross Hair, By Bus is “a compelling panorama of modern life as it is witnessed among the rhythms, odors, phone conversations, and evanescent idiosyncrasies of the bus journey.”
Ashore by Laurel Nakanishi
Tupelo Press | March 1, 2021
According to Campbell McGrath, Nakanishi’s debut poetry collection is “a document of lyrical witness steeped in the language, history and mythology of her native Hawaii.”
Ova Completa by Susana Thénon
Ugly Duckling Presse | March 1, 2021
Translated by Rebekah Smith, this collection of Thénon’s poetics “expands to incorporate all it touches—classical and popular culture, song lyrics and vulgarities, incoherence and musicality.”
Skirted by Julie Marie Wade
The Word Works | March 1, 2021
According to Rajiv Mohabir, the poems in this collection “glisten with precise and honest lines that chart how their queer speaker measures and crosses water in all its incarnations.”
Who’s Your Daddy by Arisa White
Augury Books | March 1, 2021
White’s memoir is “a lyrical, genre-bending coming-of-age tale featuring a queer, Black, Guyanese American woman who, while seeking to define her own place in the world, negotiates an estranged relationship with her father.”
FEM by Magda Carneci
Deep Vellum Publishing | March 2, 2021
Translated by Sean Cotter, this “lyrical, feminist novel that exploded onto the Romanian literary scene” follows “a 21st-century Scheherazade.”
M-theory by Tiffany Cates
Baobab Press | March 2, 2021
In this novel, Cates “layers America’s societal, spiritual, and moral tensions in a plot that travels through the streets and elevated tracks of Chicago, creating a riveting thriller with an endearing love story at its beating heart.”
The Communicating Vessels by Friederike Mayröcker
A Public Space Books | March 2, 2021
Translated by Alexander Booth, The Communicating Vessels is “an intensely personal book of mourning, comprised of 140 entries spanning the course of a year and exploring everyday life in the immediate aftermath” of Ernst Jandl’s death.
Humble and Kind by Lori McKenna
Akashic Books / LyricPop | March 2, 2021
Lori McKenna’s “iconic song—as popularized by Tim McGraw—is the perfect basis for a picture book that celebrates family and togetherness.”
The Man Who Loved His Wife by Jennifer Anne Moses
Mayapple Press | March 2, 2021
In this short fiction collection, Moses “captures singularly Jewish and wholly human characters as they live and breathe through their stories.”
Execute the Office: Essays with Presidents by Colin Rafferty
Baobab Press | March 2, 2021
In this essay collection, Rafferty ” uses lyric prose and formal invention to explore the humanity, or lack thereof, that thrived in each of the forty-five American presidents.”
(Sittin’ on) The Dock of the Bay by Otis Redding and Steve Cropper
Akashic Books / LyricPop | March 2, 2021
Otis Redding and Steve Cropper’s “timeless ode to never-ending days is given fresh new life in this heartwarming picture book.”
West : Fire : Archive by Iris Jamahl Dunkle
The Center for Literary Publishing | March 5, 2021
According to Mary Szybist, West: Fire: Archive is “a riveting exploration of the porous borders between archive and dream in which snapshots become portals, graves become gates, and new myths are forged out of grief.”
HER HERE by Amanda Dennis
Bellevue Literary Press | March 9, 2021
Dennis’s debut novel “is an existential detective story with a shocking denouement that plumbs the creative and destructive powers of narrative itself.”
Out of the Cage by Fernanda Garcia Lao
Deep Vellum Publishing | March 9, 2021
In this novel translated by Will Vanderhyden, Lao “creates a complex, intelligent, and subversive theater of the absurd.”
The Truffle Eye by Vaan Nguyen
Zephyr Press | March 9, 2021
In this debut poetry collection translated from the Hebrew by Adriana X. Jacobs, Nguyen “reflects on how our lives take shape in the daily migrations we make between lovers, family, work, and the places we call home.”
My Disappearing West by Jesse Sensibar
Tolsun Books | March 9, 2021
The prose vignettes in Jesse Sensibar’s memoir “illuminate a personal narrative of making ends meet in the Sonoran Desert.”
In the Antarctic Circle by Dennis James Sweeney
Autumn House Press | March 15, 2021
Winner of the 2020 Rising Writer Prize, selected by Yona Harvey, this collection of hybrid narrative prose poems explores “the Antarctica of domestic disharmony.”
No One Leaves the World Unhurt by John Foy
Autumn House Press | March 15, 2021
Winner of the 2020 Donald Justice Poetry Prize, selected by J. Allyn Rosser, this collection “is a tour de force of formal poetry, offering a blend of wit, cleverness, and deftness.”
when the signals come home by Jordan E. Franklin
Switchback Books | March 15, 2021
This debut poetry collection was selected by Prageeta Sharma as winner of the 2020 Gatewood Prize; Sharma writes, “The deep ferocity in these poems is rich, particularly in how the speaker manages to address racial inequity.”
Gorilla by Christine Hamm
The Word Works | March 15, 2021
Hamm’s “surreal series of prose-poems, harmonic and jarring, pops the reader into a world where the animal is a danger-suit we might all don, or is a force of chaos that breaks families, or America’s unconscious hatred of women.”
Syntax Flies Into Startle by Sally Naylor
The Poetry Box | March 15, 2021
Naylor’s poetry collection is “an unabashed journey on the nature of orgasm.”
The Dream Women Called by Lori Wilson
Autumn House Press | March 15, 2021
The poems in Wilson’s second poetry collection “create multifaceted portraits, particularly of relationships between mothers and daughters.”
Big Bad by Whitney Collins
Sarabande Books | March 16, 2021
Winner of the Mary McCarthy Prize in Short Fiction, this debut collection of short stories is “part domestic horror, part flyover gothic.”
Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood: Bookmarked by Justin St. Germain
Ig Publishing | March 16, 2021
In the latest volume in Ig Publishing’s Bookmarked series, Justin St. Germain “writes about a trip he took to Holcomb, Kansas, the site of the Clutter murders In Cold Blood claims to be about.”
On Time and Water by Andri Snær Magnason
Open Letter | March 16, 2021
Translated from the Icelandic by Lytton Smith, Magnason’s book “is a rich and compelling work of narrative nonfiction that illustrates the reality of climate change—and offers hope in the face of an uncertain future.”
I is Another: Septology III-V by Jon Fosse
Transit Books | March 17, 2021
The second installment of Fosse’s Septology “is an exquisite metaphysical novel about love, art, God, friendship, and the passage of time.”
Moss Covered Claws by Jonah Barrett
Blue Cactus Press | March 18, 2021
The debut short story collection “is filled with tales of anxiety-feeding demons, anti-fascists that travel dimensions, and the vengeful spirits of dead seabirds.”
BINT by Ghinwa Jawhari
Radix Media | March 19, 2021
Jawhari’s debut collection, a winner of the inaugural Own Voices Chapbook Prize, is “a meditation on the Arabic word ‘bint’ (بنت), or ‘girl.'”
PAX by Annie Lighthart
Fernwood Press | March 19, 2021
The poems in this collection “ask us to wake to our own remarkable lives and our undeniable connections, to look with a steady eye at the demands of love.”
This I Can Tell You by Brandi Spering
Litmus Press | March 21, 2021
According to Thea Matthews, this debut memoir “chronicles an intimate recollection of familial history, and a reconstruction of self in the aftermath of homicide.”
Hearing by Lyn Hejinian and Leslie Scalapino
Litmus Press | March 22, 2021
Hearing is “the long-awaited second book in a series of collaborations by Lyn Hejinian and Leslie Scalapino organized around each of the five senses.”
Arriving in a Thick Fog by Jung Young Moon
Deep Vellum Publishing | March 23, 2021
Translated from the Korean by Mah Eunji and Jeffrey Karvonen, the four novellas in this collection “take the reader on a meticulous, rhythmic journey through a blend of real life, fiction, and ideas.”
Eclogues in a Mustard Seed Garden by Glenn Mott
Turtle Point Press | March 23, 2021
According to Yunte Huang, in this collection “Mott’s lyrical antics embody poetry at its most earnest and parodic, a deadly potion stolen from the fountain of imagination.”
Farthest South & Other Stories by Ethan Rutherford
Deep Vellum Publishing | March 23, 2021
This new collection features stories “about family and home that are at the same time fevered, personal, and explicitly engaged with their own telling.”
Viscera Americana by Yanara Friedland
Thirty West Publishing House | March 26, 2021
According to Andrew Ervin, this debut poetry chapbook is crafted “with love when that love is earned, with malice when it becomes necessary, and, at all times, with nuance and great care.”
Groundswell by Yanara Friedland
Essay Press | March 31, 2021
According to Daniel Borzutzky, Friedland’s collection of border narratives, rituals, and biographies is “a powerful, moving, eloquent and poignant fusion of documentary, poetry, and testimony.”
Lucky Wreck: 15th Anniversary Edition by Ada Limón
Autumn House Press | March 31, 2021
This fifteenth-anniversary edition “includes a new introduction by the poet that reflects on the book and on how her writing practice has developed over time.”
Present Tense Comples by Suphil Lee Park
Conduit Book and Ephemera | March 31, 2021
According to Bob Hicok, Suphil Lee Park’s poems “investigate, tear at, and adore physical and emotional dislocations, separations, and losses.”
Creep Love by Michael Walsh
Autumn House Press | March 31, 2021
Walsh’s poetry collection “explores a family contending with a complex and ongoing crisis, the aftermath of which creates a shockwave that reverberates through these poems.”
Writing from the Broken Places
Slate Roof Press | March 31, 2021
Compiled by Jim Bell, this poetry anthology by people at the Northern Hope Recovery Center “bears witness to the dignity and struggle of those in recovery—and the courage of writers who write to live.”
