New & Noteworthy Books

New Books from Independent &
University Presses

See full list of noteworthy books by category below

Posted on March 25, 2010

Gaze

Poetry by Marthe Reed

Black Radish Books, March 2010

ISBN-13: 978-0-9825731-0-5

Paperback: 90pp; $15.00

Gaze is a journey into another war, its language and tropes, its excesses – a passage through embodiment, the body sub-tracted, sublimated – traversing silence: the poems have multiple origins, questions, necessities. Returning to Edward Said’s description of orientalism as “a form of paranoia,” “a closed field, a theatrical stage,” “a complex affiliation…based finally on power,” Reed extends that critique to the coding of gender: a response to the war in Iraq and the multiple constructions of otherness surrounding it, sighting the bullet's trace, the erotic gaze, dominion’s grasp. //

 

I Was the Jukebox

Poetry by Sandra Beasley

W.W. Norton & Co, April 2010

ISBN-13: 978-0-393-07651-6

Hardcover: 90pp; $24.95

From website: Winner of the 2009 Barnard Women Poets Prize

 

Racing Hummingbirds

Poetry by Jeanann Verlee

Write Bloody Publishing, March 2010

ISBN-13: 978-0-9842515-5-1

Paperback: 105pp; $15.00

Racing Hummingbirds examines, critiques, and at times delights in one woman’s navigation through the many worlds of manic depression and her struggle to maintain humanity in the process. Jeanann Verlee’s debut collection is a series of narratives, prayers, and conjurings which address gender, sex, race, poverty, survival and heartbreak. These poems cannot possibly be about you, yet they are. They cross boundaries and reclaim hope. They are as the opening poem suggests, nothing short of communion. //

 

Talk Thai

The Adventures of Buddhist Boy

Nonfiction by Ira Sukrungruang

Univ of Missouri Press, March 2010

ISBN-13: 978-0-8262-1889-6

Hardcover: 168pp; $24.95

On one side of the door, the enticing smell of sweet, spicy food and the calm of Buddhist devotion; on the other, the strangeness of a new land. In this lively, entertaining, and often hilarious memoir, Ira Sukrungruang relates the early life of a first-generation Thai-American and his constant, often bumbling attempts to reconcile cultural and familial expectations with the trials of growing up in 1980s America. Talk Thai provides generous portions of a rich and ancient culture while telling the story of a modern American boyhood with humor, playfulness, and uncompromising honesty.

 

Tough Skin

Poetry by Sarah Eaton

BlazeVOX [books], January 2010

ISBN-13: 978-1935402619

Paperback: 93pp; $16.00

A collection of prose poetry.

 

Vanishing Point

Not a Memoir

Nonfiction by Ander Monson

Graywolf Press, April 2010

ISBN-13: 978-1-55597-554-8

Paperback: 208pp; $16.00

Vanishing Point: Not a Memoir is a series of essays in which Ander Monson faces down the idea of the memoir while grappling with the lure of self-interest and self-preservation. In contemporary America, land of tell-all memoirs and endless reality television, what kind of person denies the opportunity to present himself in his own voice, to lead with “I”? How many layers of a life can be peeled back before the self vanishes?

 

Page updated June 17, 2010