Congratulations to associate poetry editor Judy Kronenfeld, whose latest poetry collection, Shimmer, is just out from WordTech Editions. See below for info.

***

In Shimmer, Judy Kronenfeld’s careful attention to the details of the particular and domestic also throws off sparks from the larger cultural, political and historical currents charging those events. Sample Poems by Judy Kronenfeld
 
“Judy Kronenfeld is a Southern Californian/Ex-New Yorker who’s crossed geographies and decades with her eyes and her heart open. In these fine poems she gives us the fruits of her journeying, some as close to home as the checkout line where we stand ‘ambivalent as mid-afternoon’ and some so globally empathetic that she can write about the mothers of ‘martyred’ babies on one side and soldiers on the other—war victims both: ‘The romance / of a meaningful death must be so brief.’ Kronenfeld’s nearly photographic eye knows that ‘night falls fast, / so fast, piling up in steep / soft drifts, canceling / cornice, column, piling up / in streets of ash and embers’ and yet her poems show us how careful attention continues to enrich us—‘You still see nothing / that is not there, / but now you sense everything / that is.’” —Deborah Bogen
 
“Judy Kronenfeld’s Shimmer radiates a fierce clarity of vision: the glow of the title is fed by intensities of memory and desire, love and rage. I’m deeply moved by these powerfully voiced poems that oscillate between evocations of an earlier world—the ‘crumbling Bronx,’ the ‘white noise’ of the city—and the new realm of age, loss, and reconciliation to which we all must come.”—Sandra M. Gilbert

http://www.wordtechweb.com/kronenfeld.html

The Scientific Method, a poetry chapbook by Mary Alexandra Agner, is now available from Parallel Press: http://parallelpress.library.wisc.edu/poetry/titles/author.shtml?Agner. It includes poems about the Navier-Stokes equations, Barbara McClintock, moss, and other intriguing scientific topics.

One of our contributors, Letitia Trent of the Open Issue, has a brand-new collection just out from Sundress Press. We hope you will take a look. Official press release below.

Congrats, Letitia!

~

One Perfect Bird
A Collection of Poems by Letitia Trent

Knoxville, TN— Sundress Publications is pleased to announce the release of Letitia Trent's One Perfect Bird (Sundress Publications $14.99) on January 1, 2012. This is Letitia’s first full-length collection of poetry. Trent is also the author of two chapbooks, Splice and The Medical Diaries, and a third, You aren’t in this movie, to be out in 2012.

"Reading these poems I was reminded of the voice and vision of Marilynne Robinson's Housekeeping. Similarly, the emotional and psychological rawness of human thought, as crafted by Letitia Trent in surprising, elusive, and innovative lines, startles us into a recognition so profound, we're not entirely sure what we're reading or if we're reading. It's a pleasing and unsettling experience--and I daresay, what literature should and can be."

- Kathy Fagan, author of Lip

In Letitia Trent's debut collection, the poems unfold like wildflowers in the spring, each one more surprising and dazzling than the last. But they are not simply a fleeting beauty, but rather a voracious and heated sort that stays with you long after you've closed the book. These poems, rooted deeply in the places they explore, are impeccably constructed and bitingly honest. This is a collection from a new voice that must be heard.

"The poems in One Perfect Bird ride like a dirty living letter in a good, clean envelope. They are the silty Tang in our cups, the color of the hunters' vests like ribbons through the birches as they searched our forest for any rusty bursts of blood. They are primarily poltergeists; mesh net masks and subtly singing beards, bee bodies slipping from their chins like honey. If it's true that I lifted all these lines of praise from the lines in Letitia Trent's poems—and it is true—then who could blame me? For the lyricism required to describe them, I can't better their maker. No one could."

- Kyle Minor, author of In the Devil's Territory

Letitia Trent was the recipient of the 2010 Alumni Flash Writing Award from Ohio State University’s The Journal. She has also been awarded fellowships to The Vermont Studio Center and the MacDowell Colony. One Perfect Bird is currently available for pre-order through Sundress Publications at sundresspublications.com.

At the beginning of April, we posted all the books that were available FOR FREE during National Poetry Month. We hope that you enjoyed following this post, and that everyone who wanted to got to throw their name into the hat, so to speak. Now that April is over we are very pleased to announce the winners of our giveaway.

Chosen using the random number generator, here they are:

1. Trina Burke: Jules Gibbs' Bulk of the Mailable Universe
2. Angela Vogel: Judith Terzi's Sharing Tabouli
3. Nandini Dhar: Sarah Maclay's Music for the Black Room
4. Sarah Jane Sloat: Luisa Igloria's Juan Luna’s Revolver
5. Karen Weyant: Tom C. Hunley’s Greatest Hits
6. Bridget Kelly-Lossada: Ren Powell's Mercy Island
7. Jessica Goodfellow: Judy Kronenfeld's Light Lowering in Diminshed Sevenths
8. LaToya Jordan: A book by Maureen Alsop (TBD)
9. Margo Roby: Cati Porter; your choice, either Seven Floors Up or (al)most delicious.

A huge thanks to all who entered our drawing. If see your name on this list go ahead and send us an email at editor (at) poemeleon (dot) org with your snail mail address and we will make sure you receive your book asap. Otherwise, I will be contacting all of you within the next few days!

Happy poeming, and thanks for all you do for poetry!