Poetry

"The poems in this collection," as Schulman notes in her introduction, "sing of grief as they praise life." She notes: "As any bereaved survivor knows, there is no consolation. 'Time doesn't heal grief; it emphasizes it, ' wrote Marianne Moore. The loss of a loved one never leaves us. We don't want it to. In grief, one remembers the beloved.

In this timely, assured collection, Tina Chang confronts the complexities of raising a mixed-race child during an era of political upheaval in the United States. She ruminates on the relationship between her son's blackness and his safety, exploring the dangers of childhood in a post-Trayvon Martin era and invoking racialized roles in fairy tales.

This poetry collection is at turns surreal, pious, silly, and heartbreaking, but always true to its own logic, even as it creates and expands that logic as it goes. It's the most personal work Devendra Banhart has ever created.

The stunning, startling collection that is also the last work from a major poet A woman named Mildred starts laying eggs after feathers from wild poultry begin coming down the chimney. A man becomes friends with a bank robber who abducts him and eventually rues his captor's death. A baby is born transparent.