New Books in Poetry

In this NBN episode, host Hollay Ghadery speaks with Pulitzer Prize winner Carl Dennis about his collection, Earthly Virtues (Penguin Random House, 2026). Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Carl Dennis explores the expansiveness and complexity of universal virtues within the realm of the everyday in this thought-provoking new collection Though most of the virtues that interest Carl Dennis in Earthly Virtues have traditional names, they are provided with contexts that give them fresh implications, moving us in two directions at once, toward a recognition of limits and a recognition of possibilities. On one hand, they confront what it means to lack the knowledge and power we need to make our lives as consequential as we may want them to be. On the other, they reach out to widen the circle of our concern, suggesting a kinship of the local with the distant, enlarging the passing moment with history and prophecy. Wherever the poems turn, they prove spacious enough to take us with them, and they leave us grateful for the journey. Carl Dennis is the author of fourteen books of poetry, most recently Earthborn (2022). A winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the Ruth Lilly Prize, he taught for many years in the English Department of the State University of New York, and in the Warren Wilson Writing Program in North Carolina. He lives in Buffalo, New York.

On September 24, 2021, Rachel Eliza Griffiths married her husband, the novelist Salman Rushdie. On the same day, hundreds of miles away, Griffiths’ closest friend and chosen sister, the poet Kamilah Aisha Moon, who was expected to speak at the wedding, died suddenly. Eleven months later, as Griffiths attempted to piece together her life as a newlywed with heartbreak in one hand and immense love in the other, a brutal attack nearly killed her husband. As trauma compounded trauma, Griffiths realized that in order to survive her grief, she would need to mourn not only her friend, but the woman she had been on her wedding day, a woman who had also died that day. In the process of rebuilding a self, Griffiths chronicles her friendship with Moon, the seventeen years since their meeting at Sarah Lawrence College. Together, they embraced their literary foremothers—Lucille Clifton, Toni Morrison, Alice Walker, to name a few—and fought to embrace themselves as poets, artists, and Black women. Alongside this unbreakable bond, Griffiths weaves the story of her relationship with Rushdie, of the challenges they have faced and the unshakeable devotion that endures. In The Flower Bearers ( Random House, 2026), Griffiths inscribes the trajectories of two transformational relationships with grace and honesty, chronicling the beauty and pain that comes with opening oneself fully to love. This is a conversation not to be missed.

Not Everything Unfolds as Anticipated: Selections from Yi Kyubo’s Tongguk Yi Sangguk Chip (University of Hawaii Press, 2026) comprises translations of poems, tales, letters, epitaphs, and funeral orations by Yi Kyubo (1168–1241), the foremost writer and poet of the Koryŏ dynasty (918–1392). Dr. Breuker’s translation and introduction humanize this celebrated poet, whom he reveals as not only a great writer, but a doggedly ambitious man with a reputation for drinking, a son weighed down by his family’s expectations of greatness, and a father who grieved for his dead son. Not Everything Unfolds as Anticipated” is an excellent book for anyone who wants to better understand the famed writer and the political, social, and literary context of the Koryŏ dynasty. Remco Breuker is a Professor of Korean Studies at Leiden University. His research spans medieval and modern Korea and Northeast Asia, with a particular focus on historiography, identity formation, borders, state formation, and the uses of history in contemporary politics. He has translated Korean literature into Dutch, and in 2025 he both contributed to and co-edited an English translation of the Samguk Yusa, an important Korean historical text. Buy Not Everything Unfolds as Anticipated: here Dr. Breuker’s LinkedIn: here Dr. Breuker’s Bluesky: here About the host: Leslie Hickman is an Anthropology graduate student at Emory University. She has an MA in Korean Studies and a KO-EN translation certificate from the Literature Translation Institute of Korea. You can contact her at [email protected] Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

In this episode, NBN host Hollay Ghadery speaks with Kirby about their joyful and powerful new book, Fairy (Palimpsest Press, 2026). In Fairy, Kirby continues to mine their riches and fan the flames lit in their instant classic, Poetry is Queer. Their essays are an act of liberation they call “tending to each other’s freedom,” and are written with signature Kirby directness and panache, from early AIDS-activist monologues, to launching a counter city-wide “safe-sex” campaign that includes the public depiction of an affectionate gay couple, to leaving the States in a love that made them “the most beautiful boy in the world,” to becoming a Canadian queer poetry icon. Like countless fairies before them, Kirby scouts desire paths beyond mere survival for new queer voices to continue to amaze, flourish, and thrive. Or as Fairy says, “This way >>>” Kirby is the author of She (KFB, 2025), Poetry is Queer (Palimpsest Press, 2021), This Is Where I Get Off (Permanent Sleep Press, 2019), featured columnist at Send My Love to Anyone and publisher at Knife | Fork | Book. kirbyfairy.ca Hollay Ghadery is an award-winning Iranian-Canadian multi-genre writer living in Ontario on Anishinaabe land. She has her MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Guelph. Fuse, her memoir of mixed-race identity and mental health, was released by Guernica Editions in 2021 and won the 2023 Canadian Bookclub Award for Nonfiction/Memoir. Her collection of poetry, Rebellion Box was released by Radiant Press in 2023, and her collection of short fiction, Widow Fantasies, was released with Gordon Hill Press in fall 2024 and was longlisted for the Toronto Book Award. Her debut novel, The Unraveling of Ou, was released with Palimpsest Press in 2026, and her children’s book, Being with the Birds, with Guernica Editions in 2027. Hollay is a host on The New Books Network, as well as a co-host on HOWL on CIUT 89.5 FM. She is also a book publicist, the Founder of River Street, and the co-chair of the League of Canadian Poets BIPOC committee, as well as the Poet Laureate of Scugog Township. She is also a member of The National Book Critics Circle, The Creative Nonfiction Collective, and The Writers Union of Canada. Learn more about Hollay here. Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/poetry

A year ago, Ink & Ribbon Press did not exist. Today it’s a nonprofit publisher with its first books in the world, a readership built largely through Substack, early editions that have sold out, and an inaugural prize — the LemonLight Prize — that drew more than 3,500 poems from 706 poets across eight countries. Among the press’s forthcoming titles is Jan Noble’s My Name Is Swan, a poem Jan has spent more than a decade performing in pubs across Britain. A film of the poem recently took Best Narrative at the International Poetry Film Festival in Los Angeles. In this conversation, we discuss what it takes to build a nonprofit publisher and the world of poetry today. G.K. Allum is Founding Editor & President of Ink & Ribbon Press. Jan Noble is the author of My Name is Swan. He is a British poet and performer whose work spans page, stage, film, radio, and recording. My Name Is Swan brings together three of his major narrative works as one unified manuscript for the first time. He has performed the poem in many pubs named Swan. Caleb Zakarin is CEO and Publisher of the New Books Network. Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/poetry