Bøger udgivet af University of Wisconsin Press

This definitive biography of the charismatic Alexander Meiklejohn tracks his turbulent career as an educational innovator at Brown University, Amherst College, and Wisconsin's "Experimental College" in the early twentieth century and his later work as a civil libertarian in the Joe McCarthy era. The central question Meiklejohn asked throughout his life's work remains essential today: How can education teach citizens to be free?

In the years between the Sharpeville Massacre of 1960 and the Soweto Uprising of 1976--a period that was both the height of the apartheid system in South Africa and, in retrospect, the beginning of its end--Harold Scheub went to Africa to collect stories. With tape-recorder and camera in hand, Scheub registered the testaments of Swati, Xhosa, Ndebele, and Zulu storytellers, farming people who lived in the remote reaches of rural South Africa. While young people fought in the streets of Soweto and South African writers made the world aware of apartheid's evils, the rural storytellers resisted apartheid in their own way, using myth and metaphor to preserve their traditions and confront their oppressors. For more than 20 years, Scheub kept the promise he made to the storytellers to publish his translations of their stories only when freedom came to South Africa. The Tongue Is Fire presents these voices of South African oral tradition--the historians, the poets, the epic-performers, the myth-makers--documenting their enduring faith in the power of the word to sustain tradition in the face of determined efforts to distort or eliminate it. These texts are a tribute to the storytellers who have always, in periods of crisis, exercised their art to inspire their own people.

The foremost religious festival of ancient Athens--the city dedicated to Athena, goddess of war, fertility, arts, and wisdom--was the Panathenaia. Challenging old assumptions and refuting new theories, Worshipping Athena addresses the many problems of interpretation and understanding that have swirled for years around the Panathenaia. Among the issues discussed is the recent sensational controversy over the Parthenon frieze, perhaps the best known but least understood work of Greek art. For centuries the frieze has been thought to represent the Panathenaia procession, but recently the argument has been advanced that it depicts the sacrifice of the daughters of the Athenian king Erechtheus. Worshipping Athena offers compelling evidence that the frieze does indeed depict the festal procession and also demonstrates that scenes of contemporary ritual were not unique to the Parthenon. Editor Jenifer Neils and the contributors--eminent classicists, archaeologists, and art historians--explore the role of the Panathenaia in Athenian life and compare it with similar festivals held throughout the ancient Greek world. They discuss such topics as the Panathenaia's mythical origins, the phenomenon of the festival's valuable prizes (oil-filled amphoras, rather than the customary laurel wreath), and the architecture, sculpture, and painting related to the festival. Worshipping Athena will provide valuable insights to scholars and students concerned with ancient religion, mythology, art, literature, and gender issues, as well as anyone with a keen interest in the ritual topography of the Athenian Acropolis and the iconography of the Parthenon frieze.

This text documents Ethiopian agricultural practices since the early 19th century by examining travel narratives, agricultural surveys and farming systems research. It also traces the ways practices evolved in the 20th century in response to population growth, urban markets and new technologies.

Authenticity is a notion much debated, among discussants as diverse as cultural theorists and art dealers, music critics and tour operators. The desire to find and somehow capture or protect the "authentic" narrative, art object, or ceremonial dance is hardly new. In this masterful examination of German and American folklore studies from the eighteenth century to the present, Regina Bendix demonstrates that the longing for authenticity remains deeply implicated in scholarly approaches to cultural analysis. Searches for authenticity, Bendix contends, have been a constant companion to the feelings of loss inherent in modernization, forever upholding a belief in a pristine yet endangered cultural essence and fueling cultural nationalism worldwide. Beginning with precursors of Herder and Emerson and the "discovery" of the authentic in expressive culture and literature, she traces the different, albeit intertwined, histories of German Volkskunde and American folklore studies. A Swiss native educated in American folklore programs, Bendix moves effortlessly between the two traditions, demonstrating how the notion of authenticity was used not only to foster national causes, but also to lay the foundations for categories of documentation and analysis within the nascent field of folklore studies. Bendix shows that, in an increasingly transcultural world, where Zulu singers back up Paul Simon and where indigenous artists seek copyright for their traditional crafts, the politics of authenticity mingles with the forces of the market. Arguing against the dichotomies implied in the very idea of authenticity, she underscores the emptiness of efforts to distinguish between folklore and fakelore, between echt and ersatz.

Since the 1970s, the academic study of film has been dominated by Structuralist Marxism, varieties of cultural theory, and the psychoanalytic ideas of Freud and Lacan. With Post-Theory, David Bordwell and Noel Carroll have opened the floor to other voices challenging the prevailing practices of film scholarship. Addressing topics as diverse as film scores, national film industries, and audience response. Post-Theory offers fresh directions for understanding film. Bordwell and Carroll pose a simple question. Why not employ many theories tailored to specific goals, rather than searching for a unified theory that will explain all sorts of films, their production, and their reception? The scholars writing here use historical, philosophical, psychological, and feminist methods to tackle such basic issues as: What goes on when viewers perceive a film? How do filmmakers exploit conventions? How do movies create illusions? How does a film arouse emotion? Bordwell and Carroll have given space not only to distinguished film scholars but to non-film specialists as well, ensuring a wide variety of opinions and ideas on virtually every topic on the current agenda of film studies. Full of stimulating essays published here for the first time, Post-Theory promises to redefine the study of cinema.

Responding to skeptics within higher education and critics without, James Crosswhite argues powerfully that the core of a college education should be learning to write a reasoned argument. A trained philosopher and director of a university-wide composition program, Crosswhite challenges his readers - teachers of writing and communication, philosophers, critical theorists, and educational administrators - to reestablish the traditional role of rhetoric in education. To those who have lost faith in the abilities of people to reach reasoned mutual agreements, and to others who have attacked the right-or-wrong model of formal logic, this book offers the reminder that the rhetorical tradition has always viewed argumentation as a dialogue, a response to changing situations, an exchange of persuading, listening, and understanding. Crosswhite's aim is to give new purpose to writing instruction and to students' writing, to reinvest both with the deep ethical interests of the rhetorical tradition. In laying out the elements of argumentation, for example, he shows that claiming, questioning, and giving reasons are not simple elements of formal logic, but communicative acts with complicated ethical features. Students must learn not only how to construct an argument, but the purposes, responsibilities, and consequences of engaging in one. Crosswhite supports his aims through a rhetorical reconstruction of reason, offering new interpretations of Plato, Aristotle, and of the concepts of reflection and dialogue from early modernity through Hegel to Gadamer. And, in conclusion, he ties these theoretical and historical underpinnings to current problems of higher education, the definition of the liberalarts, and, especially, the teaching of written communication.

Highly entertaining and richly informative, Wisconsin Folklore offers the first comprehensive collection of writings about the surprisingly varied folklore of Wisconsin. Beginning with a historical introduction to Wisconsin's folklore and concluding with an up-to-date bibliography, this anthology offers more than fifty annotated and illustrated entries in five sections: "Terms and Talk," "Storytelling," "Music, Song, and Dance," "Beliefs and Customs," and "Material Traditions and Folklife." The various contributors, from 1884 to 1997, are anthropologists, ethnomusicologists, historians, journalists, museologists, ordinary citizens reminiscing, sociologists, students, writers of fiction, practitioners of folklore, and folklorists. Their interests cover an enormous range of topics: from Woodland Indian place names and German dialect expressions to Welsh nicknames and the jargon of apple-pickers, brewers, and farmers; from Ho-Chunk and Ojibwa mythological tricksters and Paul Bunyan legends to stories of Polish strongmen and Ole and Lena jokes; from Menominee dances and Norwegian fiddling and polka music to African-American gospel groups and Hmong musicians; from faith healers and wedding and funeral customs to seasonal ethnic festivities and tavern amusements; and from spearing decoys and needlework to church dinners, sacred shrines, and the traditional work practices of commercial fishers, tobacco growers, and pickle packers. For general readers, teachers, librarians, and scholars alike, Wisconsin Folklore exemplifies and illuminates Wisconsin's cultural traditions, and establishes the state's significant but long neglected contributions to American folklore.

This work is a geographic exploration of Wisconsin - a series of original essays that offers an introduction to the state's natural environment, the historical processes of its human habitation, and the ways that nature and people interact to create distinct regional landscapes.

In 73 A.D., legend has it, 960 Jewish rebels under siege in the ancient desert fortress of Masada committed suicide rather than surrender to a Roman legion. Recorded in only one historical source, the story of Masada was obscure for centuries. In The Masada Myth, Israeli sociologist Nachman Ben-Yehuda tracks the process by which Masada became an ideological symbol for the State of Israel, the dramatic subject of movies and miniseries, a shrine venerated by generations of Zionists and Israeli soldiers, and the most profitable tourist attraction in modern Israel. Ben-Yehuda describes how, after nearly 1800 years, the long, complex, and unsubstantiated narrative of a Romanized Jew, Josephus Flavius, was edited and augmented in the twentieth century to form a simple and powerful myth of heroism. Ben-Yehuda looks at the ways this new mythical narrative of Masada was created, promoted, and maintained by pre-state Jewish underground organizations, the Israeli army, archaeological teams, mass media, youth movements, textbooks, the tourist industry, and the arts. He discusses the various organizations and movements that created "the Masada experience" (usually a ritual trek through the Judean desert followed by a climb to the fortress and a dramatic reading of the Masada story), and how it changed over decades from a Zionist pilgrimage to a tourist destination. Placing the story in a larger historical, sociological, and psychological context, Ben-Yehuda draws upon theories of collective memory and myth-making to analyze Masada's crucial role in the nation-building process of modern Israel and the formation of a new Jewish identity. An expert on deviance and social control, Ben-Yehuda looks inparticular at how and why a military failure and an enigmatic, troubling case of mass suicide (in conflict with Judaism's teachings) were reconstructed and fabricated as a heroic tale.

in this distinguished contribution to Latin American colonial history, Cope draws upon a wide variety of sources to challenge the traditional view of castas as rootless, alienated, and dominated by a desire to improve their racial status. A revealing look at the economic lives of the urban poor in the colonial era, this book examines a period in which critical social changes were occurring.

Frank Marshall Davis (1905-1987) was a prominent African American poet and journalist in the 1930s and 1940s. Although not as familiar a name as his contemporaries Zora Neale Hurston, Richard Wright, and Langston Hughes, Davis was a significant figure during the Depression and the Second World War. Born in Arkansas City. Kansas, and educated at Kansas State College, he spent much of his career in Chicago and Atlanta. He wrote and published four important collections of poetry: Black Man's Verse (1935), I Am The American Negro (1937), Through Sepia Eyes (1938), and 47th Street: Poems (1948), which brought him high esteem and visibility in the literary world. Davis turned his back on a sustained literary career by moving to Hawaii in 1948. There he cut himself off from the busy world of Chicago writers and virtually disappeared from literary history until interest in his work was revived in the 1960s Black Arts Movement, which hailed him as a pioneer of black poetry and established him as a member of its canon. Because of his early self-removal from the literary limelight, Davis' life and work have been shrouded in mystery. Livin' the Blues offers us a chance to rediscover this talented poet and writer and stands as an important example of black autobiography, similar in form, style, and message to those of Langston Hughes and Richard Wright. In addition to his literary achievements, Davis was an editor for several African American newspapers in the 1930s: the Chicago Evening Bulletin, the Chicago Whip, the Chicago Star, and the Atlanta World. In the early 1940s he began teaching what he believed to be the first history of jazz course, at the Abraham Lincoln School in Chicago, and in 1945he began broadcasting his own radio jazz show, "Bronzeville Brevities", on WJJD in Chicago. Active in the civil rights movement, Davis served as vice chairman of the Chicago Civil Liberties Committee from 1944 to 1947 and was a member of the national board of the Civil Rights Congress from 1947 to 1948. His autobiography, Livin' the Blues, chronicles Davis' battle to overcome a negative self-image and to construct a healthy, self-assured life. Realizing early on that the white world aimed to silence black men, Davis devoted his life to self-empowerment through the written and spoken word and to vigorous promotion of black expression through art and activism. The common thread connecting the disparate events of Davis' life is the blues. By rooting itself in a blues sensibility, Davis' life story is one of triumph over economic hardship and racial discrimination. Davis was a powerful, dramatic writer, and his autobiography vividly captures what it was to grow up black and poor, and what it was like to struggle toward both economic and emotional self-sufficiency.

The famous library of Alexandria, founded around 295 BCE by Ptolemaios I, housed the greatest collection of texts in the ancient world and was a fertile site of Hellenistic scholarship. Rudolf Blum's landmark study, originally published in German in 1977, argues that Kallimachos of Kyrene was not only the second director of the Alexandrian library but also the inventor of two essential scholarly tools still in use to this day: the library catalog and the "biobibliographical" reference work. Kallimachos expanded the library's inventory lists into volumes called the Pinakes, which extensively described and categorized each work and became in effect a Greek national bibliography and the source and paradigm for most later bibliographic lists of Greek literature. Though the Pinakes have not survived, Blum attempts a detailed reconstruction of Kallimachos's inventories and catalogs based on a careful analysis of surviving sources, which are presented here in full translation.

Zaire, apparently strong and stable under President Mobutu in the early 1970s, was bankrupt and discredited by the end of that decade, beset by hyperinflation and mass corruption, the populace forced into abject poverty. Why and how, in a new African state strategically located in Central Africa and rich in mineral resources, did this happen? How did the Zairian state become a "parasitic predator" upon its own people?In this broadly researched study, Crawford Young and Thomas Edwin Turner examine the political history of Mobutu's Zaire, looking at critical structures and patterns of societal flux, inequality, and cleavage, in particular the urban-rural nexus, the problematic of class formation, and the fluid patterns of cultural pluralism.The authors begin with a succinct history of the origins of the Zairian state (formerly the Belgian Congo), examining in particular the problems, inherited from its colonial heritage, that led to the first few tumultuous years of independence. They then turn to the critical aspects of transformation of civil society, including the relationships between urban and rural factions, class formation, and the rapidly shifting nature of ethnicity as a sociopolitical factor. They offer a comprehensive overview of the major political trends, tracing the regime through its successive phases of power seizure, consolidation, growing personalization, crisis, and decline. Finally, Young and Turner assess the state's actual performance in several policy areas: economy, international relations, and its package of "Zairianization" and "radicalization" measures.Young and Turner's thorough research, informed analysis, and straightforward style will do much to illuminate the political workings of a major African state long considered an enigma by most Western observers.

Fiedorczuk was inspired by her readings of the original Hebrew Psalms, as well as by the process of learning to sing. In her poems she captures the heartache and joy of the Biblical Psalms, but in the context of modern life. She addresses climate change, loss of biodiversity, the upheavals of migration, and, in her most recent poems, the return of war to Europe: "Even when bombs are falling you ought to write / perhaps even especially when people lost / in the woods are saying cold, she is so cold." Fiedorczuk writes of the natural world, the built environment, motherhood, brotherhood, and of vast and tiny passages of time. And as she does, she discovers a new voice, singing to soothe and inspire. whose flower made from a clod of pain will enfold the milky way with its claws of time, its pelt of stars? --Excerpt from "Psalm XVII"

William Somerset Maugham (1874-1965) was one of the most prominent and productive authors of the twentieth century-and his works have been among the most cinematically transformed in history. For more than five decades, adaptations of his plays, stories, and novels dominated movie theaters and, later, television screens. More than ninety individual works were filmed, and for many filmgoers his name was a greater draw than that of the director. Works such as Of Human Bondage, "The Letter," The Painted Veil, "Rain," The Razor's Edge, and others were produced multiple times, with starring roles sought by actors like Bette Davis, Gloria Swanson, Greta Garbo, Lionel Barrymore, Charles Laughton, and Bill Murray.This study of the famous author explores the relationship between literature and film, what is involved in adaptation, and how best to judge films based on celebrated books. Robert Calder, the world's leading scholar of Maugham's work, offers fascinating production histories, insight into both fortunate and misguided casting decisions, shrewd analyses of performances and film techniques, and summaries of public and critical responses. Maugham's characters were often conflicted, iconoclastic, and morally out of step with their times, which may have accounted for the popularity of his fiction. Most of Maugham's works could be adapted to satisfy the tastes of moviegoers and the demands of the Hays Office censors, if not the expectations of their author.

Imperial Rome privileged the elite male citizen as one of sound mind and body, superior in all ways to women, noncitizens, and nonhumans. One of the markers of his superiority was the power of his voice, both literal (in terms of oratory and the legal capacity to represent himself and others) and metaphoric, as in the political power of having a "voice" in the public sphere. Muteness in ancient Roman society has thus long been understood as a deficiency, both physically and socially.In this volume, Amy Koenig deftly confronts the trope of muteness in Imperial Roman literature, arguing that this understanding of silence is incomplete. By unpacking the motif of voicelessness across a wide range of written sources, she shows that the Roman perception of silence was more complicated than a simple binary and that elite male authors used muted or voiceless characters to interrogate the concept of voicelessness in ways that would be taboo in other contexts. Paradoxically, Koenig illustrates that silence could in fact be freeing-that the loss of voice permits an untethering from other social norms and expectations, thus allowing a freedom of expression denied to many of the voiced.

Suzette Mullen had been raised to play it safe-and she hated causing others pain. With college and law degrees, a kind and successful husband, two thriving adult sons, and an ocean-view vacation home, she lived a life many people would envy. But beneath the happy facade was a woman who watched her friends walk boldly through their lives and wondered what was holding her back from doing the same.Digging into her past, Suzette uncovered a deeply buried truth: she'd been in love with her best friend-a woman-for nearly two decades-and still was. Leaning into these "unspeakable" feelings would put Suzette's identity, relationships, and life of privilege at risk-but taking this leap might be her only chance to feel fully alive. As Suzette opened herself up to new possibilities, an unexpected visit to a new city helped her discover who she was meant to be.Introspective, bittersweet, and empowering, The Only Way Through Is Out is both a coming-out and coming-of-age story, as well as a call to action for every human who is longing to live authentically but is afraid of the cost.

Redeeming Objects traces the afterlives of things. Out of the rubble of World War II and the Holocaust, the Federal Republic of Germany emerged, and with it a foundational myth of the "economic miracle." In this narrative, a new mass consumer society based on the production, export, and consumption of goods would redeem West Germany from its Nazi past and drive its rebirth as a truly modern nation. Turning this narrative on its head, Natalie Scholz shows that West Germany's consumerist ideology took shape through the reinvention of commodities previously tied to Nazism into symbols of Germany's modernity, economic supremacy, and international prestige. Postwar advertising, film, and print culture sought to divest mass-produced goods-such as the Volkswagen and modern interiors-of their fascist legacies. But Scholz demonstrates that postwar representations were saturated with unacknowledged references to the Nazi past. Drawing on a vast array of popular and highbrow publications and films, Redeeming Objects adds a new perspective to debates about postwar reconstruction, memory, and consumerism.

Newly divorced, Virginia Bigelow is struggling with pressing financial debt, the frustration of a stalled teaching career, an increasingly isolated and lonely existence, and the challenges of being a single parent to an autistic child. When she learns that Travis Lee Hilliard, the man who murdered her father in the 1980s, has been released from prison, she drops everything and sets out on an ill-conceived journey to confront him in order to mete out the justice she feels he deserves.Meanwhile, having spent three decades serving a life sentence for murdering the California preacher who rescued him from the streets, Travis thinks of himself as a reformed man. Traveling from Folsom Prison to his new home in the Mojave Desert, a remote location with minimal temptations, he struggles to reconcile his past and embrace his newfound freedom. But there are more challenges to staying on the straight and narrow than he ever could have imagined.Virginia's and Travis's braided narratives slowly tighten as they approach their inevitable collision. Unflinching, compassionate, and gripping, this bold novel evocatively examines the ambiguities wrought by both violence and redemption.

Opening with "Hors d'oeuvres" and closing with a "Feast," the stories in Cravings pulse with longing, missed opportunities, recriminations, and joy. Garnett Kilberg Cohen leads readers through acutely crafted explorations of the way events shape and change our lives, sometimes for the better and sometimes in ways that haunt us forever. Love, friendship, childhood, parenthood, and leaving home-all these experiences of desire, driven by the unrelenting passage of time-form the heart of this charismatic collection. Kilberg Cohen's captivating and vulnerable characters often recognize their shortcomings and past mistakes, but cannot always rise above them. One woman learns to forgive her husband's ex; another fears her love of salty snacks caused a family tragedy. A stoic rural community drives a newcomer out of town; a young man's entire life is colored by a traumatic childhood event at a zoo. Focusing on the specific, unforgettable moments that reveal our connections to one another, Cravings offers an expansive vision of humanity that lingers long after the final page is turned.

In 2010, Blake Geoffrion became the first player from the University of Wisconsin hockey team to receive the Hobey Baker Award, recognizing him as the best player in men's college hockey. Blake was a rising scion of hockey royalty, descendant of legendary Canadian players Howie Morenz and Bernie "Boom Boom" Geoffrion, and he would soon be the first fourth-generation player to reach the NHL. His professional career promised to cement his family's storied legacy on ice. But in 2012, while playing for the Montreal Canadiens' minor league team beneath Morenz's and Boom Boom's retired numbers, Geoffrion suffered a devastating injury that ended his career-and nearly his life. With sure-footed and swift-moving prose, Sam Jefferies tells Geoffrion's story against the backdrop of modern North American hockey. Thorough research and scores of interviews fuel this tale of soaring success and terrible tragedy, offering insight not only into one man's athletic journey but also into the rise of American hockey on the national and international stage. Geoffrion's brief career, marked by tribulation and triumph, illustrates the subtle but omnipresent currents of American media, sports labor, and the interplay between college and professional athletics. It tells the story of what was, what is, and what may yet be for the fastest game on earth.

"As the Great War rages across Europe, Rand Brandt, an idealistic young forester in the northwoods of Wisconsin, discovers a remarkable gift: his touch can grow any plant in minutes. Overjoyed, he dreams of devoting his life to conservation, restoring to its former glory a landscape devastated by lumbering. At night, Rand tests his powers, pushing his physical limits and revealing his secret only to his lover, Gabriel. But his frequent absences from camp don't go unnoticed, and it isn't long before Rand is drafted to grow timber for the war effort. Along with Gabriel, he's shipped to France-though the army is a dangerous place for two men in love"--

Mamah Borthwick was an energetic, intelligent, and charismatic woman who earned a master's degree at a time when few women even attended college, translated writings by a key figure of the early feminist movement, and taught at one of Germany's best schools for boys. She is best known, however, as the mistress of the famous American architect Frank Lloyd Wright, and for her shocking murder at the renowned Wisconsin home he built for her, Taliesin. A Brave and Lovely Woman offers an important corrective to the narrative of Wright and Borthwick, a love story as American in character as it is Shakespearean in conclusion. Little of Wright's life and work has been left untouched by his many admirers, critics, and biographers. And yet the woman who stood at the center of his emotional life, Mamah Borthwick, has fallen into near obscurity. Mark Borthwick--a distant relative--recenters Mamah Borthwick in her own life, presenting a detailed portrait of a fascinating woman, a complicated figure who was at once a dedicated mother and a faithless spouse, a feminist and a member of a conservative sorority, a vivacious extrovert and a social pariah. Careful research and engaging prose at last give Borthwick, an obscure but crucial character in one of America's most famous tragedies, center stage.

The characters-young and old, queer and straight, contemporary and historical-who inhabit Lynn C. Miller's stories often find themselves in defining moments and crisis situations. As they search through the archives of memory, truth, and experience, they seek to understand not only the past and present but themselves.Stretching the definition of "archive," Miller builds interconnected webs that surprise, much like the seemingly random papers collected in a box of materials. Fraught relationships, mistaken identities, mysterious disappearances, and the search for love play out in these stories. Friendships are celebrated, ex-husbands cross the line, and Gertrude Stein attempts to write her memoir. An unusual collection that proves greater than the sum of its parts, The Lost Archive will haunt readers with the intensity of its vision.

The characters who inhabit Sarah Layden's short story collection are on the verge of change-if only they could see themselves and their situations with greater clarity. Caught in the midst of crises, they stumble toward the future without fully understanding their past. Layden's deft, spare prose sketches worlds and lives with telling details, juggling disparate strands of identity and often revealing the deeper truths in unexpected moments of epiphany.A bride-to-be puts on her detective hat when her groom goes missing. A woman returns to college after escaping an abusive marriage, only to discover her professor is a fraud. Reunited at a high school reunion, two former classmates completely misinterpret a critical incident from a decade prior. These and other characters find themselves lonely and in limbo, their self-identity as blurry as the old photographs they cling to with stubborn intensity.Set mostly in the Midwest and upstate New York, Imagine Your Life Like This captures everyday Americans in all their discontent, misunderstandings, and dogged determination for a better world.

Appearing on the first page of Dante Di Stefano's Midwhistle, a flock of blackbirds braids its way throughout this book-length poem--an elegy to life itself. A sprawling, digressive love note to an unborn son, it is also a celebration of the life and legacy of poet William Heyen, a meditation on midlife, and an exploration of the food and fuel of poetry itself. Di Stefano travels through a controlled stream of consciousness as he examines the weights of joy and grief. Bearing witness to the world, Midwhistle unfolds and refolds upon itself, touching on Hiroshima, Bergen-Belsen, Charlottesville, the sacoglossan sea slug, Darwin's Arch, and much more. Stylistically formal, the poem soars and dips, lightly and deftly finding the light in nighttime meditations, as the poet considers "our Unyet son, lemon-sized, / amniotic cosmonaut," while imagining Heyen at his own age, "the thin black necktie of your / apprenticeship had not been / taken off yet." In these examinations we find the poet himself, faced always with a "blinking / cursor," seeking in the words and lives of other poets what it really means to write poetry. Midwhistle, in its meandering self-reflection and loving expansiveness, is a celebration of the act of poetic creation itself. > your beloved. --Excerpt from "xxiii. (interlude: prayer for Gaza)"

"Words carry the dead like henchmen," in Joshua Burton's extraordinary debut volume, Grace Engine. These spare and powerful poems are like pallbearers, like eulogists, like survivors, like battered souls hoping and dreaming for a future that may never be. Grappling head-on with the history of lynchings, mental illness, and the endurance of black bodies and psyches against impossible odds, Burton writes, "I spent so many years being afraid to be black, that now / I am only afraid of silence, / / or the silence that it brings." Burton experiments with spaces, absences, and forms in navigating the tensions between shame and accountability, guilt and forgiveness, to understand how one finds the ability to cope under the worst of conditions. With patience and ferocity, he delves into generational and familial trauma to question whether black strength is inherent to blackness and to build a mechanism to survive and heal. I love all the dead, > themselves of shame and before that. --Excerpt from "Grace Engine"