Two New Books REleased this Spring...

Wandering Aengus and Trail to Table each released a book of poetry this spring with poems to remind us what's important and worth protecting in this world. The poet Jane Wong writes of Japanese-American Michael Schmeltzer's book, Empire of Surrender, "Full of visceral lyricism and tender epistolaries, Schmeltzer dives into the intimate depths of war, violence, familial history, empathy, and lineage. This is a book that is not afraid to ask: how and why do we hurt each other? What is lost in such acts of cruelty? And how can we cling to kindness as resistance?"

Alison Hawthorne Deming writes of Andy Gottlieb's Tales of a Distance, "Poetry can speak most resonantly at those times when the distance between our lives and death shrinks, times such as when a parent dies, and we relearn what intimacy in a family context can mean. Such is the beautiful intensity of Andrew Gottlieb's poems in this collection, written with crystalline images and mindful presence. I'm especially captured by how rivers, animals, and landscapes of the American West inhabit the poems as talismans for the inseparability of mind and nature. And for the mystery of how we find beauty while living on the edge of peril."

We're delighted to usher these two important works into the world. Empire of Surrender won the Wandering Aengus Book Award, and Tales of a Distance was our editors' choice for the Trail to Table 2021 open reading period.