Alice James Books

Seattle: Join us Aug 12 at Hugo House for "Towards Collective Liberation"—a live poetry event celebrating FREELAND by @leighsugar.bsky.social, with readings by @theoceanisgay.bsky.social & Shelby Handler.
✨ 6–8pm PT | Theater Lobby
📍 Register: buff.ly/9VT0osq
#SeattlePoetry #LiveLit #HugoHouse

Odes to Lithium by Shira Erlichman @alicejamesbooks.bsky.social

#poetry

Saint Consequence by Michael M. Weinstein — Alice James Books Michael M. Weinstein's poetry collection, SAINT CONSEQUENCE, published by Alice James Books

SAINT CONSEQUENCE by Michael M. Weinstein is on our #DisabilityPrideMonth reading list!

This collection from @alicejamesbooks.bsky.social is “a book of 21st century transits … towards the culture and language of Russia, out of one gender and into another.”
www.alicejamesbooks.org/bookstore/sa...

Two Poems by Esther Lin Our poetry editor, Wendy Xu, has selected two poems by Esther Lin for her monthly series that brings original poetry to the screens of Hyperallergic readers.

“My petitioner is interested in sex. / His distinguishing feature is a hibiscus tattoo. / My petitioner’s mother dislikes me. / Her son would never marry someone like me.” — @estherwslin.bsky.social, “Ms. L— Describe Your Petitioner” @alicejamesbooks.bsky.social hyperallergic.com/536048/two-p...

I Don’t Want To Be Understood by @sadqueer4life.bsky.social @alicejamesbooks.bsky.social ‬⁩

#poetry #transpoetry

FREELAND by Leigh Sugar — Alice James Books Leigh Sugar's poetry collection, FREELAND, published by Alice James Books.

Leigh Sugar’s debut poetry collection “dramatizes what it’s like to stand on the outside looking in ... to live within a love confined by the state.” —Edward Hirsch

FREELAND (@alicejamesbooks.bsky.social) is on our reading list for #DisabilityPrideMonth: www.alicejamesbooks.org/bookstore/fr...

Matthew Nienow, If Nothing WHAT LUCK I lived. Lived again. Wrecked, hungover. Swerved in the dark from river back to bunk and never hit a tree. Never was pulled ...

Matthew Nienow, If Nothing / @alicejamesbooks.bsky.social ;
robmclennan.blogspot.com/2025/07/matt...

R. A. Villanueva

Let the Moon Wobble by Ally Ang (Alice James Books) — Alice James Books Ally Ang's poetry collection, LET THE MOON WOBBLE (Alice James Books)

@alicejamesbooks.bsky.social is currently having a 30% off and buy-two-get-one-free sale through tomorrow if you want to preorder Let the Moon Wobble! www.alicejamesbooks.org/bookstore/le...

Three books on a paisley print chair: FISH WIFE by Alysss Kathleen McCanna, MAKING A LIVING by Rosalie Moffett, and MOTHERSALT by Mia Ayumi Malhotra

New book mail! @alicejamesbooks.bsky.social @milkweededitions.bsky.social @blacklawrence.bsky.social

"I hear what we are meant for
outside this room."

#TodaysPoem #poetry
Here by Jean Valentine from Light Me Down - The New & Collected Poems of Jean Valentine (2024 @AliceJamesBooks.bsky.social) tinyurl.com/dex2wank

#BefriendaBook to support 1 of 11 upcoming AJB titles by funding editorial, production, or promotion 📚 Each donation enters you to win signed copies of all 11 books — a full shelf of poetry from debut and award-winning voices! Give now → bit.ly/BefriendaBook

Sneak peek from Andrés Cerpa's THE PALACE, coming in Jan 🌟

Leigh Sugar, Freeland INHERITANCE In 1920, my grandfather received an American name: Zucker to Sugar , now my own last name.  The Third Reich never tatto...

Leigh Sugar, Freeland / @alicejamesbooks.bsky.social ;
robmclennan.blogspot.com/2025/06/leig...

Look who’s in Poets & Writers! 🎉
Honored to see @leighsugar.bsky.social‬'s FREELAND featured in “Page One” alongside such powerful new work.
More: buff.ly/pJwoIUW 💫

Thrilled to welcome @rosebudbenoni.bsky.social‬ back to Alice James Books for her newest collection, THE LAST GREAT ADVENTURE IS YOU, out June 2027 🙌
Expansive poems on memory, theory & time.
🔗 buff.ly/CEUXRXc

Grateful for early love for ‪@leighsugar.bsky.social‬'s FREELAND:

✨ @electricliterature.com interview on love, prison & poetry
buff.ly/T6ZFunM

⭐ Bear Review: “a work of obsession & analysis”
buff.ly/AgcCkvj

📝 @phillychapbook.bsky.social:‬ “Ars Poetica” + note
buff.ly/HLEIIzB

Thanks for reading 📖

Mia Ayumi Malhotra, Mothersalt Like an object from space, birth language is a sign of alien life: Mucus plug. Meconium . Also the language of newborns, with its twisted ...

Mia Ayumi Malhotra, Mothersalt / @alicejamesbooks.bsky.social ;
robmclennan.blogspot.com/2025/06/mia-...

I Was Undocumented for 21 Years. This Is Why I Tell My Story "I laugh when one of my poems emerges especially dark. It’s dark because I was truthful," writes Esther Lin.

A short essay I wrote on writing poetry while undocumented. Many thanks to @alicejamesbooks.bsky.social and @timemagazine.bsky.social

@estherwslin.bsky.social‬'s essay, “I Was Undocumented for 21 Years,” is now in TIME Magazine. Her story of living without status from age 4 to 27 arrives at a crucial moment.

Esther is the author of COLD THIEF PLACE, published by AJB in March 💛

📰 buff.ly/F7vc223

FREELAND by @leighsugar.bsky.social‬ is out today from Alice James: bit.ly/FREEL4ND 🖤🤍

A fierce, inventive debut tracing a love across prison walls and the systems of mass incarceration. Poems on race, memory, mental illness, and freedom.

Available now wherever books are sold 📚

Book Excerpt: Ars Poetica by Leigh Sugar Read the featured Excerpt Poem of the Month for June 2025, “Ars Poetica” from Freeland by Leigh Sugar, along with a few words from the poet.

"[C]ould there be a poetry that does investigate the body without explosion?" Read an excerpt from @leighsugar.bsky.social's book, FREELAND, from @alicejamesbooks.bsky.social, along with words from the author. #writingcommunity #poetrycommunity phillychapbookreview.org/book-excerpt...

WHAT LUCK. I lived. Lived again. Wrecked, hungover. Swerved in the dark from river back to bunk and never hit a tree. Never was pulled over when my only tongue was Swamp. Locked my keys in the trunk in a thunder storm, done hotboxing the Cimarron with can’t remember, car halfway in the road. Aura of blunt, pungent as roadkill skunk. Always made it home. Always stumbling thick-tongued, lucky if I didn’t get the spins,

mumbling if I had to speak, numb thing dumb in the truest sense. Floor was floor and I was on it, gone wind in a way. Also stone. Somehow sang even undone. Almost alone, even throned among future tombs, I lived, the coal of my heart on a slow burn, no time to lose, no such thing as time, eyes tuned to the lack of light, skull locked tight, crowned alive, the King of Lost Keys. Matthew Nienow

“I lived, / the coal of my heart on a slow / burn, no time to lose, no such / thing as time, eyes tuned / to the lack of light, skull / locked tight, crowned alive, the King / of Lost Keys.” —Matthew Nienow, “What Luck” @alicejamesbooks.bsky.social

[encore] 9: Portrait of the Alcoholic with Withdrawal by Kaveh Akbar Today’s poem is Portrait of the Alcoholic with Withdrawal by Kaveh Akbar.

Read “Portrait of the Alcoholic with Withdrawal” by Kaveh Akbar: bit.ly/4dKXbNQ

@alicejamesbooks.bsky.social

We’re thrilled to welcome Olatunde Osinaike to Alice James Books for his second collection, IMAGE + LIKENESS, out August 2027 🙌

🔗 Learn more: bit.ly/4kwud76
📚 Preorder 20% off: bit.ly/imglikeness

🎉 Exciting news! AUTOBIOMYTHOGRAPHY OF by Ayokunle Falomo has won the 2025 Maine Literary Award for Excellence in Publishing! 💙 Huge thanks to the MWPA!

📖 Out Sept 2024 from Alice James Books
🔗 buff.ly/85oIsGD
#MaineLiteraryAwards #AliceJamesBooks

Bay Area readers—this one’s for you! 🌟 Don’t miss acclaimed poet Mia Ayumi Malhotra, author of MOTHERSALT, as the featured reader at the Burlingame Public Library Poetry Open Mic on June 11 at 6 PM.

📍 Full event details at buff.ly/4xLuPsS

ICYMI: We’re thrilled to share that @sarahali.bsky.social‬ has won the Gold Medal in Poetry at the #CaliforniaBookAwards for her stunning debut, THEOPHANIES! 🏅✨ Check out the full list of honorees at buff.ly/GDMcaLB

In FREELAND, Leigh Sugar “obsessively searches form and language to communicate what happens in the U.S. mass incarceration system.”

Preorder a forthcoming poetry collection from @alicejamesbooks.bsky.social this #JewishAmericanHeritageMonth: bookshop.org/a/500/978194...

Read THE HOLY & BROKEN BLISS by Alicia Ostriker (@alicejamesbooks.bsky.social) this #JewishAmericanHeritageMonth:

The poems in this collection “are grounded in daily existence, human tenderness, the rituals of a long marriage, and the poet’s ongoing spiritual quest.”
bookshop.org/a/500/978194...