Action Books

For international orders, please visit @asterismbooks.bsky.social:

asterismbooks.com/product/frie...

Congratulations Gabriel Gudding! FRIENDS WITH EVERYONE has won the 2025 Harold Morton Landon Translation Award!

Judge Roger Sedarat writes: "Gudding has effectively translated through a prism of punk, allowing himself, like his source poet, to remain an agent of fire.”

poets.org/academy-amer...

This week's Book of the Week is Ghayath Almadhoun's I HAVE BROUGHT YOU A SEVERED HAND, translated by Catherine Cobham and published by @actionbooks.bsky.social (US) and Divided Publishing (UK).

I open my voice like the ripped-open stomach of a sacrificial animal Oracular & bloody This is a kind of singing A red spasm of light in never-ending dark

Lara Glenum

@actionbooks.bsky.social

recent book mail courtesy of @asterismbooks.bsky.social

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REVIEW: Burn the Losses by Antonio Gamoneda Still in the heart there are ants.

Over at Zona Motel, I talked about Burn the Losses by Antonio Gamoneda -- now out from @actionbooks.bsky.social as translated by @hedeenk.bsky.social and Victor Rodriguez Núñez. zonamotel.substack.com/p/review-bur...

| Literary Feature |

Sniffing Candles & Building a Bench // An Interview with Writer & Translator Hedgie Choi

www.neonpajamas.com/blog/hedgie-...

@uwiscpress.bsky.social / @actionbooks.bsky.social / @blackoceanbooks.bsky.social

Rose Petal Raspberry Herbal Tea & motherworld: a devotional for the alter-life by Destiny Hemphill

9. Rose Petal Raspberry Herbal Tea & motherworld: a devotional for the alter-life by Destiny Hemphill from @actionbooks.bsky.social

poetry in action #43 | From SONORA by Chus Pato, Translated by Erín Moure • Action Books poetry in action features work by poets from around the world, translated into English. NOW MORE THAN EVER: Poets of the world, unite and take over! Resist the oppressive constraints of good, publisha...

“the night opens and falls
a womb
in the deserts”

3 poems from Chus Pato’s award-winning Sonora,
tr. Erín Moure
check them out here:

actionbooks.org/2025/03/poet...

@hedeenk.bsky.social

action will be at AWP!
booth 549
come check out new titles!
offsite reading happening on friday, march 28, 6-10 pm.

New ACTION BOOKS coming this April:

• Spanish poet Antonio Gamoneda's Burn the Losses
• Palestinian poet Ghayath Almadhoun's searing I Have Brought You A Severed Hand
• W & E, ML Martin's "refracted" translation of medieval poem Wulf and Eadwacer

Let me know if you are interested in reviewing!

April 2025!
actionbooks.org/catalog/

check out this list! let me know if you’re interested in reviewing! @actionbooks.bsky.social

poetry in action #42 | From STRING THEORY by Karen Villeda, Translated by NAFTA • Action Books poetry in action features work by poets from around the world, translated into English. NOW MORE THAN EVER: Poets of the world, unite and take over! Resist the oppressive constraints of good, publisha...

Poets of the World Unite!

poetry in action is back.

“I am the moan, the boiling, the sneeze, I am the over-there. I am the artesian well, the kestrel’s pertinence, I am tongue. I am the intestines and the foot inside, inside of someone.”

Karen Villeda, tr. NAFTA

actionbooks.org/2025/02/poet...

'In a dictatorship, metaphors can save you': The poetry of Ghayath Almadhoun The poet says that while censorship in a dictatorship is nothing new, the same in a democracy feels like entering a new totalitarianism

"You could smell the fear everywhere. But under the Syrian regime, you could hide the real meaning behind your words with metaphors. Metaphors would save you," Almadhoun explains."

Ghayath Almadhoun (Action Books) on writing in a dictatorship:
www.middleeasteye.net/discover/met...

@actionbooks.bsky.social has joined Bluesky!