@weslpress.bsky.social
Publishing in its current form since 1957, Wesleyan UP focuses on poetry, music, dance, and the arts. See weslpress.org for new poetry!
Emilee Lord deems Dance History(s), Imagination as a Form of Study as a "workbook, a toolkit, and a guide" for anyone who seeks to "understand their own becoming." To read the full review, visit www.thinkingdance.net/articles/202...
05.08.2025 16:42 — 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
Imani Sanga of Ethnomusicology Forum praises Sounds of Other Shores by Andrew J. Eisenberg, expressing how it informs our understanding of Taarab music "and its entanglement with Swahili identity and history." www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
05.08.2025 16:41 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
Camille Dungy had a poem from her upcoming collection, America, A Love Story (Wesleyan, March 2026), featured on the podcast, The Slowdown! Listen to the poem at www.slowdownshow.org/episode/2025...
05.08.2025 16:33 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
Heather Christle's Paper Crown is now available for order! Check it out at weslpress.org or a bookstore near you.
05.08.2025 13:48 — 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
Sarah Sawyer, Andrea Werblin Reid's best friend who has played an integral role in the emergence of To See Yourself As You Vanish, was interviewed about the book on the podcast, "Hospice Explained."
Check out the interview here!
hospiceexplained.libsyn.com/episode-158
12 or 20 (second series) questions with fahima ife / @weslpress.bsky.social ;
robmclennan.blogspot.com/2025/08/12-o...
Thank you! It was nice to meet you too. It was a fun day, perfect weather. Such a great crowd! =)
31.07.2025 20:45 — 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0
Dear emerging, pre-emerging & post-emerging poets, Lisa has asked me to write you a note in case you are feeling discouraged about some public aspects of your poetry. It's hard not to be discouraged when there is so much ignorance helplessly displayed toward our art. It is not surprising that you feel overly sensitive when poetry — or your poetry— is ignored. Books of poetry are left off "best-of" lists; they are rarely reviewed in major venues & when they are mentioned, it might be only for some perceived aspect of marketable content. Try to get past this. You are bringing your rare imagination & your love of language to the culture that needs those things. Poetry is not a "specialized field." It has universal & eternal value. It is something most people start writing when they are chil-dren. It is what humans read to each other at weddings & funerals. It takes us into vast spiritual adventures. It enacts original dreams. You do not need to dumb down your art or ignore a century of modernist practice to please what is sometimes called a larger audience. It is not a poet's job to simplify the mystery of existence or its lexicon. Is the life of the soul ever easy? When you feel downcast, keep in mind those who have encouraged you along the way & write for them; imagine a stranger who may be reading one of your poems in secret someday. Try notto think about people who are writing facile things on the internet. Remember the radical ancestor poets who have gone before, especially those who received less acknowledgment than they should have, those whose genius was insufficiently recognized. Their poetry provides excellent company, as does the work of great living poets who offer inspiration & con-solation. Read across aesthetic lines & identity groups, assembling a varied canon. When you feel paralyzed by the pointlessness of temporary fashion, or when dull or predictable work is lauded, try new things that will surprise you as you work for the joy of the process, rememb…
In a Few Minutes Before Later Brenda Hillman Book cover, white, features an orange in dramatic decay
“…try new things that will surprise you as you work for the joy of the process, remembering that all a writer needs are four true readers & one of them can be a tree.”
—Brenda Hillman @weslpress.bsky.social
Free! In Person and Online, 7/31, Poets House!
poetshouse.org/event/spirit...
Pink and orange gradient background with the book covers of the five finalists for the New England Book Awards in the foreground.
We are so proud of Rachel Trousdale whose book, Five-Paragraph Essay on the Body-Mind Problem, was selected as a Poetry Finalist for the New England Book Awards!
Order Rachel's book today at www.weslpress.org/978081950185...
#neiba #newenglandbookawards #bookawards
Indigenous Nations Poets is hosting its fourth annual week-long retreat for emerging Native poets in New York City! Join Annie Wenstrup, author of The Museum of Unnatural Histories, for three unforgettable evenings that honor Indigenous creativity, community, and spirit.
24.07.2025 15:57 — 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
Picture containing the five covers of the shortlisted books for the 2025 Jerwood Prize
A huge congratulations to Isabelle Baafi whose UK version of Chaotic Good was shortlisted for the Jerwood Prize for Best First Collection!
Check out the US version at weslpress.org and UK version at faber.co.uk
#forwardprizes #poetry
Tonight! Isabelle Baafi, Rachel Trousdale, and Callie Garnett at Unnameable Books, 7pm.
unnameablebooks.square.site
Join us on July 19th from 10am-3pm for the Old Wethersfield Book Walk! Make sure to stop by the Webb Deane Stevens Museum booth and talk to Stephanie Prieto. You can grab a copy of Preservation in Action and peruse other Connecticut history books from WesPress!
oldwethersfield.com/book-walk/
Heather Christle's newest collection of poetry, Paper Crown, will be released on August 5th, 2025! Pre-order your copy at weslpress.org.
10.07.2025 14:49 — 👍 5 🔁 1 💬 1 📌 2
Join Isabelle Baafi, Rachel Trousdale, and Callie Garnett for a reading at Unnameable Books on July 17th at 7pm.
unnameablebooks.square.site
Join Isabelle Baafi at the Bryant Park reading series on July 15th from 6-7:30pm!
bryantpark.org/activities/r...
Their Kindred Earth is now available for order! Check it out at weslpress.org or a bookstore near you.
08.07.2025 15:37 — 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
On June 27th, Fulya Pinar and Shayna Silverstein, recipient of the 2025 de la Torre Bueno First Book Award for Fraught Balance, discussed Silverstein's book in a podcast interview.
08.07.2025 14:26 — 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
Join Isabelle Baafi at the Franklin Park Reading Series on July 14th from 8-9pm! She will read alongside Edwidge Danticat, Megan Giddings, Wendy Ortiz, Justin Haynes, and Martha Anne Toll.
02.07.2025 21:12 — 👍 2 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 0
Shayna Silverstein won the 2025 de la Torre Bueno First Book Award for Fraught Balance!
The de la Torre Bueno First Book Award is awarded annually from the Dance Studies Association to a book published in the English language that advances the field of dance studies.
Award-winning author Li-Young Lee has had poetry from his book, I Ask My Mother to Sing, appear in The Atlantic, The New Yorker, and The Yale Review.
www.theatlantic.com/.../poem-li-...
www.newyorker.com/.../the-inhe....
yalereview.org/article/li-y...
Transtraterrestrial by Sage Ni'Ja Whitson, which goes on sale November 4th, documents Whitson's groundbreaking performance pieces in an experimental two-part book.
#pridemonth #pride
Even Strange Ghosts Can Be Shared, which goes on sale September 2nd, contains the previously uncollected and mostly never-before-published letters of Jack Spicer.
#pridemonth #pride
To cap off Pride Month, we are taking a moment to celebrate recent LGBTQIA+ authors. You can check out their amazing books at weslpress.org or your favorite bookstore
DEED by torrin a. greathouse is a formally and lyrically innovative exploration of queer sex and desire, and what it can cost.
Read an excerpt from Even Strange Ghosts Can Be Shared: The Collected Letters of Jack Spicer, coming out this September.
#JackSpicer #Letters #SanFranciscoRenaissance
(link to book in comments)
For those local to NYC, there will be three exciting, free opportunities to meet Isabelle Baafi, author of Chaotic Good, on July 14th, 15th, and 17th.
16.06.2025 17:04 — 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
In his review in Meditations, rob mclennan discussed how Barbara Guest's diverse collection of prose "makes for a remarkable entry point to her work," lined with "numerous prompts into other directions."
Get your copy of Meditations at weslpress.org or your favorite bookstore.
