An explosive, breakout speculative thriller in which a powerful new metal arrives on Earth in the wake of a meteor shower, triggering a massive new "gold rush" in the Midwest and turning life as we know it on its head. The first of a cycle of novels set in a shared universe.
In Christopher Cokinos' deliciously horrifying The Underneath, an unnerving ventriloquism occurs—narratives of abuse, abandonment, and assault are tucked into the folds of seemingly mundane curtains, trapped beneath ceilings, behind doors. Conversing with, and ultimately reinventing the compulsions of Rene Magritte (The Treachery of Images, et. al.), these poems filter surrealistic concerns through neuroscience, dream through allusion. In Cokinos' bizarro world, fear and vacuum cleaners belong on the same insidious list, and our circulatory system is comprised of desert fauna. In this way, the monsters of mythologies both invented and invoked are saddled with the roles of unlikely avatars, finally forced to confront their experiences with bodily trespass. The result is a frightening, exhilarating, and oddly cleansing wild ride. —Matthew Gavin Frank, author of The Mad Feast and Preparing the Ghost
Beyond Earth's Edge: The Poetry of Spaceflight is a trailblazing anthology of poetry that spans from the dawn of the space age to the imagined futures of the universe. Edited by Christopher Cokinos and Julie Swarstad Johnson, The anthology offers a fascinating record of both national mindsets and private perspectives as poets grapple with the promise and peril of U.S. space exploration across decades and into the present. Tracing an arc of literary skepticism during the Apollo era and before to a more curious, and even hopeful, stance today, Beyond Earth's Edge includes diverse perspectives from poets such as Robert Hayden, Rae Armantrout, N. Scott Momaday, Adrienne Rich, Tracy K. Smith, Ray Bradbury, May Swenson, Pablo Neruda, and many other engaging poetic voices.
A land of austerity and bounty, the Sonoran Desert is a place that captures imaginations and hearts. It is a place where barbs snag, thorns prick, and claws scratch. A place where lizards scramble and pause, hawks hunt like wolves, and bobcats skulk in creosote.
Both literary anthology and hands-on field guide, The Sonoran Desert is a groundbreaking book that melds art and science. Edited by Christopher Cokinos and Eric Magrane, it captures the stunning biodiversity of the world's most verdant desert through words and images. From the saguaro to the mountain lion, from the black-tailed jackrabbit to the mesquite, the species represented here have evoked compelling and creative responses from each contributor.
At a Virginia university established by a founding father, TJ is a university dean and Sally his work-study student. But TJ’s power has limits and Sally knows it. In TJ Loves Sally 4 Ever, playwright James Ijames hotwires a ride that leaves history’s burdens in the dust and off-roads a trail for the future.
Cast: John Bambery, Aja Downing, Drew Drake, Starr Kirkland, Sierra D. Leverett; Director: Jordana De La Cruz
When his two sisters died suddenly within weeks of each other, Hugh Raffles reached for rocks, stones, and other solid objects as anchors in a world unmoored. Drawing on history, anthropology, and geology, this moving meditation is grounded in stories of stones: Neolithic stone circles, mica from a Nazi concentration camp, petrified whale blubber from Svalbard, and the Greenlandic meteorites that arrived in an exuberant New York City in 1897 accompanied by six Inughuit travelers.
Gathering over twenty pieces written during the past three decades, Indigo ranges widely, from the World Armwrestling Federation Championships in Sweden to Powell's lifelong fascination with the endangered indigo snake. Powell’s idiosyncratic playfulness brings this collection to vivid life, while his boundless curiosity and respect for the truth keep it on course.
André Aciman returns to the essay form to explore what the present tense means to artists who cannot grasp the here and now. Irrealis is not about the present, or the past, or the future, but about what might have been but never was—but could in theory still happen. Homo Irrealis is a deep reflection of the imagination's power to shape our memories under time's seemingly intractable hold.
These gripping stories find inspiration in news headlines about recent events. Ordinary people negotiate their tentative paths through wildfire, mass shootings, bureaucratic incompetence, and heedless government policies with vicious impacts on the innocent and helpless. As a whole, the collection forms a troubling yet irresistible mirror of our time.
Translation is a Mode=Translation is an Anti-Neocolonial Mode explores translation and language in the context of US imperialism—through the eyes of a "foreigner;" a translator; a child in Timoka, the made-up city of Ingmar Bergman's The Silence; a child from a neocolony.
