Out latest 32 is hot off the presses and this one too is full of great work. You’ll find some of our favorite poets in #45 (among them Amit Majmudar, Hailey Leithauser, and Claire Wahmanholm) as well as quite a few names that are new to our pages (Jasmine Khaliq, Jason Whitmarsh, Arah Ko, and Seth Peterson, just to cite a few). We hope you’ll enjoy the introduction to their work as much as we have. Also, for a special treat, this issue includes a pair of previously unpublished poems by John Berryman, part of an uncollected volume that FSG will publish later this year. I’m telling you, this issue is a stunner.

This one’s going to be tough to top.

Start your AWP right with 32 Poems, Poetry Northwest, and Smartish Pace. We’ll have good food, good drinks, good fellowship, and, most importantly, an incredible lineup of poets: William Archila, Rob Arnold, Gabrielle Bates, Christopher Childers, Stephanie Choi, Mary Leauna Christensen, Meg Day, Beth Ann Fennelly, Brenda Hillman, Gary Jackson, Peter Kline, Keetje Kuipers, Edgar Kunz, Dorianne Laux, Timothy Liu, Casandra Lopez, Elizabeth Metzger, Wayne Miller, Natalie Shapero, Jess Smith, Matthew Buckley Smith, and Nida Sophasarun.

Can’t wait to see you all in LA.

It’s Best New Poets season and this year 32 Poems is proud to nominate a pair of excellent poems from Issue #43: Jacob Boyd’s “Strophic Cascade [The woods you know.]” and Christopher Childer’s “There.”

We hope you’ll join us in celebrating these poet’s work.

We couldn’t be more proud of these poems and we hope you’ll join us in celebrating their nomination.

This year, we’ve selected Diana Cao’s “Love Poem for Brood X” and Forester McClatchey’s “Alpine Meadow” to represent us in Best New Poets‘ competition. Please join us in congratulating these poets and take the opportunity to spend a little more time with their words. We think you’ll be glad you did.

We are very pleased to share that Rebecca Morgan Frank’s poem “Automaton Angels” (from 32 Poems 17.1) has been chosen for inclusion in the latest Orison Anthology which gathers each year’s finest spiritually-engaged writing.

Also, we have nominated the following poems for consideration for inclusion in the 2021 volume: John Glowney’s “Flu”, Lance Larsen’s “The Bread and Water of It”, Rick Bursky’s “The Sinking Ship Spiritual”, Jehanne Dubrow’s “Prayer Rug from Persia”, Ryan Wilson’s “Wind Advisory”, and Austen Leah Rose’s “Seventh Meditation on the Existence of God” from our two most recent issues.

Previous selections from 32 Poems have appeared in the 2016, 2017, and 2019 volumes (“Adhan” by Zeina Hashem Beck, “Charismatics in Ecstasy” by Essy Stone, and “Morcellation” by Leila Chatti, respectively).

This year we have nominated Traci Brimhall’s “Oh Wonder”, Austin Segrest’s “The Ice Advances”, and Mark Wagenaar’s “The Book of Vigils” for New Poetry from the Midwest. We’ve also submitted Austin Segrest’s poem for the next incarnation of Best New Poets along with Katie Schmid’s “The Boatman“.

We’ve had great success placing work in these series in the past and we’re as proud of this year’s nominees as we’ve ever been. I hope you’ll join us in cheering on these poems.

You’ll find a few of our favorites, like Randall Mann and Malachi Black, returning to our pages this summer, but the great bulk of this issue is comprised of poets new to 32 Poems. While several of these poets have yet to publish a first collection, you’ll want to remember names like Sarah Burke, Emily Cinquemani, Craig van Rooyen, C.T. Salazar, and Jan Verberkmoes. They’re poets we think you’ll be reading for many years to come.

You can dip into the issue now at our current issue page and order 16.1 in its entirety here.

Contributors’ Marginalia, the weekly series of short essays in which our poets consider each other’s work, will return in September, and we’ll also be featuring a number of new interviews and reviews online in the coming months–look for Cate Lycurgus’s conversation with Shara Lessley up next.

Enjoy!

This issue boasts new poems by Lisa Fay Coutley, Kwame Dawes, Jeffrey Harrison, Dorianne Laux, Kathryn Nuernberger, and so many others, and you can even dip into the book digitally on our current issue page where we’re featuring work by Julia Shipley, Regina DiPerna, and Fady Joudah to get you started. All in all, we think it’s the best poetry you’ll find anywhere, and we can’t wait to share it with you.

Contributors’ Marginalia will return in February as these poets explore each other’s verse in prose, so be sure to stick close and follow along with that conversation.

In the meantime, check out Hailey Leithauser’s list of “32 Drinks for Poets” on the back cover (Mint Jubilate, A Narrow Fellow in the Grasshopper, Bender Buttons), and if you’re not already a part of our team, well, there’s an easy way to fix that. Subscribe now and we’ll get your copy of 15.2 headed your way tomorrow.

Tonight we’re raising the old Moth Manhattan to our contributors and readers alike!