Enormous Blue Umbrella is the latest collection of poems by Donna Hilbert. It was published in 2025 by Moon Tide Press. Donna Hilbert is a master of the short poem. She takes the everyday--what she sees on her walks, trips to the dentist, the grocery store--and makes it magical. Her poetry is accessible in the best way, fresh and authentic. I couldn't put it down. I read the poems over and over again.
The poems in Donna Hilbert's Enormous Blue Umbrella are drawn from the stuff of everyday life in the world: seaside and woodland, supermarket and sidewalk. With the past and present conversations with the living and the dead, Enormous Blue Umbrella is a primer for praising the world, even in the face of heartbreak.
Monster Mash is a book of poems by Susan Browne. It was published by Four Way Books in 2025. These poems are so original, so daring, funny, and searing. I laughed out loud reading poems like "Still Doing It." This is a book that follows a life lived, from her childhood to the present day. Hopeful and raw, real and full of love for this broken world.
Susan Browne (Winner of the Four Way Books Intro Prize in Poetry judged by Edward Hirsch) has crafted her fourth collection of poetry into an incendiary inventory of life's urgency and vitality in this late-stage capitalist moment. In “Air Quality Index: 500,” while Browne “[wonders] what the government [is] doing during this era of cannibalism,” “a bald eagle [flies] by with its head on fire.” Monster Mash explores the surreal lyricism of this phenomenon—when what sounds like hyperbolic symbolism is actually just the news. Even if the national bird aflame makes a fitting metaphor for the state of our body…
When I did a reading this summer at a local bookstore, they let me pick out a book for myself. I chose The Safekeep. I love books that delve into history, especially about the First and Second World Wars and their aftermaths. This is a book that asks so many questions, uncomfortable questions, at times. These aren't questions just about the past, however. We need to ask these questions of ourselves now. The characters grow and shift and fall back and move forward. It's about home, a particular house, and it's about belonging and ownership and love.
Longlisted for the 2025 Aspen Words Literary Prize • A Best Book of 2024: Time, Kirkus Reviews, BookPage, The Sunday Times (London)
“Remarkable…Compelling…Fine and taut…Indelible.” —The New York Times • “Moving, unnerving, and deeply sexy.” —Tracy Chevalier, author of Girl with the Pearl Earring • “A brilliant debut, as multi-faceted as a gem.” —Kirkus Reviews
A “razor-sharp, perfectly plotted” (The Sunday Times, London) tale of desire, suspicion, and obsession between two women staying in the same house in the Dutch countryside during the summer of 1961—a powerful exploration of the legacy of…
Gathering the Pieces of Days is a collection of fifty-two poems, one for each week of the year. In these poems, no subject is too small or too grand. Pickrell reminds us to savor everything: the morning coffee, a baseball game, the warmth of a loved one beside us, a cat curled at the foot of the bed, dreaded work, and cherished moments with friends. Her poems span mundane moments and profound emotions, inviting us to notice each fleeting day. Gathering the Pieces of Days celebrates the extraordinary hidden within the ordinary, from laughter and love to loss and longing, and the dreams that carry us forward.
