Starting with Issue 2: March/April 2024, Philly Poetry Chapbook Review is featuring two poems excerpted from chapbooks per issue, each spending a month on our Front Page.
Please enjoy guest contributor Will Russo’s poem “Collection” as this month’s offering. You can find more of his poetry in his chapbook, Dreamsoak, from Querencia Press.
Collection
The basement bedroom of my childhood
would flood. Sill-level, I saw my dad through aperture: rainwater
hemming his waist in the egress well. Each clog
he plunged. The well’s only light, douse after douse, flickered,
finally, out. Surf jabbed the thin stiles of the window,
brimmed over our low shelves like a slow pitcher.
Dad kept two eyes on twelve horses at the track, grandpa drunk
and brooding over one son who wouldn’t come—know-nothing.
Know-it-all. I couldn’t blame him, wanting things whole.
I raced beads of rain against the car window, read books
with warped pages, pressed foam panels on my dad’s studio wall.
His mouth held to the small cane of his sax, pipes
and valves shifted beneath his fingers. His breath bloomed
from the bell’s open lip. Many times, I knocked too softly
at his door, spoke the low drone of complaint.
At church, he passed collection plates, palmed the broken lobes
of Communion, offering torn morsels of the body. If he split
anything for me and my brother to share, I wouldn’t want it.
(First published in an earlier form by Cagibi.)
About the Poem
This poem is an early entry into one of my current writing obsessions: to examine masculinity and male relationships, and intergenerational ones in particular. The poem is fairly literal, a sum of parts amounting from memories, events, and images of my childhood. I’m always drawn to the tension of the final line, which holds my intended meaning and its exact opposite.
Will Russo
Author Bio
Will Russo is the author of two chapbooks: Dreamsoak (Querencia Press, 2023) and Glass Manifesto, winner of the 2023 Rick Campbell Chapbook Award from Anhinga Press. He holds an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and serves as poetry editor for Great Lakes Review and reviews editor for Another Chicago Magazine.
From Dreamsoak
“Will Russo’s Dreamsoak speaks to us with an uncanny braid of eloquence and strangeness, as if simultaneously channeling the rhetorical decorum of Yeats and the hallucinatory power of Rimbaud. Russo makes his poems sparkle in their exploration of innovative forms that scurry across the page, yet he also draws from the oldest sources of lyricism: longing, loneliness, despair, desire, and a keen attentiveness to the world as experienced through the senses. These poems fill me with delight and joy. Even on the grayest days of winter, they are a kind of “[d]aylight / filling the lung of my living room.” — Nathan Hoks, author of Nests in Air
Contents
New Poetry Titles (2/27/24)
Check out new poetry books published the week of 2/27 from Alien Buddha Press, GASHER Press, Bottlecap Press, University of Arizona Press, Omnidawn, Signal Editions, Guernica Editions, The Backwaters Press, University of Nebraska Press, Caitlin Press Inc, Autumn House Press, Georgia Review Books, The University of Kentucky Press, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, Brick Books, Changes Press, Tupelo Press, Black Lawrence Press, and MoonPath Press.
March ‘24: Welcome to Issue 2
Read a note from editor Aiden Hunt about our second bimonthly issue, contributor accomplishments, and things to come.
New Poetry Titles (3/5/24)
Check out new poetry books published the week of 3/5 from Graywolf Press, Knopf, Bottlecap Press, powerHouse Books, Milkweed Editions, Acre Books, Seagull Books, The University Press of Kentucky, Yale University Press, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, Penguin Books, Able Muse Press, Button Poetry, Miami University Press, Eyewear Publishing, Black Ocean, Seren, MoonPath Press, and Book*Hub Press. Editor’s picks from Diane Seuss and Cindy Juyoung Ok.
Contributor Poem of the Month: The Plan
Read the Contributor Poem of the Month for March 2024, “The Plan” by C.M. Crockford, along with a few words from the poet.
New Poetry Titles (3/12/24)
Check out new poetry books published in the week of 3/12 from Belle Point Press, Bottlecap Press, Black Lawrence Press, Haymarket Books, Ecco, Milkweed Editions, Seagull Books, Hub City Press, Nightboat Books, Signature Books, Four Way Books, Curbstone Books, Kaya Press, Kith Books, Saturnalia Books, Ohio University Press, University of Wisconsin Press, Jackleg Press, Semiotext(e) and Brick Books.
Chapbook Poem of the Month: Collection
Read the featured Chapbook Poem of the Month for March 2024, “Collection” from Dreamsoak by Will Russo, along with a few words from the poet.
Meet Our Contributor: C.M. Crockford
Meet our contributor, C.M. Crockford, a writer and editor originally from New Hampshire, now living in Philadelphia with his cat, Wally.
New Poetry Titles (3/19/24)
Check out new poetry books published the week of 3/19 from Bottlecap Press, Autumn House Press, Knopf, Guernica Editions, Tin House Books, Milkweed Editions, University of Wisconsin Press and Book*Hug Press.
Meet Our Contributor: Mike Bagwell
Meet our contributor, Mike Bagwell, a writer, poet, and software engineer in Philly. He’s published two poetry chapbooks and has a full-length collection forthcoming in 2024.
New Poetry Titles (3/26/24)
Check out new poetry books for the week of 3/26 from Bottlecap Press, Nightwood Editions, Harbour Publishing, McClellan & Stewart, Carcanet Press, University of Regina Press, At Bay Press, Guernica Editions, Beltway Editions, University of Georgia Press, Lost Horse Press, University of New Mexico Press, University of Massachusetts Press, Book*Hug Books, Haymarket Books, Archipelago, Autumn House Press, Hat & Beard Press, Tigerlily Press, and GASHER Press.
Meet Our Contributor: Francesca Leader
Meet our contributor, Francesca Leader, a Montanan living elsewhere who writes poetry, fiction and creative nonfiction. Read about her writing life in her Contributor Q&A.
April ‘24: Of SPD, Genocide, and Book Reviews
Editor Aiden Hunt writes about distribution woes, the ongoing genocide in Gaza, and what we have coming during April in the Editor’s Note.
New Poetry Titles (4/2/24)
Check out new poetry books published the week of 4/2 from Bottlecap Press, Green Linden Press, Stanchion Books, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, Small Harbor Publishing, Milkweed Editions, Graywolf Press, Wave Books, Arsenal Pulp Press, New Directions, Invisible Publishing, Brick Books, Sixteen Rivers Press, Penguin Books, City Lights Publishers, And Other Stories, BOA Editions Ltd, OR Books, Not a Cult, Copper Canyon Press, McGill-Queen’s University Press, Beacon Press, Biblioasis, Nightboat Books, Amistad, House of Anansi Press, Hub City Press, Seagull Books, Fordham University Press, Iron Pen, Persea Books, Central Avenue Publishing, CavanKerry Press, W. W. Norton & Company, University of Akron Press and Red Hen Press.
Contributor Poem of the Month: Self Portrait
Read the Contributor Poem of the Month for April 2024, “Self Portrait” by Mike Bagwell, along with a few words from the poet.
On Cindy Juyoung Ok’s ‘House Work’: A Review Essay
Editor Aiden Hunt’s essay reviews Cindy Juyoung Ok’s poetry chapbook, ‘House Work’, published by Ugly Duckling Presse in March 2023.
New Poetry Titles (4/9/24)
Check out new poetry books published the week of 4/9 from Faber & Faber, Small Harbor Publishing, Bottlecap Press, University of Pittsburgh Press, Green Writers Press, Loom Press, Paraclete Press, Able Muse Press, Caitlin Press Inc., Stephen F. Austin University Press, University of North Texas Press, McGill-Queen’s University Press, University of New Mexico Press, Curbstone Books, Milkweed Editions, Red Hen Press, Wave Books, Alice James Books, Paul Dry Books, Copper Canyon Press, Coffee House Press, powerHouse Books, Dial Press, Knopf, Nightboat Books, SUNY Press, Belle Point Press, White Stag Publishing, and Anhinga Press.
New Poetry Titles (4/16/24)
Check out new poetry books published the week of 4/16 from Bottlecap Press, Knopf, HarperOne, Small Harbor Publishing, Red Hen Press, Copper Canyon Press, Nightwood Editions, Southern Illinois University Press, Seren, Sarabande Books, Phoneme Media, BOA Editions Ltd., W. W. Norton & Company, JBE Books, White Stag Publishing, ECW Press, knife | fork | book and McGill-Queen’s University Press.
Chapbook Poem of the Month: Study of Daylight
Read the featured Chapbook Poem of the Month for April 2024, “Study of Daylight” from Love Letters from a Burning Planet by MJ Gomez, along with a few words from the poet.
Review: And Yet Held by T. De Los Reyes
As if an exploding star: T. De Los Reyes’s love-poems of self-discovery in the ordinary magic of the everyday. Read the review by new PCR contributor, Drishya.
New Poetry Titles (4/23/24)
Check out new poetry books for the week of 4/23 from Bottlecap Press, Biblioasis, Copper Canyon Press, Red Hen Press, Milkweed Editions, University of Arkansas Press, Seren, Carcanet Press Ltd., Talonbooks, Unbound Edition Press and BOA Editions Ltd.
On ‘A Throat Full of Forest-Dirt’ by Bri Stokes
C.M. Crockford reviews “A Throat Full of Forest-Dirt” by Bri Stokes, a poetry chapbook published by Bottlecap Press in November, 2023, in this essay.
New Poetry Titles (4/30/24)
Check out new poetry books for the week of 4/30 from Bottlecap Press, Ugly Duckling Presse, University of Iowa Press, Copper Canyon Press, David R. Godine, Caitlin Press Inc, Seagull Books, Tupelo Press, Guernica Editions, Southern Illinois University Press, University of Nevada Press, University of Utah Press, University of Calgary Press, Salmon Poetry, Deep Vellum Publishing and Bauhan Publishing.