We here at Philly Poetry Chapbook Review love poetry, whether it’s in chapbooks or full-length collections. We have a hunch that our readers do, too. Every Tuesday, we publish an update about what full-length poetry titles we know are releasing in the following week.
Information, including product descriptions, is provided by the publisher and not a critical judgment. If we cover the book on this site, links will be included.
The Xenotext: Book 2, Christian Bök
Publisher: Coach House Books
Publication Date: June 3, 2025
Format: Paperback
In The Xenotext: Book 1, Christian Bök outlined his plan to insert his poem, written as DNA, into a deathless bacterium, thereby writing a text able to outlive every apocalypse, enduring till the Sun itself expires. Now that the experiment has finally succeeded, Book 2 of The Xenotext situates that poem within the deep time of the cosmos.
Our civilization has only very limited methods for preserving its cultural heritage against a potential planetary disaster (be it thermonuclear warfare or astrophysical barrage); however, this experiment rehearses some of the techniques likely to be used in the future to preserve our archives against such annihilation.
Writing in his signature poetics, Bök speculates that, buried within the biochemistry of Life itself, there really does exist an innate beauty, if not a hidden poetry – a literal message that we might read, if we deign to seek it.
Christian Bök is the author of Eunoia (Coach House Books, 2001), a bestselling work of experimental literature, which has gone on to win the Griffin Prize for Poetic Excellence (2002). Crystallography (Coach House Press, 1994), his first book of poetry, was nominated for the Gerald Lampert Memorial Award (1995). Nature has interviewed Bök about his work on The Xenotext (making him the first poet ever to appear in this famous journal of science). Bök has also exhibited artworks derived from The Xenotext at galleries around the world; moreover, his poem from this project has hitched a ride, as a digital payload, aboard a number of probes exploring the Solar System (including the InSight lander, now at Elysium Planitia on the surface of Mars). Bök is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, and he teaches at Leeds School of Arts in the UK.
Wild/Hurt, Meg Ford
Publisher: Button Poetry
Publication Date: June 3, 2025
Format: Paperback / eBook
Wild/Hurt by Meg Ford takes the abstract ‘journey’ of trauma recovery and makes it concrete with interactive poetics. The reader can follow multiple paths that mirror the choices, experiences, and struggles one makes when reclaiming themselves in the face of sexual abuse. While being intensely personal, Wild/Hurt moves resonantly through memory and healing in a way that can speak to many survivors. Through its hardships and suffering, this collection comes to realize and love the intimate parts of itself. Ford’s work encompasses a survivor’s entire personhood—growing from their trauma, discovering and celebrating queerness, and living and loving with disability.
Wild/Hurt is a rich, heartfelt collection that makes the reading an experience, telling a new, remarkable story with each reread.
Meg Ford is a queer writer from New Jersey who was voted Most Likely to Leave and Never Come Back. They are a two-time National Poetry Slam semi-finalist with the Boston Poetry Slam Team and received their MFA from Emerson College. Their work has previously appeared in The Rumpus, NAILED, PANK, and the We Will Be Shelter Anthology from Write Bloody. Meg can most often be found hanging out with the cat at your party.
Juvenilia, Hera Lindsay Bird
Publisher: Deep Vellum Publishing
Publication Date: June 3, 2025
Format: Paperback / eBook
The North American debut by cult favorite New Zealand poet Hera Lindsay Bird, Juvenilia wrangles the flamboyant, provocative pique of youth into a poetry collection highly focused and desperately alive.
Hera Lindsay Bird is a poet and performer from New Zealand. She is the author of chapbook Pamper Me to Hell & Back (The Poetry Business, 2018) and a self-titled debut collection, which became a best-seller in New Zealand and a Sunday Times Book of the Year.
Four Eyes, Steve Benson
Publisher: City Point Press
Publication Date: June 3, 2025
Format: Paperback / eBook
Steve Benson’s public presentations have surprised and refreshed poetry audiences since his Blindspots in 1977. Here are his arrangements for the page of his own verbatim transcriptions of four improvisational public performances from 2005 to 2012. Each engages the conditions and parameters set by the particular situation where it took place, as well as constraints or challenges Steve imposed on himself. The words, issues, and manner of his speaking voice were all spontaneously improvised, not decided in advance.
Reading Four Eyes traces the intimate compositional play of each work as it finds rhythms and structures grow through its process, as well as what gets said. What happens in writing is manifest and thrown into question. Freedoms are negotiated through this experimental, experiential form of action.
Steve Benson was born in 1949 and grew up in central New Jersey. He studied for degrees at Yale College, University of California at Irvine, and The Wright Institute. From 1976 until 1992 he lived in the San Francisco Bay Area, working in new and used book and music retail while building friendships and raising questions with fellow language-centered writers in their frequent contacts. His public readings often incorporated collaboration, auxiliary media, oral improvisation, fortuitous resolutions to unanticipated technical problems and collaboration with writers, musicians, and filmmakers.
What Trammels the Heart, Kelly Fordon
Publisher: Stephen F. Austin University Press
Publication Date: June 3, 2025
Format: Paperback
Anyone who has seen the film Spotlight will find a powerful poetic companion in this poetry collection. What Trammels the Heart casts new light on the clergy cover-up and grapples with the assaults that abruptly ended so many childhoods and ruined so many lives. Compounding the devastation of the pedophilia scandals was the later confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court and the ascension of the religious right. While a parent’s complicity might be the most shattering companion piece within this text, the author ultimately attains a semblance of personal redemption while honoring the testimony of the victims and challenging centuries of entrenched religious abuse.
Kelly Fordon’s latest short story collection, I Have the Answer (Wayne State University Press, 2020), was chosen as a Midwest Book Award Finalist and an Eric Hoffer Finalist. Her first full-length poetry collection, Goodbye Toothless House (Kattywompus Press, 2019), was an Eyelands International Prize Finalist and an Eric Hoffer Finalist. It was later adapted into a play by Robin Martin and published in The Kenyon Review Online. She is the author of three award-winning poetry chapbooks and has received a Best of the Net Award and Pushcart Prize nominations in three different genres. She teaches at Springfed Arts in Detroit and online, where she runs a fiction podcast called “Let’s Deconstruct a Story.” http://www.kellyfordon.com
Don’t see a poetry title published between 6/3 and 6/9 here? Contact us to let us know!
Contents
Book Excerpt: The Prize of Québec by Jennifer Nelson
“I tend to lean into the transconstitutory powers of ekphrasis. … Only in poetry can one go to the moon in a way that critiques the quest for the moon.” Read a poem from Jennifer Nelson’s new collection from Fence Books, On the Way to the Paintings of Forest Robberies.
Chapbook Poem: This Is How They Teach Us How to Want It . . . by Shanta Lee
“This poem explores the levels of our participation in handing ourselves over, often to the people, places, or things that deserve no such delight.” Read a #poem from Shanta Lee’s new book from Harbor Editions, This Is How They Teach Us How to Want It . . . The Slaughter.
Three Poems by Jonathan Fletcher
“Instead of having to choose between religion or the LGBTQ community (which I know many member of the latter feel they have to do), I think it is possible (and maybe even biblical) to integrate both into one’s life.” Read three original poems from Jonathan Fletcher, along with words from the author.
What Happened? On You are Leaving the American Sector by Rebecca Foust
“Rebecca Foust’s new chapbook of poems has a strange prescience. … Foust isn’t alone in making the obvious connection between Trump’s first term and Orwell’s dystopia.” Read the full chapbook review by new contributor Rick Mullin.
‘What if we started creating together? What if we looked at who we are from the side and saw a much more complete and honest perspective?” Read four poems by poet Sarah E N Kohrs, along with words from the poet.
Book Excerpt: Challenger by Colleen S. Harris
“If we look beyond the voyeuristic tendency to focus on the tragedy, what might we see? This poem was a chance for me to zoom in on the calm before the storm.” New poem from Colleen S. Harris’s new book from Main Street Rag, The Light Becomes Us, along with words from the poet.
Chapbook Poem: What I Did This Summer by Elinor Serumgard
“I love New Year’s and the promise of a new start, but I like to remind myself that you can start fresh at any point throughout the year.” New poem from Elinor Serumgard’s chapbook from Bottlecap Press, Analogous Annum, along with words from the poet.
Four Poems by Christa Fairbrother
“Since women aren’t allowed the power of our anger, we take it out on each other, and that’s what this poem is hinting at.” Read four poems by Christa Fairbrother, along with words from the poet.
Multilingualism and Metaphor: On Desire/Halves by Jaia Hamid Bashir
“Bashir’s elegant debut collection investigates identity as the result of choices between individual appetites and cultural frames. … [It] announces an exciting addition to the global chorus of contemporary literature.” Read D.W. Baker’s full review.
Five Poems by Jane Ellen Glasser
“In my fantasy world, I would be able to communicate with the animals I see every day.” Read five naturalist poems by poet Jane Ellen Glasser, along with a few words from the poet.
Book Excerpt: Ars Poetica by Leigh Sugar
“[C]ould there be, a poetry that does investigate the body, without explosion? Maybe even with an effort towards reconstruction?” Read an excerpt from Leigh Sugar’s book, FREELAND, from Alice James Books, along with words from the author.
“…she has a sense of style, a modicum of grace, and she recognizes her place in the cosmic order, where revolution rules every other Wednesday and twice, of course, on Sundays…” Read three poems by Bart Edelman along with words from the poet.
Chapbook Poem: I Worry by Flavian Mark Lupinetti
“I can’t begin to imagine doctors in Gaza courageously practicing medicine while intentionally targeted by the Israeli army aided by the United States.” Read the featured Chapbook Poem of the Month for June 2025, “I Worry” from The Pronunciation Part by Flavian Mark Lupinetti.