Ten Remarkable Small Press Titles I Read This Year

Ten because, well—it’s a nice number, and I had to cap it somewhere. Remarkable because like most writers, I’m wary of the language of “Best of” under capitalism—e.g., who can afford publicists, access to the editors at the big name lit venues, and the educational spaces that connected the writer with the names in the first place, etc. Notice also that this is not a list of titles published exclusively in 2024, because I’m not that organized, and literature is timely at all hours, days, years. Let’s all take to our blogs, then, and post our lists of books that inspired, impressed, and lit us up inside as readers in the past year—because that is what reading recommendation lists should actually be about.

Invitatory is high lyric in the way the words “field” and “stone” and “water” are high lyric; it is as essential as song, as looking out a window, as company—hard are the days we live without access to either of those. It is impossible to overpraise this book, the poet’s attention, Molly Spencer’s sensitive listening to the world around her: “…here I am at the window again / where I have spent all day trying // to name the light. The light / which, like the stone, is granular. […] The line which, like light, is said to break. / It it said to be slant in certain hours.” These are the poems you wait for a poet to write, and crow with joy and awe and pleasure when they do.

I bought this book before Ama Codjoe’s reading at Youngstown Litfest this autumn, knowing I wanted it (I had been eyeing its beautiful cover and poems on Instagram for some time), but even so, found myself in the back of the room, swearing under my breath in admiration as the caterers cleared the dinner and Codjoe read. When the poet broke into tears during the final poem, the whole room broke with her. The love song—the self-love song, and the song-in-love—of the Black, femme, body in these poems is so gorgeously and fiercely rendered, so aware of art and its surroundings, its overlay of community and history. This is the erotic text and model I needed this autumn, the daring leap of self-love and hallowedness.

I can’t overemphasize how damn smart, playful, irreverent, and of-the-moment Alina Pleskova’s Toska is…most importantly, what an excellent companion Toska is—this is the book you want in your bag. When I do not have it on me, I keep returning to photos of the poems on my phone, to remember lines like these: “At a panel on Larry Levis / Someone spoke admiringly / of his prolific hoeing / & I think, not a bad legacy.” Perfection. The poet and her poems know their way around the city, astrology, the particular thorns of immigrant heritage and language, the dark sparkle inherent in staying alive, now, as an artist.

Carolyn Hembree is a NOLA queen of the long poem, and brought Inger Christensen’s The Alphabet into my life (“apricot trees exist, exist”) through the generous, sonically lush, emotionally buoyant and rushing text of her ambulatory long poem “For Today,” which takes place in and around pandemic time. “For Today” sustains the readers in an act of loving catalog that details human and animal community life in its vibrant and linguistic plurality—a plurality not untouched by disaster. You need to chase after this book if you are interested in maximalist femme poetics and the complexities of the American South. Go!

Wry and humorous and smart as hell, Erin Hoover is another Southern femme who can write the heavens out of a long poem—No Spare People is gorgeous, with a philosophical throughline and an embracing of conceptual work in poems that, yes, has the kind of swagger many of us find attractive as queer, femme intellectuals. The single mother, poet-professor, speaker of the poems in No Spare People writes in the knowledge of the material and political conditions of her poems, questioning and describing and naming web of power relationships and around herself and her child, opening up, potentially, space for living beyond those structures. Personally, I think this is the book you gift yourself, especially if you are a parent in academia.

Good god, Jan Beatty and Lefty Blondie Press. First, this chapbook is just now going into a second 200-copy print run, so head over and preorder your copy. Second: oh my god, incredible. I read a single poem (“When I Was Holy,” which I shared on Bluesky) from Skydog, and immediately proceeded to fumble my coffee making, so distracted I was by the fire-making, boot-kicking, music-singing poetry of Beatty. Fierce and lovely, leather-jacket poetry (is this a genre? It is Beatty’s genre). From the opening poem, “Psych Intake w/ Flames”: “I think, sometimes, you just have to say, okay— / even if you don't understand. // Sometimes, let the world of flames speak for itself. // Let the radiant life shine.”

“If I’m / haunted, then I’m / loved.” Danika Stegeman’s Ablation reached into my core—the way its title delves into the language of heart procedure and glaciology at the same time as its incredible formal explorations and the layering of visual media and collage, all while holding on to lyric and poetry and never sacrificing language itself. It is elegy in the manner of Anne Carson’s Nox, but with an even richer singing voice, and more developed sense of defiance and rejection and confrontation of trauma. Just stunning. Please get your hands on this gorgeous poetry-elegy-book-art-object before it is out of print.

The Alcestis Machine takes on the writing of queer desire with all the painterly and yearning winter vibes of Portrait of a Woman on Fire. You want to slide into the warm petalled bath that is also the cold ocean swim and salt spray of Carolyn Oliver’s poems, the richly textured language play and sensuous imagination that is also a queer history of longing. I feel like this is the book queer besties are giving each other as solstice gifts. In fact, I just realized who I’m gifting a copy to, this minute.

“Blend, contract. We string small hours. Reject nostalgia. Shwa.” (from “Subdivision”) rob mclennan is one of the best prose and monostich poets writing today, in part because he works so attentively with the fragment, as a ceramic collage artist works with the smallest shards of porcelain. I love the astute and gentle attentions of this book, and continue to admire the incredible energy that rob puts into the small press publishing and writing community; “Love is not a dying language,” indeed (“Mother’s Day”).

“In Praise of Minor / poets, faithful to work that will meet / with quiet. In praise of minor deities / and whoever dreamed them up.” Abbie Kiefer’s attention in Certain Shelter is so tender—it’s like when someone is looking at you, and listening, and you see their eyes soften, and you realize they are really, really listening. I love how this book attends to the minor chords of New England and post-industrial America—to the milltown, to the poetry of Edwin Arlington Robinson, to the shoe factory, to the minor-league field, tarped over before the storm. June Road Press is publishing such stunning titles, and you should head over and buy both their new titles!

Nota Bene in closing

Odds are, you are a reader who is also a writer—thanks for being here. Maybe this is the year you start a writing blog of some kind or maybe this is the January you need to take a deep rest. Maybe you have a book coming out, or maybe you are trying to submit your work to publishers. Wherever you are, I hope you find something that brings you joy, related to writing or reading or otherwise. The things that are consistently bringing me joy right now are my Sunday night writing group and River River Books—collaboration with other good people. We really can’t do this writing life work alone. Sending you my best wishes for your year’s close, and hoping it is a gentle one,