Issue after issue, I just love The Southern Review. For my money, it might be the best read out there. And the new issue rocks: Kevin Prufer, Malachi Black, Susan Blackwell Ramsey, Stephen Dixon, Albert Goldbarth, Alison Townsend–just stellar stuff. So pleased one of my newest poems, “My Son Asks for the Story About When We Were Birds,” is among such fine company.
Category: News
A Story at TriQuarterly
It’s always so wonderful to land a piece in a magazine you’ve had on your best of the best list, which is why I’m thrilled to see my story “The Ditchrider” in the latest issue of TriQuarterly, which also features work by Claudia Rankine, Kai Carlson-Wee, Rigoberto González, and many others.
Jackson Hole Writers Conference
Pretty jazzed to be teaching (and tromping around the mountains) this summer–June 25-27, 2015–at the Jackson Hole Writers Conference. A stellar faculty this go-around, including Tobias Wolff, Nina McConigley, Laurie Kutchins, and others. Love to see you there!
Two Poems in All of Us
Two Poems in Nimrod
Pleased to have a couple of poems, “Western” and “‘Where Was I Before I Was Born?’,” in the latest issue of Nimrod, a journal I’ve long admired. Good stuff in here from Eric Trethewey, Christopher Buckley, Don Judson, Kathleen Kirk, and Neruda Prize winner Mary-Alice Daniel.
Another Essay in Orion
Crazy late with this (I’m just catching up), but I have a short essay in the September/October 2014 issue of Orion. As with every issue of Orion, this one is required reading; I mean, new work by Terry Tempest Williams, Luis Alberto Urrea, Brian Doyle, and Kathleen Dean Moore, as well as reviews, poems, and so much more–if you aren’t subscribed to Orion, well, you’re missing out!
A Poem in Knockout
Pleased to have a poem in the current issue of Knockout, which features Melissa Kwasny, Jeffrey Alfier, Jim Daniels, Nin Andrews, and many others.
Railtown Almanac: A Spokane Poetry Anthology
The Spokane literary scene continues to amaze. Here’s another great anthology just out from Sage Hill Press, Railtown Almanac: A Spokane Poetry Anthology. Lots of wonderful poets included herein, including Christopher Howell, Jonathan Johnson, Shann Ray, Laura Reed, Nance Van Winckel, Jess Walter, and Maya Jewell Zeller, as well as my former teachers D.S. Butterworth, Beth Cooley, and Tod Marshall. Please to be part of it all.
Two Chapbooks
This fall I’ve been delighted to have two chapbooks released. First, from Red Bird Chapbooks, We Had to Go On Living: a collection of two essays, “Northern Pike” and “Bruised,” that both speak to the years my wife and I spent in the Midwest, years of joy, as we started our family, and loneliness, as we struggled to find our footing in new communities and alien landscapes. And just this past week, winner of the Iron Horse Chapbook Issue Competition, Leviathan: a short collection of poetry that also speaks to our Midwestern sojourn, though it does so in a host of voices and forms. And what beautiful books! Both presses took such care during the editorial and design processes. I’m so pleased to have had the chance to work with such wonderful folks and to now have in my hands these two lovely chapbooks.
Leviathan
So pleased to be sharing the news of my latest collection of poetry, Leviathan, which won the 2014 Iron Horse Single-Author Contest. The chapbook will be out in just over two weeks, but you can pre-order now for just $4! You can get a sneak peek at the title poem here, and here’s what Carrie Jerrell, contest judge, and Laurie Kutchins, Pulitzer Prize finalist, have to say about the manuscript:
“Leviathan is a collection both celebratory and elegiac. Wilkins moves deftly from the natural landscapes of rivers and forests, to the domestic landscapes of garage sales and truck stops, to the emotional landscapes of terror and wonder brought on by fatherhood. He captures each of them in language and imagery as rich as the heart itself. Though the waters and people who populate these poems are often bracing, Wilkins never loses hope for long.” -Carrie Jerrell, author of After the Revival
“There’s alchemy in Joe Wilkins’s poems. Colic, junk, gutted factories, and rotten tomatoes become gold; castaway, castoff things at garage sales become luminous lists of all the things that keep us human. Some of these poems take us into birth-country; others, into the clutches of parenthood, into both literal and metaphorical floods. We think a chapbook is a little book, but no such thing with Leviathan. True to its title, this is a giant of a book with big-soul poems. This is no chamber quartet, but rather a full symphony of sonic energy and fierce, percussive love.” -Laurie Kutchins, Pulitzer-Prize finalist for The Night Path
joewilkins.org 