Alex Dueben
In Conversation
COREY MESLER with Alex Dueben
Corey Mesler has been writing a series of novels, short story collections and poetry books over the past twenty years at various small presses. This year, Soft Skull Press published his ninth novel, Memphis Movie, which tells the story around a film shoot in the city. The Robert Altman-esque cast of characters include the film’s director, many of its actors, and various city residents including an elderly poet Camel Jeremy Eros who gets hired to add “Memphis mojo” to the film’s script.
In Conversation
Caring for the Underdog: JEROME CHARYN with Alex Dueben
Today many literary figures regularly jump between forms and genres with ease but Jerome Charyn has been doing that throughout his long career.
In Conversation
MAUREEN N. MCLANE with Alex Dueben
One of my muses is ambivalence. I think that conventions are both enormously appealing and enabling, but also potentially mind-deadening. Both are true. They can stimulate and they can constrain. I feel very passionate about the emotional and intellectual opportunities afforded by contrariness.
In Conversation
Language is Always a Shared Occasion: FADY JOUDAH with Alex Dueben
Over the course of four books of poetry, Fady Joudah has shown himself to be a writer very aware of the physical body and the physical world even as he’s examining spiritual and metaphysical questions.
In Conversation
AIMEE NEZHUKUMATATHIL with Alex Dueben
Aimee Nezhukumatathil’s recent collection of poetry, Oceanic, can be described in many ways, as a book about nature, about living in the world, about a sense of places, or places, but rereading the book, I can’t help but feel that most of the poems are love poems. For those who have been reading her for years, it’s her finest book to date.
In Conversation
Tom Sleigh with Alex Dueben
Tom Sleigh has been writing and publishing poetry for decades, but in the past decade, his work has shifted.
In Conversation
Exiles of Eden
Osman’s new book is about Adam and Eve and the idea of exile as something embedded within all people, refugees and the destruction of landscape.
In Conversation
Everything Lost Will Be Given a Name: SAFIA ELHILLO with Alex Dueben
The term “January Children” refers to Safia Elhillo’s grandfather’s generation—people born in Sudan under British colonial occupation—but in her new book of poems, the January Children, Elhillo is trying to make sense of much more: her entire family’s history, the nation of Sudan, what it means to be bilingual, and how familial and national history has played out over decades.
Ordinary Beast:
NICOLE SEALEY with Alex Dueben
Nicole Sealey had an eventful 2017. Ordinary Beast, her debut collection of poetry, was published by Ecco in September, which caps off a year that began when she took the helm as the executive director of Cave Canem in January.
In Conversation
MARTÍN ESPADA with Alex Dueben
Poet, essayist, translator and editor Martín Espada discusses the new anthology What Saves Us: Poems of Empathy and Outrage in the Age of Trump.
In Conversation
Mai Der Vang with Alex Dueben
Mai Der Vang’s first book of poetry is Afterland. Just released by Graywolf Press, the manuscript won the Walt Whitman Award from the American Academy of Poets in 2016 and has received a lot of advance praise.
