Winner of the Anthony Hecht Prize
selected by Charles Simic
Winner of the Towson Prize for Literature
"What makes Guinevere in Baltimore work is the sheer brilliance of the individual poems...masterfully crafted, a veritable feast for any lover of words."
– from Charles Simic’s foreword
"A freakishly brilliant book in its conception, Shelley Puhak’s Guinevere in Baltimore raises the stakes for American poetry of the twenty-first century."
– Cate Marvin
"Daring and totally distinctive...[Puhak] has found her place and staked her poetic claim."
- Kenyon Review Online
READ sample poems:
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Letter to An Old Flame in The Missouri Review
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Two Poems in Kenyon Review Online
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Two Poems in The Normal School
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The Last Meeting in Verse Daily
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"Deeply political and deeply personal, Stalin in Aruba is a startling debut...Puhak has me hooked. This is a poet to keep your eye on!"
—Julianna Baggott
"Shelley Puhak’s stunning first book of poems is not so much a voyage but a zigzagging from one strange and fascinating port to another: Hitler’s lovers, lady laudanum drinkers, a high-school Proteus, gypsies, Raphael’s portrait of Pope Leo X, a Polish refugee who triples her weight after marriage, and a cemetery of life stories."
—John Surowiecki
"The collection is impressively strong...a consistently engrossing read. This first collection is a confident debut by a quietly talented writer."
—Neon
READ sample poems:
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Torch in Alaska Quarterly Review
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The Führer's Girls in Beloit Poetry Journal
Purchase from Black Lawrence Press
Purchase from Amazon