Guinevere in Baltimore

Winner of the Anthony Hecht Prize

A feminist revisioning of Arthurian legend that examines love in all of its chemical, biological, political, and technological dimensions.

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"What makes Guinevere in Baltimore work is the sheer brilliance of the individual poems...masterfully crafted, a veritable feast for any lover of words."

    – Charles Simic

"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     ​

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READ sample poems:​

• "Letter to An Old Flame" in The Missouri Review

• "The Last Meeting" in Verse Daily

Stalin in Aruba

Winner of the Towson Prize for Literature

A hybrid of poetry and historical fiction that explores who gets cropped out of, and what gets spliced into, the past.

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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

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"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...and a cemetery of life stories."

    — John Surowiecki​

READ sample poems:

• "Torch" in Alaska Quarterly Review

• "The Führer's Girls" in Beloit Poetry Journal