SHELLEY PUHAK
READ sample poems:
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"Portrait of the artist with the family dog" in The Atlantic
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"Portrait of the artist as a twelve-year-old girl" in The Missouri Review
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"Portrait of the artist in the pediatrician's waiting room" in Poetry Daily
HARBINGER
National Poetry Series Winner
A meditation on artistic creation and historical memory, Harbinger explores the many facets of the artistic self.
"The speaker in Shelley Puhak’s Harbinger is no closer to knowing herself than I am, than we are, which is why we trust her. Each similarly titled poem holds a triptych mirror up to the artist and, in so doing, up to us all, so we may better see ourselves as we are. In ever-changing form.”
– NICOLE SEALEY
"These poems are fierce and foreboding, proving poetry’s revelatory power."
– PUBLISHERS WEEKLY (starred review)
"Puhak's grasp here is shocking, reaching across centuries, millennia...[but with] a narrative that is perfectly contemporary, postmodern, and personal...exquisitely well-crafted...Sometimes, a book can surprise you."
"“These poems share a deep curiosity about and connection to our world…. A collection that should not be missed.”
– LIBRARY JOURNAL
READ sample poems:
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"Letter to An Old Flame" in The Missouri Review
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"The Last Meeting" in Verse Daily
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.
"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
Winner of the Towson Prize for Literature
A hybrid of poetry and historical fiction that explores who gets cropped out off, or spliced back into, the past.
"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 BAGOTT
"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