READING NOOK: What We're Reading This Spring

As a new feature of our HeartWood blog, we'll be sharing periodically some of the works we're reading throughout our Wesleyan MFA community of writers. This spring, we've been reading lots of poetry, in celebration of National Poetry Month in April, and celebrating the works of all genres. Check out some of the works our community members are reading below:

Delaney McElmore (Nonfiction '18): Rachel McKibbens' "Mammoth," a chapbook that resonates so hard with the losses we find so commonplace in Appalachia. Second, I just finished "Said the Manic to the Muse" by Jeanann Verlee, an incredible feminist book of poetry that dives into the poet's journey to becoming a poet out of her raising in a hard life shaped by poverty and violence. Both incredible, both devastating, both too good to be missed!

Doug Van Gundy (Poetry Faculty): I am reading two brand new books, John Burnside's "Still Life with Feeding Snake" from and Rebecca Gayle Howell's "American Purgatory".

CM Chapman (Fiction '15): Randi Ward, Whipstitches. Just read it and it is fantastic. Compact, individually beautiful and powerful poems that evoke a larger story in a unique way. Highly recommended.

Mary Imo Stick (Poetry '15): I read Mary Barbara Moore's two new collections, "Eating the Light" and "Flicker" in preparation for her visit to More Than Words*. Her work speaks to me, reminds me of why I love poetry, challenges me to be a better poet.