This is the heat that seeks the flaw in everything / and loves the flaw.” From the New World: Poems 1976–2014 (Ecco, February 2015) by Jorie Graham. Thirteenth book, poetry collection. Agent: None. Editor: Daniel Halpern. Publicist: Martin Wilson.
“Down here in the basement we’ve built a city out of blocks, divvied up the Matchbox cars, the toy soldiers and model planes, and begun yet again what we call The Game.” Love and Other Ways of Dying (Dial Press, February 2015) by Michael Paterniti. Third book, first essay collection. Agent: Sloan Harris. Editor: Andy Ward. Publicist: London King.
“Fran’s daddy woke her up wielding a mister.” Get in Trouble (Random House, February 2015) by Kelly Link. Fourth book, short story collection. Agent: Renée Zuckerbrot. Editor: Noah Eaker. Publicist: Maria Braeckel.
“You would have searched a long time for the sort of winding lane or tranquil meadow for which England later became celebrated.” The Buried Giant (Knopf, March 2015) by Kazuo Ishiguro. Eighth book, seventh novel. Agent: Amanda Urban. Editor: Sonny Mehta. Publicist: Kathryn Zuckerman.
“I am not one of Hamlet’s gravediggers, not one of his clowns / but I’ve been making graves since I was ten, wielding the tools // to get back to the center of things, past stone and hardpan, / the one thousand minerals attached to body scraps.” The Gravedigger’s Archaeology (Red Hen Press, March 2015) by William Archila. Second book, poetry collection. Agent: None. Editor: Francisco Aragón. Publicist: Esther Manilla Sawyer.
“One day, my brilliant, beautiful, complicated mother appeared at my kitchen table, thirty-one years after her death.” The Year My Mother Came Back (Algonquin Books, March 2015) by Alice Eve Cohen. Second book, memoir. Agent: Sally Wofford-Girand. Editor: Andra Miller. Publicist: Kelly Bowen.
“Lately, I’ve become accustomed to the way / The ground opens up and envelopes me / Each time I go out to walk the dog.” S O S: Poems 1961–2013 (Grove Press, February 2015) by Amiri Baraka. Thirty-fifth book, thirteenth poetry collection. Agent: Chris Calhoun. Editor: Paul Vangelisti. Publicist: John Mark Boling.
“The drought began in May and lasted three months.” Soil (Simon & Schuster, March 2015) by Jamie Kornegay. First book, novel. Agent: Jim Rutman. Editor: Marysue Rucci. Publicist: Amanda Lang.
“It was just after midnight in birthing room 4C and Dr. Sherman, the mustached obstetrician presiding over the delivery, was sweating lightly into his cotton underwear, holding out his hands like a beggar, ready to receive the imminent cranium.” I Am Radar (Penguin Press, February 2015) by Reif Larsen. Second book, novel. Agent: Denise Shannon. Editor: Ann Godoff. Publicist: Juliana Kiyan.
“The evening sun descended with the decorum of an old man / Who removes his wide-brimmed hat as a funeral march passes.” Blue Yodel (Yale University Press, March 2015) by Ansel Elkins. First book, poetry collection. Agent: None. Editor: Chris Rogers. Publicist: Alden Ferro.
“Eight blood brothers—tiny individual links of an exhausted human chain stretching across the factory yard and winding up two flights of stairs—stand and wait among hundreds of others to be admitted from the awful damp cold into the warm waiting rooms.” Blood Brothers (Other Press, March 2015) by Ernst Haffner, translated from the German by Michael Hofmann. First book, novel. Agent: None. Editor: Keenan McCracken. Publicist: Charlotte Kelly.
“If I didn’t need / to do anything, / would I?” Itself (Wesleyan University Press, February 2015) by Rae Armantrout. Fifteenth book, thirteenth poetry collection. Agent: None. Editor: Suzanna Tamminen. Publicist: Stephanie Elliott.
