Poetry Flash presents Gillian Conoley and Paul Hoover

Gillian Conoley’s most recent book of poems is Peace. A. Anupama, in Numéro Cinq, wrote, “White space percolates this lyric, while the current lull in American military actions forms the occasion of this book, Gillian Conoley’s seventh poetry collection. With poems  titled “late democracy,’ “[Peace] contrary to history,” and “Trying to Write a Poem about Gandhi,” the work pulls one way and then pushes back another, testing the inner ground for breath.” Others of her collections include The Plot Genie, Profane Halo, and Lovers in the Used World. Her work has been anthologized in Best American Poetry, American Hybrid, and Postmodern American Poetry. Her translations include Thousand Times Broken, Three Books, three previously untranslated books of the French poet Henri Michaux. Founder and editor of the literary journal VOLT, she has, among her honors, four Pushcart Prizes, the Jerome J. Shestack Prize from APR, an NEA fellowship, and a Fund for Poetry Award.

Paul Hoover’s new book of poems is The Book of Unnamed Things. Mary Jo Bang says, “Hoover’s concern with language’s representational inadequacy is shared by the L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E poets he’s championed for years….However, his own poems are more direct, more lyrical, and sometimes seethingly and seductively  melancholic. Central to all of them (regardless of language’s irrefutable limitations) is his keen intelligence and laconic wit.” Author of fourteen previous poetry collections, he co-edited with Maxine Chernoff the literary magazine New American Writing and co-translated with her The Selected Poetry of Friedrich Hölderlin, which won a PEN-USA Translation Award. Editor, as well, of Postmodern American Poetry: A Norton Anthology, his honors include an NEA Fellowship, the Frederick Bock Award of Poetry, and the Jerome J. Shestack Prize of American Poetry Review.