Poetry Flash: Noah Blaustein, Kathryn Nuernberger, + Jacques J. Rancourt

Noah Blaustein’s book of poems is Flirt. Christopher Merrill says, “Like all great lovers, he promises the world—and then delivers, in poems that…address the central issues of the heart: how we flirt before we think—and how we then discern order in the new dispensation in which we find ourselves.” Widely published in literary journals, he is the editor of the anthology Motion: American Sports Poems, which was an editor’s pick of National Public Radio and a Librarian’s pick of the New York Public Library.

Kathryn Nuernberger’s latest book of poems is The End of Pink. Aimee Nezhukumatahil says, “The remarkable designs of a landscape created by Kathryn Nuernberger give us such a stamp of hoof, wonder, and wit…This is an unforgettable collection of sly-sexy poems of desire, grief, and motherhood.” Her first collection, Rag & Bone, won the 2010 Elixir Press Antivenom Prize. She is the director of Pleiades Press and has received fellowships from the American Antiquarian Society and the Bakken Museum of Electricity in Life to research aspects of the history of science and medicine.

Jacques J. Rancourt’s debut book of poems is Novena, winner of the Lena-Miles Wever Todd Prize from Pleiades Press. D. A. Powell says, “Jacques Rancourt is a votary of desire and a faithful disciple to memory…This is a holy book, a pilgrim’s progress of erotic, mystical and terrifying beauty.” A former Wallace Stegner Fellow at Stanford University, his poems have been widely published in literary journals, including Kenyon Review and Best New Poets 2014.