Mary Szybist – författare

Entering its eleventh year, Best New Poets has established itself as a crucial venue for rising poets and a valuable resource for poetry lovers. The only publication of its kind, this annual anthology is made up exclusively of work by writers who have not yet published a full-length book. The poems included in this eclectic sampling represent the best from the many that have been nominated by the country’s top literary magazines and writing programs, as well as some two thousand additional poems submitted through an open online competition. The work of the fifty writers represented here provides the best perspective available on the continuing vitality of poetry as it is being practiced today.

In Incarnadine, Mary Szybist restlessly seeks out places where meaning might take on new colour. Through the lens of an iconic moment, the Annunciation of an unsettling angel to a young woman, Szybist describes the confusion and even terror of moments in which our longing for the spiritual may also be a longing for what is fundamentally alien to us. In a world where we are so often asked to choose sides, to believe or not believe, to embrace or reject, Incarnadine offers lyrical and brilliantly inventive alternatives.