Lit from Inside: 40 Years of Poetry from Alice James Books

Forty years old and flourishing–a remarkable record for a small nonprofit press–Alice James Books deserves praise and admiration.–Maxine Kumin

A compilation of archival materials accompanies this collection of forty years of Alice James Books poetry. Nearly 150 authors are represented in chronological order. Maxine Kumin states, the list of authors is remarkable for its breadth, variety, and passion. The assortment is idiosyncratic, the range of voices and styles embraces the familiar personal narrative voice and the innovative. Contributors include Jane Kenyon, Fanny Howe, Forrest Gander, Jean Valentine, B.H. Fairchild, Matthea Harvey, Brian Turner, and Cole Swensen.

Anne Marie Macari’s most recent book She Heads into the Wilderness was published in 2008 by Autumn House Press. She is also the author of Gloryland (Alice James Books, 2005), and Ivory Cradle, which won the APR/Honickman First Book Prize in 2000. Macari founded and teaches in the low-residency MFA program in poetry and poetry in translation at Drew University.

Carey Salerno is the executive director of Alice James Books. She earned an MFA in poetry from New England College and teaches in the BFA program at the University of Maine at Farmington. Her first poetry collection, Shelter, won a 2007 Kinereth Gensler Award and was published in 2009.

Former US Poet Laureate Maxine Kumin, winner of the Pulitzer and Ruth Lilly prizes, is the author of Where I Live: New & Selected Poems 1990-2010 (W. W. Norton & Company), her seventeenth volume, which won the 2011 Los Angeles Times Book Prize in Poetry.