Description
This powerful new work by Bruce Weigl follows the celebrated poet and Vietnam War veteran as he explores combat, survival, and PTSD in brief prose vignettes. In compact, transcendent, and poetic prose, Bruce Weigl chronicles somber observations on the present day alongside painful memories of the war. Reflections on school shootings and the lightning-fast spread of news in the 21st century are set alongside elegies for forgotten soldiers and the lifelong struggle of waiting for the trauma of war to fade. Haunting and nuanced, Among Elms, in Ambush carries readers through meditations and medications, past the shapes of figures in the dark rice fields of Viet Nam and the milkweed pods in the frost-covered fields of Ohio, toward a hard-won determination to survive.
150+ galleys will be printed in April 2021. Galley mailing to key reviewers, media outlets, and booksellers 4-5 months prior to publication. Additional galleys will be available upon request. Digital galleys available by request on Edelweiss+ 3-4 months prior to publication. Advanced review copies and press materials will be sent to a targeted list of 120-150 reviewers in July 2021. Additional ARCs available by request: contact@boaeditions.org. National advertising: Poets & Writers, American Poets, and the Academy of American Poets newsletter. Outreach to online media and bloggers including BuzzFeed, Bustle, Book Riot, Literary Hub, etc. Heavy push to Vietnam veteran and Buddhism media outlets, including Veterans Magazine, The VVA Veteran, Tricycle: The Buddhist Review etc. Buy-ins to relevant academic conferences, trade shows, and publications targeting poetry, history, and global studies. Currently considering: American Library Association Annual Meeting, CBSD Sales and Academic catalogs, BEA, etc. Fall book announcements submitted to Publishers Weekly. Online/social media campaign: Extensive promotion through BOA's website, blog, e-newsletter (4.6K+ subscribers), Facebook (7.4K+ followers), Twitter (11.3K+ followers), and Instagram (3.7K+ followers) accounts. Full-page feature in in-house catalog. E-postcards will be sent to BOA's academic contacts, reviewer contacts, bookstore contacts, and literary bloggers. Simultaneous ebook and print publication. Ebook ISBN will be included on all press materials, author and publisher websites, and whenever print ISBN is listed.
About the Author
Bruce Weigl is the author of over twenty books of poetry, translations and essays, most recently On the Shores of Welcome Home (BOA, 2019) and The Abundance of Nothing (Northwestern University Press, 2012), which was a finalist for the 2013 Pulitzer Prize in Poetry. He has won the Lannan Literary Award for Poetry, the Robert Creeley Award, The Cleveland Arts Prize, The Tu Do Chien Kien Award from the Vietnam Veterans Against the War, fellowships at Breadloaf and Yaddo, and a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. In 2018, he was awarded the "Premiul Tudor Arghezi Prize" from the National Museum of Literature of Romania. Weigl's poetry, essays, articles, reviews, and translations have appeared in The Nation, The New Yorker, The Paris Review, Harvard Review, Harpers, and elsewhere. His poetry has been translated into Romanian, Spanish, Vietnamese, Chinese, Bulgarian, Japanese, Korean, and Serbian. He lives in Oberlin, Ohio, and in Ha Noi, Viet Nam.
Reviews
"Few books transfix me. This book did. Among Elms, in Ambush is a ghostly, mysterious, sometimes angry, mostly loving, and always masterly work of art, poetry mapped by prose, prose elevated by a poet's ear for the music of articulation. Bruce Weigl's accomplishment, if it can be described at all, struck me with the force of a prolonged and vivid dream, one moment terrifying, the next moment celebrative or indignant or regretful. The book is infused with history-Weigl's own, America's own yet there is nothing merely topical in these pages, unless Dante's dizzying, breathtaking Inferno can be read as topical." -Tim O'Brien, author of The Things They Carried Praise for Bruce Weigl's On the Shores of Welcome Home "Weigl's personal reckoning with trauma is juxtaposed against the title poem's polemic against war, a lengthy plea for empathy and tolerance that establishes war, police brutality, mass shootings, and anti-immigrant sentiments as intricately connected through a web of violence Americans have been taught to accept as necessary." -Publishers Weekly "All of Bruce Weigl's poems are of high quality and all should be purchased for any collection of literature dealing with the Vietnam War." -The VVA Veteran "Weigl is always in at least two worlds at once-present and past; here and beyond. He poses questions of motion and emotion without easy Western answers. In fact, there's nothing in this map of naked truths that's easy. And, at times, this speaker of lyric reckoning holds himself accountable for the moments he said 'I dare you.'" -Yusef Komunyakaa, author of Neon Vernacular "Few poets of any generation have written so searingly of the trauma of war, inscribing its wound while refusing the fragile suture of redemption. In this and in the breadth of his accomplishment, Bruce Weigl is one of the most important poets of our time." -Carolyn Forche, author of What You Have Heard is True "Weigl always finds the lyric pulse, a flame of our moment." -Ilya Kaminsky, author of Deaf Republic
Book Information
ISBN 9781950774418
Author Bruce Weigl
Format Paperback
Page Count 148
Imprint BOA Editions, Limited
Publisher BOA Editions, Limited
150+ galleys will be printed in April 2021. Galley mailing to key reviewers, media outlets, and booksellers 4-5 months prior to publication. Additional galleys will be available upon request. Digital galleys available by request on Edelweiss+ 3-4 months prior to publication. Advanced review copies and press materials will be sent to a targeted list of 120-150 reviewers in July 2021. Additional ARCs available by request: contact@boaeditions.org. National advertising: Poets & Writers, American Poets, and the Academy of American Poets newsletter. Outreach to online media and bloggers including BuzzFeed, Bustle, Book Riot, Literary Hub, etc. Heavy push to Vietnam veteran and Buddhism media outlets, including Veterans Magazine, The VVA Veteran, Tricycle: The Buddhist Review etc. Buy-ins to relevant academic conferences, trade shows, and publications targeting poetry, history, and global studies. Currently considering: American Library Association Annual Meeting, CBSD Sales and Academic catalogs, BEA, etc. Fall book announcements submitted to Publishers Weekly. Online/social media campaign: Extensive promotion through BOA's website, blog, e-newsletter (4.6K+ subscribers), Facebook (7.4K+ followers), Twitter (11.3K+ followers), and Instagram (3.7K+ followers) accounts. Full-page feature in in-house catalog. E-postcards will be sent to BOA's academic contacts, reviewer contacts, bookstore contacts, and literary bloggers. Simultaneous ebook and print publication. Ebook ISBN will be included on all press materials, author and publisher websites, and whenever print ISBN is listed.
About the Author
Bruce Weigl is the author of over twenty books of poetry, translations and essays, most recently On the Shores of Welcome Home (BOA, 2019) and The Abundance of Nothing (Northwestern University Press, 2012), which was a finalist for the 2013 Pulitzer Prize in Poetry. He has won the Lannan Literary Award for Poetry, the Robert Creeley Award, The Cleveland Arts Prize, The Tu Do Chien Kien Award from the Vietnam Veterans Against the War, fellowships at Breadloaf and Yaddo, and a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. In 2018, he was awarded the "Premiul Tudor Arghezi Prize" from the National Museum of Literature of Romania. Weigl's poetry, essays, articles, reviews, and translations have appeared in The Nation, The New Yorker, The Paris Review, Harvard Review, Harpers, and elsewhere. His poetry has been translated into Romanian, Spanish, Vietnamese, Chinese, Bulgarian, Japanese, Korean, and Serbian. He lives in Oberlin, Ohio, and in Ha Noi, Viet Nam.
Reviews
"Few books transfix me. This book did. Among Elms, in Ambush is a ghostly, mysterious, sometimes angry, mostly loving, and always masterly work of art, poetry mapped by prose, prose elevated by a poet's ear for the music of articulation. Bruce Weigl's accomplishment, if it can be described at all, struck me with the force of a prolonged and vivid dream, one moment terrifying, the next moment celebrative or indignant or regretful. The book is infused with history-Weigl's own, America's own yet there is nothing merely topical in these pages, unless Dante's dizzying, breathtaking Inferno can be read as topical." -Tim O'Brien, author of The Things They Carried Praise for Bruce Weigl's On the Shores of Welcome Home "Weigl's personal reckoning with trauma is juxtaposed against the title poem's polemic against war, a lengthy plea for empathy and tolerance that establishes war, police brutality, mass shootings, and anti-immigrant sentiments as intricately connected through a web of violence Americans have been taught to accept as necessary." -Publishers Weekly "All of Bruce Weigl's poems are of high quality and all should be purchased for any collection of literature dealing with the Vietnam War." -The VVA Veteran "Weigl is always in at least two worlds at once-present and past; here and beyond. He poses questions of motion and emotion without easy Western answers. In fact, there's nothing in this map of naked truths that's easy. And, at times, this speaker of lyric reckoning holds himself accountable for the moments he said 'I dare you.'" -Yusef Komunyakaa, author of Neon Vernacular "Few poets of any generation have written so searingly of the trauma of war, inscribing its wound while refusing the fragile suture of redemption. In this and in the breadth of his accomplishment, Bruce Weigl is one of the most important poets of our time." -Carolyn Forche, author of What You Have Heard is True "Weigl always finds the lyric pulse, a flame of our moment." -Ilya Kaminsky, author of Deaf Republic
Book Information
ISBN 9781950774418
Author Bruce Weigl
Format Paperback
Page Count 148
Imprint BOA Editions, Limited
Publisher BOA Editions, Limited
