An April APA Poetry Companion: New Books for National Poetry Month

Header Image: An APA Poetry Companion, April 2020 (Victoria Chang, OBIT; Jenifer Sang Eun Park, AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A HORSE; mai c. doan, WATER/TONGUE, George Abraham, BIRTHRIGHT; Marianne Chan, ALL HEATHENS; Dorothy Chan, REVENGE OF THE ASIAN WOMAN; Lawrence Lacambra Ypil, THE EXPERIMENT OF THE TROPICS; Diruba Ahmed, BRING DOWN THE ANGELS)
More New and Notable APA Poetry Reads for April 2020

Last week, we featured an excerpt from Arhm Choi Wild’s debut collection, Cut to Bloom, here on the blog. But Wild’s book is far from the only new collection by an APA poet being released this April; this National Poetry Month has bestowed us with quite the embarrassment of riches. Below are just a few of the exciting new titles that are on our radar this month.

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FEATURED PICKS

Victoria Chang, Obit (Copper Canyon)

Written in a span of two weeks after the death of the poet’s mother, this collection (Chang’s fifth) takes obituary as poetic form. It looks to be an intensely powerful read, and it’s on the top of this editor’s list to check out next.

Lawrence Lacambra Ypil, The Experiment of the Tropics (Gaudy Boy)

Ypil’s The Experiment of the Tropics co-won the 2019 Gaudy Boy Poetry Book Prize and is up for both a Believer Book Award and a Lambda Award this year. This collection finds the poet digging into archival history using photographs and documentary poetics to examine the colonization of the Philippines. His experimentation with form and text looks to be especially exciting—definitely a title to check out!

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ALSO NEW AND NOTEWORTHY

George Abraham, Birthright (Button Poetry)

Dilruba Ahmed, Bring Down the Angels (U of Pittsburgh)

Dorothy Chan, Revenge of the Asian Woman (Diode Editions)

Marianne Chan, All Heathens (Sarabande)

mai c. doan, water/tongue (Omnidawn)

Jenifer Sang Eun Park, Autobiography of Horse: A Poem (Gaudy Boy)

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What new and notable books have you been reading this month? Share your recommendations with us in the comments or on TwitterFacebook, or Instagram (@LanternReview).