

New Life
New Life
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In her latest book, New Life, Lambda Award–winning poet Ana Božičević writes, “For my birthday I want a cake/revealing the color of my soul.” Never saccharine, these poems are by turns cheeky and heartfelt, grounded and wistful, and above all—surprising. New Life is a book that is Dantesque in its ability to commune with the dead without becoming fixed in the past. Instead, the poems here have a distinct sense of nonlinear time, where each line feels like an ancient bone discovered, only to be reassembled into a chimera of another self. In this way, Božičević continually greets herself as a stranger, reminding us that in some respects every poem is a love poem.
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Ana Božičević’s “Birthday” is a cunning defense of poetry’s work. This poem meets cynicism with determined simplicity, the form making its own argument via a spare and elegant use of repetition and surprise. Wonder needs no ornaments, only an invitation, and to have been born at all, “Birthday” reminds us, is a good enough reason for a party.
—Anne Boyer, The New York Times
“Everyday People” restores mystery to what has sedimented into common sense—opening a space for questioning the matter of the daily from which, after all, eras are made. Where the idea of the ordinary dulls my awareness that I might join with others to forge a meaningful alternative to what is, Božičević’s poem enlivens me to a wideness of possibility.
—Claire Scwartz, Jewish Currents
Championing the confessional voice with dynamic lyricism, Božičević offers sonorous texture, rollicking conceits, and unparalleled vision.
—starred review, Publishers Weekly -
Ana Božičević grew up in Zadar, Croatia before coming to Brooklyn, New York. Ana is a poet, translator, teacher, and occasional singer. She is the author of Povratak lišća / Return of the Leaves, Selected Poems in Croatian (Hrvatsko Društvo Pisaca/Croatian Writers Society, 2020); Joy of Missing Out (Birds, LLC, 2017); the Lambda Award-winning Rise in the Fall (Birds, LLC, 2013), and Stars of the Night Commute (Tarpaulin Sky Press, 2009).
Publication: April 2023
ISBN# 9781950268719 (5 x 7.5, 112pp, paperback)
ISBN# 9781950268726 (5 x 7.5, 112pp, limited edition hardcover)
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