Chapter 16
A Community of Tennessee Writers, Readers & Passersby

Boundaries and Chaos

Mary-Alice Daniel’s debut poetry collection interrogates our sense of order

Mary-Alice Daniel’s Mass for Shut-Ins is the winner of the 2022 Yale Younger Poets Prize. The poems in this debut collection ask readers to live inside a porousness of borders, both physical and mental.

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A Lifelong Task

Poet Alicia Ostriker talks to Chapter 16 about wrestling with literary and cultural tradition

FROM THE CHAPTER 16 ARCHIVE: An author of both groundbreaking criticism and acclaimed poetry, Alicia Ostriker has devoted much of her work to a feminist transformation of literary and cultural tradition. Whether arguing for recognition of women’s poetry as a genre in its own right or recasting the stories of the Bible from a feminist perspective, Ostriker is a radical with a deep respect for her roots. 

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Overtime

On Saturdays, we play with their children and pour the tea

I arrange the clementines on the table next to the store-bought croissants and juice boxes; this has now become a ritual, though not a meditative one.

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Affrilachia from A to Z

Frank X Walker’s new picture book pays tribute to Black life in Appalachia

Frank X Walker’s A Is for Affrilachia, illustrated by upfromsumdirt, is a picture book for all ages.

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A Breath of Fresh Air

John Seigenthaler promoted thoughtful discourse one book at a time

A Word on Words: The Best of John Seigenthaler’s Interviews celebrates the significant contribution to the American literary landscape made by Nashville’s John Seigenthaler, a legendary journalist and First Amendment advocate.

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Wounded Eagle

Matthew Desmond’s new book dispels myths about poverty in America

Pulitzer Prize-winning author Matthew Desmond’s Poverty, By America offers a persuasive case that we should all become “poverty abolitionists” who refuse to live as “unwitting enemies of the poor.” Desmond will appear at Parnassus Books in Nashville on March 20.

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