With authors Jake Skeets, Marilyn Hacker, Ada Limón, & More!
Celebrating National Poetry Month
“The Evolution of Fire is stunningly written—vivid in imagery, in the braiding together of language, and in the honoring of every person it shines a light on.”—Hanif Abdurraqib, author of There’s Always This Year
Spring 2026 Catalog
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“How big is a home?”
“What is space without reaching?”
“You ever think about being remembered?”
Posing questions that belie their simplicity, Sean Hill’s new collection is rooted in our shared history, lived experience, and a speculative future. It…
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Having extensively detailed his experience with a traumatic brain injury, Alex Lemon writes with the remarkable ability to transform the depth of pain into brilliant light. His enthralling new collection charts a visual map of the sprawling mind…
- Now in paperback, from the poet who “resurrects mediums” (The Millions), a collection of literary letters and mementos on the art of remembering across generations.
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“Beauty is possible even when it appears impossible. An astounding book.” —Joy Harjo, author of Washing My Mother’s Body
“For now, go out and dream of joy, we know the labor of feeling it.”
With Eyes Bottle Dark with a Mouthful of Flowers, Jake Skeets…
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“The Evolution of Fire is stunningly written—vivid in imagery, in the braiding together of language, and in the honoring of every person it shines a light on.”—Hanif Abdurraqib, author of There’s Always This Year
Crisis is an agent of evolution, and…
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Over the course of her celebrated fifty-year career, Marilyn Hacker has continuously proven to be a timely, fearless, and lauded poet highly skilled in a wide variety of forms—most famously, the sonnet. Transitions is her first volume consisting…
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“Shrewd, sage, and so darkly funny.” —Claire Lombardo, author of The Most Fun We Ever Had
An unsuspecting couple is treated to a luxury vacation by their deceased neighbor. After begrudgingly agreeing to volunteer at a nursing home, a middle school…
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As a scholar of Native American literature and law, Beth Piatote focuses on the endangerment of Indigenous languages. As an activist, she moves against the current of English-language colonization, working to rescue and revitalize the language of her…
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From acclaimed agrarian activist and ethnobotanist Gary Paul Nabhan, a profoundly inspiring account of interspecies belonging, collaborative conservation, and the sacred work of caring for the earth.
“I went looking for water in the desert and found…
Drawing on her life as an indigenous scientist, a mother, and a woman, Robin Wall Kimmerer shows how other living beings offer us gifts and lessons.
A 2025 National Endowment for the Arts Big Reads Selection
A 2024 NPR “Books We Love” Selection
Published in association with the Library of Congress and edited by the twenty-fourth Poet Laureate of the United States, a singular collection of fifty…
From the award-winning author of Perma Red comes a devastatingly beautiful novel that challenges prevailing historical narratives of Sacajewea.
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Bread, Borders, and Belonging: a Conversation with PEN America
Following a night of poetry with Minnesota Writers Respond, PEN America and Milkweed Editions presented “On Bread, Borders, and Belonging,” offering a pulse-check on the tensions in the Twin Cities during Operation Metro Surge. Panelists included PEN America President Dinaw Mengestu, PEN International president Burhan Sönmez, Emmy-nominated Taste the Nation host Padma Lakshmi, and Out of the Sierra author Victoria Blanco, guided in conversation by Clarisse Rosaz Shariyf. Opening the event was children’s author Monica Rojas with a reading of Nana and Abuela, while poet Ollie Schminkey closed…
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Marne Zafar, Michael Kleber-Diggs, and Daniel Slager On Community and Showing Up
On February fifth, Marne Zafar sat down for a Friends Lecture at the Minneapolis Institute of Art with Max Ritvo-award winning poet Michael Kleber-Diggs and Publisher Daniel Slager. Together, they discussed dual perspectives between author and publisher, from winning awards to forging literary friendships within the Twin Cities.
Good people show up where they’re meant to be. —Michael Kleber-Diggs
This line, from his poetry collection Worldly Things, won’t be read until later in the night, but the crowd that gathers in the Minneapolis Institute of Art already evokes this notion. Just as…
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Dear Rez Kid: Author Q&A with Jake Skeets on Horses
In anticipation of his newest poetry collection Horses, we sat down with author Jake Skeets—the third poet laureate of the Navajo Nation and previous National Poetry Series winner—to discuss the ways in which his two collections converse with one another, his path forward as Navajo Nation Poet Laureate, and what he would say to every rez kid that speaks in stanzas, and dreams in poetry.
In Horses, queerness becomes relational and mirrors the poetics I’m working toward where the land becomes witness, and the body becomes a carrier of meaning. — Jake Skeets
Milkweed Staff: I’m interested in the… - Blog Post
The Company of Owls: Author Q&A with Polly Atkin
In anticipation of her forthcoming memoir Company of Owls, we sat down with author Polly Atkin—recently longlisted for the 2025 Wainwright prize—to discuss the kinds of company we keep, the habits that hold us steady, and the birds that transform our journey along the way.
I try to be a good neighbor to humans and nonhumans alike, mindful of community both present and future.
Milkweed staff: We were delighted to discover that you own the independent bookstore, Sam Read Bookseller! Living alongside the owls, how have they informed your place within the community—both as a bookseller and as a…
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On Publishing, Plants, & Poetry: Celebrating Twenty Years of Mutual Flourishing
On Thursday, October 9th, 2025, Robin Wall Kimmerer and an abundance of writers, readers, and Milkweed supporters coalesced along the historic Minneapolis riverfront for our annual Book Lovers Ball. There, they were joined by Milkweed publisher Daniel Slager for a celebration of confluences between publishing, plants, and poetry. All throughout the week, she was joined by poets Ada Limón, Heid E. Erdrich, Chris La Tray and memoirists Helen Whybrow, Nicholas Triolo, Scott Chaskey, Erin Sharkey, Angela Pelster, and Beth Dooley, as they consider what it means to publish transformative literature…
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The Salt Stones: Author Q&A with Helen Whybrow
We recently sat down with author (and Milkweed editor-at-large) Helen Whybrow to talk about her forthcoming book, The Salt Stones: Seasons of a Shepherd’s Life. Touching on everything from cycles of life in nature to the art of belonging to parenting on a farm, read on for a taste of what’s to come in this profoundly moving book.
Photograph by Helen WhybrowMilkweed Staff: A favorite section from the book is your description of belonging actually being a practice of participation. Can you say a bit more about how that looks as a Shepherd, mother, and activist?
Helen Whybrow: Belonging is something so many of us search…
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Nocturama: Author Q&A with Will Brewer
In celebration of his newest poetry collection, Nocturama, we spoke with Will Brewer about his experience with critical mentorship from Louise Glück, listening for the lightning strike, and the hope for a poem to exist as a flash that echoes beyond its reading.
Milkweed Staff: Henri Cole likened your voice to Robert Frost’s, whose America was lonely, bewildered, and grieving. What are the characteristics of your America? How does your relationship with the United States influence your poetics?
Will Brewer: I never think about “poetics,” period! As for America, I never sit down and think to…
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Constant Laval Williams Wins the Tenth Annual Jake Adam York Prize
ANNOUNCING THE WINNER OF THE 2025–26 JAKE ADAM YORK PRIZE!
Copper Nickel and Milkweed Editions are thrilled to announce that judge Patricia Smith has chosen Constant Laval Williams’ book Elegy with Beautiful Child as the winner of the 2025–26 Jake Adam York Prize. Elegy with Beautiful Child will be published by Milkweed Editions in January of 2027, and Williams will receive $2,000.
Constant Laval Williams received the Beau J. Boudreaux Poetry Award at the University of Southern California and holds an MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. He volunteers as a senior reader for Ploughshares, and…
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Hajjar Baban wins 2025 National Poetry Series
We are thrilled to announce that Hajjar Baban has been named one of five winners of the 2025 National Poetry Series. Her manuscript LOW FLYING PLANES was selected by poet Jake Skeets and will be published by Milkweed Editions in August 2026. In addition to publication, Baban will receive $10,000.
Hajjar Baban is a Pakistan-born Afghan Kurdish poet. Her work appears in publications including Prairie Schooner, Guernica, Poetry Daily, and Hayden’s Ferry Review, where she won the 2025 Poetry Contest, selected by Hieu Minh Nguyen. Recipient of a Pushcart Prize in Poetry, Baban is also a cofounder…
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