This week, Best American Poetry 2015 was released. There's been much negative press because of one white male poet's use of an Asian female pseudonym. Plenty of others have offered opinions about the situation, with whom we agree, so we don't feel that we have to add more commentary to this particular topic. We're committed to publishing impressive work from diverse voices and going about that seems to be the best response.
Now that we've gotten that out of the way, we want to bring more attention to one particular poet, Susanna Childress, who was included in the book. We were honored that she agreed to be our first featured author, and we've been especially proud of the work in her collection. We've had a near-viral response to her stunning piece, Retroactive Empathy: A Haunting, that was offered online during our anniversary celebration. We are not surprised that she was included in the BAP collection. If you haven't already familiarized yourself with her work, hurry up.
You can follow her at her Awst page, or via her website, or via Facebook.