Winner of the 2020 Perugia Press PrizeAPress for the 2020 Perugia Press Prize winner Per

Thank you to those who submitted to the 2026 Perugia Press Prize!

 

Winner of the 2020 Perugia Press Prize

Celebrating APOSTASIES

 

This month, Holli Carrell read four poems from Apostasies for the DMQ Virtual Salon, in which poets read work from their new books. Listen here.

 

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Editor/Director Rebecca Olander at the Northampton Book

Arts Fair, holding Apostasies, and graced by so many of

Perugia’s beautiful books. Thanks to board members Jean Blakeman, Jen Jabaily-Blackburn, and Arya Samuelson for helping at the fair, and to all who came by to learn about our press and support indie publishing and the work of our poets.

 

Winner of the 2020 Perugia Press PrizeAPress for the 2020 Perugia Press Prize winner Per

Emerging BIWOC Poet Spotlight

November 2025 Poet: janan alexandra

 

Photo by Anna Powell Denton

 

On the Last Day

 

we grate lemon zest into yolks 
cracked cold from the fridge, 
dip our fingers in cake flour
& fold the yielding yellow dough.

when it's time to say bismillah
& heave her suitcase into the trunk, 
taking the terminally gray road
to the airport, we've filled tins

with enough treats to last a week,
two if i ration. still, we have no time
at the gate, cars crowding the curb,
security swatting at us & barking

into their megaphones. inside my throat
the fine needles of an artichoke heart
start to open. i miss her even as we face
each other, knowing what i know

& cannot yet know, coming home
motherless to a house that is lonely
for her jasmine & rose, one strand
of her hair curled upon my pillow.

“On the Last Day” from come from by janan alexandra (BOA Editions, 2025).

 To read about this poet and her work, check out our blog.

Winner of the 2020 Perugia Press PrizeAPress for the 2020 Perugia Press Prize winner Per

The Story of My Book:

Carolina Hotchandani

 

Our series “The Story of My Book,” chronicles Perugia

Press’s collections through the words of their authors.

Our latest post features Carolina Hotchandani on her book

The Book Eaters, the 2023 Perugia Press Prize winner. 

 

Winner of the 2020 Perugia Press Prize

* Poet News *

 

Rebecca Pelky’s Through A Red Place (Perugia, 2021) was

featured by the Boutelle-Day Poetry Center at Smith College

 on its rotating display shelf this November for Native American Heritage Month in beautiful company (including Kenzie Allen’s Cloud Missives, Tin House, 2024, which we featured in our

Emerging BIWOC Poet Spotlight!).

 

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Lynne Thompson with Patricia Smith at the National Book Awards Ceremony on November 19, where Patricia won the National Book Award in Poetry for Intentions of Thunder: New and Selected Poems (Simon & Schuster, 2025). Brava, Patricia! 

 

 

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Next Tuesday! Joan Kwon Glass and janan alexandra will be closing out the Fall 2025 Reading Series from the BDPC at

Smith College in Weinstein Auditorium on Tuesday, December 2 at 7pm, and in conversation afterward with poet & Perugia Editor/Director Rebecca Hart Olander. It’s a Smith celebration - all three poets are Smith alumna!

 

 

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L. I. Henley and Kristin Bock were featured on

Poem of the Week for their collaboration-in-progress:

a chapbook of poems entitled The Dreaming Rifle.