Princeton University Press Poets: Austin Smith and Dora Malech

The second annual presentation of Princeton University Press poets by the series editor, poet, and critic Susan Stewart (English).

Austin Smith’s Flyover Country is a powerful collection of poems about violence: the violence we do to the land, to animals, to refugees, to the people of distant countries, and to one another. Stet, from the Latin for “let it stand,” is a proofreading term meaning to retain or return to a previous phrasing. Poet Dora Malech takes constraint as her catalyst and subject, exploring what it means to make or break a vow, to create art out of a life in flux, to reckon with the body’s bounds, and to arrive at a place where one might bear and care for another life.