Outside the Joy
Poems that sear with lyric clarity about grief, love, survival, and wonder amid personal loss and environmental collapse.
Trouble the Waters:Tales from the Deep Blue
World Fantasy Award and Locus Award finalist anthology, Trouble the Waters, edited by Sheree Renée Thomas, Pan Morigan, and Troy L. Wiggins gathers a tidal force of bestselling, renowned writers from Lagos to Memphis to Copenhagen to London, including Nalo Hopkinson, Jaquira Diaz, Andrea Hairston, Linda D. Addison, Rion Amilcar Scott, Marie Vibbert, Maurice Broaddus, Sheree Renée Thomas, and other breakout beautiful voices. The stories and poems are connected by theme: water, the most vital of elemental forces.
Standing on the Verge & Maggot Brain
Written in response to the classic Funkadelic albums Standing on the Verge of Getting it On and Maggot Brain, and featuring visual art by Kevin Neireiter and Nicholas Galanin (of Sub Pop’s Ya Tseen), the light and darkness of Funkadelic’s music is focused in the radiances and shadows of Pulitzer Prize finalist Adrian Matejka’s poems of self-exploration.
And What Would You Say If You Could?
Nashville Youth Poet Laureate Haviland Whiting ‘s collection And What Would You Say if You Could? leads us on a journey of history, grief, beauty, and what it means to come of age as a Black woman in this country.
The Plural Atmosphere
Although Stewart Lupton is best known for being the singer and lyricist for seminal New York City band Jonathan FireEater, his love for language was always evident in his songs and also the poems he increasingly wrote and turned toward during his life. In close collaboration with Lupton’s estate, friends, and former bandmates, Third Man Books is honored and humbled to be a part of realizing Lupton’s longtime wish to publish a collection of his poems. The Plural Atmosphere is a first collection of poems by Stewart Lupton, a collection that will undoubtedly define Lupton’s legacy as a poet.
Ascend Ascend
Written over the course of twenty days, coming in and out of trance states brought on by intermittent fasting and somatic rituals while secluded in the tower of a 100-year-old church, Ascend Ascend is award -winning poet Janaka Stucky’s most powerful collection to date. “Janaka Stucky is extraordinary, and his work riveting.” —Jimmy Page, Led Zeppelin
Lucy Negro, Redux: The Bard, A Book, and a Ballet
Part savvy lit crit, part blues chart, part hip revenge-femme-lyric, part imagined Interracial romance saga disguised as poems, in Lucy Negro, Redux: the Bard, a Book, and a Ballet, poet Caroline Randall Williams plays the literary race card and cuts the whole deck, revealing the person and identity of Shakespeare’s legendary lover, the “Dark Lady.” “An unflinching investigation of otherness and a dead-sexy exploration of the intersection of identity and desire.”—The New York Times
Destruction of Man
Willie Nelson sang for Farm Aid and it didn’t work: this won’t either: yet Destruction of Man is a collection of poems: a book by a poet/farmer, Abraham Smith, about farming and a family man and a familiar county–stung body. Includes a 7” single of Smith reciting poems with drum and accordion accompaniment!
The Terraformers
The second title in Third Man Books’ limited edition chapbook series, Dan Hoy’s most recent collection of poetry chronicles the last days of an expedition stranded on a desolate planet and beset by depression, sabotage, and failing equipment. A finalist for the Science Fiction Poetry Association’s Elgin Award!
VANTABLACK
Ciona Rouse’s first collection of poems — and Third Man Books’ debut title in the publisher’s new chapbook series— Vantablack is Rouse’s quiet music waiting to scream; the music of place, race, sexuality, home, growing up, being grown; everything in the life of a word.
mary wants to be a superwoman
Third Man Books is very happy to release erica lewis’ book of poems mary wants to be a superwoman. The notes are letters, the sounds are words, the rhythm is in the linebreaks, the book is playing right next to the turntable, Songs in the Key of Life by Stevie Wonder shaking the room. Each poem is a response to a Wonder song, and every poem is a tribute and exploration of lewis’s relationship with her mother, Mary.
My Dinner With Ron Jeremy
Third Man Books is ready to take sides, and we’re choosing Nashville poet Kendra DeColo. Her new book, My Dinner With Ron Jeremy, is unlike any other in its vulnerability and absolute fearlessness. “DeColo’s work is ferocious and tender."—Bitch Magazine
Pain: The Board Game
The German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer said “life is pain.” Poet Sampson Starkweather says PAIN: The Board Game. Four printing presses in Nashville, Tennessee, refused the book due to “objectionable content.” You will laugh if you read these poems. TMB is excited and honored to have finally found a printer courageous enough to print this book full of such controversial heart-fullness. “Not only thrillingly accessible, not only deeply thought-provoking, but also, and without exaggeration, historically important."—The Huffington Post
Acknowledge: An Anthology of Selected Poems From the Contributor
ACKNOWLEDGE collects poems from the seven years that The Contributors’ poetry section has published. The writers are the unhoused vendors of the street paper. The Contributor is a Nashville treasure, and the poems in ACKNOWLEDGE put eyes on their work, and most importantly, the displaced persons they work for. What else is poetry here for, other than to give voice?
Hidden Water Limited Edition: The Definitive Frank Stanford Boxset
THE HIDDEN WATER SPECIAL EDITION includes two books: Copper Canyon’s 730+ page What About This and Third Man Books 200+ page Hidden Water. The boxset is the definitive collection of poet Frank Stanford and includes two broadsides featuring Stanford’s original artwork, plus a custom notepad based on the pad Stanford used to write his poems while at work as a land surveyor.
Hidden Water: From the Frank Stanford Archives
Edited by Michael Wiegers and Chet Weise, Hidden Water: From the Frank Stanford Archives is a collection of the poet’s unpublished poems, drafts, plus never before seen photos, and never heard before audio. The collection also included extensive correspondences between Stanford, Allen Ginsberg, Pulitzer Prize winning poet Alan Dugan, and more. “Stanford’s voice is as clear, plain and death-obsessed as ever: ‘I wandered I sang / I made promises to death and I kept them / so having done / with my work in this world / I dove into that pool.’” —The Houston Chronicle
The Truth Is We Are Perfect
The Truth Is We Are Perfect by Janaka Stucky contains 54 lyrics exploring the loss of oneself through the loss of an other, and how we seek to recreate ourselves in that absence. “Stucky’s verse has the power of the best East European poets—some of his poems seem to be perfect, magnificent, and instantly anthologizable. He is a forceful, cogent, incisive phrase-maker.”—Bill Knott,