Chaun Ballard

“Second Nature” By Chaun Ballard; BOA Editions, 2025; 128 pages; $35 hardcover, $19 paperback, $9.99 ebook. “The Museum of Unnatural Histories” By Annie Wenstrup; Wesleyan University Press, 2025; 120 pages; $26.95 jacketed cloth, $16.95 paperback, $22.95 ebook. “Waveforms: a short course in piano tuning” By Andrea L. Hackbarth; Small Harbor Publishing, 2025; 33 pages. $12 paperback.

You might come here on a Tuesday. To the trail, to this bench, to this place where the willows and sand and gravel meet the edge of history. Yours. The rivers. At this bend. Excerpted from Salmon Weather: Writing from the Land of No Return, by CMarie Fuhrman,  published by Columbus State University Press. All rights reserved. Reprinted with permission. In the heart of Idaho’s Salmon River Mountains, a woman unknowingly begins what becomes a journey of understanding.

Winner of the 23rd annual A. Poulin, Jr. Poetry Prize Chaun Ballard’s gripping debut collection weaves childhood experiences, historical events, and family stories into a living tapestry of memory that celebrates the landscape of Black America, both rural and urban. Riddled with the ghostly voices of family and friends, Second Nature is fearless in its wrestling with America’s fractured past and troubled present.