Today’s GalleyCrush is Carey Salerno’s Tributary, forthcoming from Persea Books on April 20, 2021.
Perfect pitch: “From the author of Shelter, ferocious poems that rail against a community’s bigotry and culture of silence.”
First lines: “It’s a drum. It’s a drum. It’s a river. It’s a drum.”
Big blurb: “Tributary by Carey Salerno is a beautiful book of river, within river, against river as metaphor, as life force, as faith. Salerno skillfully oscillates within and without the river—refracting it, lifting it up to the light, and using it as a force to deconstruct family, societal, and racial failings. The speaker in these poems both denies and wants the river. In poem after poem, Salerno layers thought after thought onto the river until it overflows. A radiant dissent rises in the end. Dexterous, relentless, and edifying, these are exploding and gorgeous poems of unapologetic rebellion.” —Victoria Chang
Book notes: Paperback, poetry, 96 pages.
Cover credit: Art by Roberto Campos, design by Small Stuff.
Author bio: Carey Salerno is a poet and essayist. She is the executive director and executive editor of Alice James Books. She holds a BA from Wesleyan University and an MFA from New England College. Salerno is the author of Shelter and coeditor of Lit From Inside: 40 Years of Poetry From Alice James Books. She teaches for the University of Maine in Farmington and resides in New Jersey.