Recent Events and Publications

Hello all! I’ve just wrapped up my fall book tour events, and am filled with gratitude for all the support I’ve been given over these past months. In September, I flew down to Mississippi State University to give a reading for the Price Caldwell Visiting Writers Series. In October, I read with fellow Nebraska poets Katie Marya, Kimberly Reyes, and Carolina Hotchandani to celebrate the release of Carolina’s new collection, The Book Eaters (which I highly recommend). In early October, I flew home to Ligonier, PA to visit family, and while I was there I led a workshop on place-based environmental writing at the Ligonier Valley Library. We had a wonderful turnout, and it felt like the perfect way to end this string of events, being that it was held in the library where I spent so much time when I was young.

In publication news, I have a new poem, “The Decay of Progress and the Progress of Decay,” out in EcoTheo Review. I also have two recent interviews: one with the good folks at COMP: an interdisciplinary journal, and one with Jordan Charlton for the Southern Indiana Review’s Afterwords column.

Finally, in September I also had the good fortunate to attend a writing retreat hosted by UNL’s College of Arts and Sciences, where I spent three magical days writing, walking, and thinking in the beautiful surroundings of Cedar Point Biological Station. While there, I made progress on a new manuscript that I’m excited about; more on that later!

Red Ocher is now available!

I’m so excited to share that my debut poetry collection Red Ocher is now available. You can order it through University of Arkansas Press (currently 25% off), Bookshop.org, or wherever you buy books.

If you’re interested in celebrating with me, I have a few upcoming events listed on my Events page, including a reading on Saturday, March 11 in Seattle at the AWP Bookfair Stage.

Red Ocher is off to print!

Red Ocher is now on its way to print! I’m so grateful to Patricia Smith for selecting this book as part of the Miller Williams Poetry Series, as well as Kwame Dawes and Gale Marie Thompson for their generous and kind words. You can preorder the book here.

“In Red Ocher, Jessica Poli juxtaposes two rich and seemingly unlikely veins of obsession—that of farming and animal husbandry and that of emotional and sensual intimacy—to create truly refreshing poems about mortality and deep affection. Indeed, what we see in Poli is a poet of tremendous skill. It is hard not to be impressed with her command of detail, her deft use of language to construct, in what are ostensibly specific physical moments, a series of elegiac poems of urgent sentiment and deep feeling. Here is an assured debut of a singular new voice in American poetry.”
— Kwame Dawes, coauthor of unHistory

“Red ocher: a pigment made of rust, of the remnants of collapsing stars; a pigment of the aftermath. And much like its namesake, Jessica Poli’s stunning Red Ocher pieces together a type of holy aftermath, beautiful in its corrosion. These gorgeous, penetrating poems build a somber but sacred world of salvage and care.”
— Gale Marie Thompson, author of Helen or My Hunger

New Publication in SCR Volume 55.1

I’m happy to have a poem included in the Fall 2022 issue of The South Carolina Review. “Pennsylvania Backwoods Elegy” will also appear in Red Ocher, forthcoming in Spring 2023.

Red Ocher now available for preorder

My debut poetry collection, Red Ocher, is now available for preorder through University of Arkansas Press. Red Ocher was a finalist for the Miller Williams Prize, and will be published in March 2023.

Read excerpts from the collection in New Ohio Review, The Adroit Journal, and Cotton Xenomorph.

Recent News

September 2022: More in Time: A Tribute to Ted Kooser won the Nebraska Book Awards’ 2022 Special Poetry Award.

August 2022: Red Ocher was named a finalist for the 2023 Miller Williams Poetry Prize and will be released in March 2023.