Trading Riffs to Slay Monsters: Poems

＂A witty and searching collaborative poetic work by Yusef Komunyakaa and Laren McClung composed during the pandemic＂-- Provided by publisher.

Yusef Komunyakaa’s books of poetry include Everyday Mojo Songs of Earth, The Emperor of Water Clocks, Testimony: A Tribute to Charlie Parker, The Chameleon Couch, Warhorses, Taboo, Talking Dirty to the Gods, and Neon Vernacular, for which he received the Pulitzer Prize. His plays, performance art, and librettos have been performed internationally and include Wakonda’s Dream, Saturnalia, Testimony, and Gilgamesh: A Verse Play. He teaches at New York University.

Laren McClung is the author of a collection of poems, Between Here and Monkey Mountain, and the editor of Inheriting the War: Poetry and Prose by Descendants of Vietnam Veterans and Refugees. Her poems have appeared in The American Poetry Review, Boston Review, Harvard Review, Poetry, The Yale Review, and many other journals and anthologies. She has held fellowships and residencies from Teachers and Writers Collaborative, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and the Oberpfälzer Künstlerhaus in Schwandorf, Germany. She teaches writing at New York University.