Wide Ass of Night

The poems in Kristi Maxwell’s Wide Ass of Night, prod and probe the ways encounters make and change us, and embrace the possibility of pleasure amidst the realities of diminishment and damage. Often funny, sometimes mournful, Maxwell’s poems give credence to the claim that ＂poetry is a language that squirms,＂ valuing proliferation over reduction and embracing slipperiness instead of trying to pin down the world. Maxwell’s newest and most audacious collection yet takes in as much of the human experience as possible into a tight embrace that is equal parts loving and menacing.

Kristi Maxwell is the author of nine books of poems, including Goners (Green Linden Press, 2023), winner of the Wishing Jewel Prize; My My (Saturnalia Books, 2020); Realm Sixty-four (Ahsahta Press, 2008), editor’s choice for the Sawtooth Poetry Prize and finalist for the National Poetry Series; and Hush Sessions (Saturnalia, 2009), editor’s choice for the Saturnalia Books Poetry Prize. She’s an associate professor of English at the University of Louisville. Kristi holds a PhD in Literature & Creative Writing from the University of Cincinnati and an MFA in Poetry from the University of Arizona.