New American Summer

Author: Kristen Gallagher
Publisher: Spiral Editions (2026)

"a dog at the beach
staring at the horizon
is ridiculous
and sweet.
I feel ridiculous
up late writing to see
if anything good happens
maybe that’s a problem
I think it’s magic instead of skill
maybe that’s the world’s problem
they were taught it’s skill and not magic
I keep writing hoping to find out
whatever I find out"

Kristen sez: "A selection of poems arriving from notebooks I kept from 2020 thru 2026. A release of some ongoing correspondences (as in Spicer): riding the colonial-era backroads, rehabilitating my mother’s garden, and learning death’s dark humor in haunted Pennsylvania. Back and forth to Queens; union organizing as resisting the “normal.” Learning a poetry with no final outcome: an interruption, a snapshot, a negotiated truce..."

We say: These are poems for park bench and bedside, for out loud recitation under or not under trees; small amulets that act as convex psychedelic mirrors to our known world, signposts and premonitions to the world we'd like to know. "there are only seven minutes in eternity / the rest is phenomenal life / false gods, graffiti and
/ the glue of existence." It's a bit of poetry church: softly Schuyler, softly Tu Fu. Like a small distant star that brings an agreeable amount of warmth and light, just enough to reveal the true bits under the dermis of the fake world--and one that we might be able to slightly bend our own ears and eyes to hear and witness the scratches and songs illumined and light-cast. A book made for a back pocket.

Kristen Gallagher’s books include 85% True/Minor Ecologies (Skeleton Man, 2017), Grand Central (Troll Thread, 2016), and We Are Here (Truck Books, 2011). She is a professor of English at City University of New York — LaGuardia Community College in Queens, New York.