Uploaded July 2022 | Updated September 2026, 1 week ago
A virtual event with poet and Pulitzer Prize finalist Jos Charles discussing her new book "a Year & other poems," joined by author Jordy Rosenberg, artist manuel arturo abreu and poet Julian Talamantez Brolaski. This event was pre-recorded.
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From the celebrated author of "feeld" comes a formally commanding third collection, dexterously recounting the survival of a period suffused with mourning.
Jos Charles’s poems communicate with one another as neurons do: sharp, charged, in language that predates language. “A scandal / three cartons red / in a hedge / in / each the thousand eye research of flies.” With acute lyricism, she documents how a person endures seemingly relentless devastation—California wildfires, despotic legislation, housing insecurity—amid illusions of safety. “I wanted to believe,” Charles declares, “a corner a print leaned to / a corner can save / a people.” Still the house falls apart. Death visits and lingers. Belief proves, again and again, that belief alone is not enough.
Yet miraculously, one might still manage to seek—propelled by love, or hope, or sometimes only momentum—something better. There is a place where there are no futile longings, no persistent institutional threats to one’s life. Poems might take us there; tenderness, too, as long as we can manage to keep moving. “A current / gives as much as it has,” writes Charles—despite fire, despite loss.
A virtual event with poet and Pulitzer Prize finalist Jos Charles discussing her new book "a Year & other poems," joined by author Jordy Rosenberg, artist manuel arturo abreu and poet Julian Talamantez Brolaski. This event was pre-recorded.
Strand Events: strandbooks.com/events
Shop The Strand: strandbooks.com
Follow us! @strandbookstore
instagram: https://www.instagram.com/strandbooks...
twitter: twitter.com/strandbookstore
tik tok: tiktok.com/@strandbookstore
facebook: facebook.com/strandbookstore
___________________________________________________________________
From the celebrated author of "feeld" comes a formally commanding third collection, dexterously recounting the survival of a period suffused with mourning.
Jos Charles’s poems communicate with one another as neurons do: sharp, charged, in language that predates language. “A scandal / three cartons red / in a hedge / in / each the thousand eye research of flies.” With acute lyricism, she documents how a person endures seemingly relentless devastation—California wildfires, despotic legislation, housing insecurity—amid illusions of safety. “I wanted to believe,” Charles declares, “a corner a print leaned to / a corner can save / a people.” Still the house falls apart. Death visits and lingers. Belief proves, again and again, that belief alone is not enough.
Yet miraculously, one might still manage to seek—propelled by love, or hope, or sometimes only momentum—something better. There is a place where there are no futile longings, no persistent institutional threats to one’s life. Poems might take us there; tenderness, too, as long as we can manage to keep moving. “A current / gives as much as it has,” writes Charles—despite fire, despite loss.
