Many thanks to Jennifer Oakes for selecting Spoke by Arden Levine and All Were Limones by Luisa Caycedo-Kimura as the 2024 selections for the Hilary Tham Capital Collection. Series Editor Brad Richard says, “We are honored to add two extraordinary collections by such formidably talented and accomplished poets to the Collection.”
Spoke by Arden Levine
“This is a jazzy, urgent collection full of music and breath, poems that spill a sparkling drawer to reveal a dailiness within that’s full of stark memory and dazzled hope. Many of the poems push into the question of how to fit in and how much of ourselves really belong to us. This collection is smart, unapologetic, observant, and crackling with truths whose prodding is just as likely to push a sore spot as an ignition button.”—Jennifer Oakes
Arden Levine is the author of Ladies’ Abecedary (Harbor Editions, 2021). Her poems and other writing have appeared in American Life in Poetry (a project of the Poetry Foundation, selected by Ted Kooser), Harvard Review, Indiana Review, The Missouri Review’s Poem-of-the-Week, Poetry Society of America’s Song Cycle series, WNYC’s Radiolab, and elsewhere. Arden is a National Book Critics Circle memer (reviewing poetry collections that address topics in contemporary public policy), and she serves on the Boards of Beloit Poetry Journal and No DearMagazine. A New York City municipal employee, Arden’s daily work focuses on housing affordability, homelessness prevention, and equitable community development.
All Were Limones by Luisa Caycedo-Kimura
“This collection is a balancing act along multiple planes with dramas that are simultaneously personal, national, and universal. The voice is one that both sings and scours, wades into toughness to get to vulnerability and then doubles back to double down—all while lifting music from language and beauty from rubble. I loved the intimacy, fearlessness, invention, and witness of this work which delivers more than truth: it gives us grace and reckoning as well.” —Jennifer Oakes
Luisa Caycedo-Kimura is a Colombian-born writer, translator, and educator. Her honors include a Connecticut Office of the Arts Emerging Recognition Award, a John K. Walsh Residency Fellowship at the Anderson Center, an Adrienne Reiner Hochstadt Fellowship at Ragdale, and a Robert Pinsky Global Fellowship in Poetry. A three-time Pushcart Prize nominee and Best of the Net nominee, her poems appear or are forthcoming in Four Way Review, Denver Quarterly, The Cincinnati Review, Shenandoah, Rattle, Mid-American Review, RHINO, and elsewhere. She is an Editor at Slapering Hol Press.
Jennifer Oakes (formerly Jennifer Boyden) is a poet and novelist. Her latest book of poems, We Can’t Tell If the Constellations Love Us, won the 42 Miles Poetry Prize. Earlier works (published under the name Boyden) include her novel, The Chief of Rally Tree, which was awarded the Siskiyou Prize for New Environmental Literature (Skyhorse Publishing), and two books of poems: The Declarable Future and The Mouths of Grazing Things (University of Wisconsin Press).
Brad Richard serves as Series Editor of the HTCC, which was founded by poet and editor Karren Alenier, current board chair at The Word Works. The HTCC celebrates and publishes poets who donate their time and talent to literary endeavors. Any organization may nominate their poet-volunteers for consideration!