UNT Press

Other Edens

— Vol. 33: of Vassar Miller Prize in Poetry

Published: April, 2026  Pages: 80 

Other Edens captures the heartache that arises from hope’s repeated failures. While the book’s poems have occasional formal leanings, they serve as attempts to bring structure to the chaos of the world, but even those attempts prove to be ragged and imperfect, as if nothing—not even poetry—can escape the contemporary world’s ruinous touch. The poems explore how grief (re)shapes belief and how death (re)shapes memory. Readers of Frank Stanford’s poetry might find a kinship between his and Bowen’s depictions of menace in the world, particularly in the rural South, where violence patiently waits to be useful to someone. Bowen’s poems are stark and terse, eschewing any poetic impulses to repaint the world as anything but a demoralizing series of crushing disappointments. more... about Other Edens