New Names for Stars (PB) (2026)

Len Lawson's remarkable poetry collection New Names for Stars is a journey and a companion for that journey, exploring Afrofuturism, superheroes, mental health, social justice, and beyond, with narratives ranging from personal to universal. At one moment, we're experiencing the daunting-yet-intimate vastness of the cosmos, as the poem "slush" instructs, "bury me in a slush of stars. if i transition from this life to the next, light scrubbed from my eyes, call me by this name. i'm rejoining the slush that birthed me." Later we interface with important figures like Simone Biles, Guy Bluford, and Amanda Waller, and conclude with the poignant "Elegy for Chadwick Boseman." Lawson's talent for stunningly original diction is a constant in this volume of varied textures and themes. It's impossible not to be awed by his turns of phrase, as in "what if the universe is flesh" when the speaker notes, "wasn't the universe supposed / to be made by a voice, // the single most devastating / weapon to the body? // no one asked for light." Every poem in this collection provides readers with the gift of wisdom, opening a conversation with history both distant and near, enlightening as it delights.

--Mary Biddinger, Author of Department of Elegy and The Girl with the Black Lipstick