Spoke (Paperback)

Arden Levine

ISBN 10: 1944585907 / ISBN 13: 9781944585907

Published by Word Works, 2026

About this Item

Paperback. Poetry. Arden Levine's debut full-length collection, Spoke, follows a woman cycling across the precarious terrain of heredity and legacy against the traffic of early trauma and grief. Part elegy for a parent lost young, part coming-of-age story-in-verse, part Generation X cultural inventory, Levine navigates accidents, sorrow, and urban landscapes with wit, cheek, and an excellent mix-tape.Says Sandra Beasley, "To fathom healing, we must first know the wound. In her moving collection, Arden Levine unpacks the wounds, offering attention that is by equal measures tender and forensic. Spoke creates a taxonomy of grief that is as surprising as it is capacious, locating elegy in handwritten letters, in bicycles, in music, and even in cake. These aren't just poems-they're access points to a complex personal chronicle and, more importantly, they are invitations to dialogue. Spoke offers beautiful revolutions of language and, within each turn, a revelation."Patricia Spears Jones adds, "What do bicycles and parking lots, pies and funeral homes, Joni Mitchell and Dolly Parton all have in common? They are figures in the emotionally powerful poems of Spoke by Arden Levine. This collection whispers, shouts, and sings in sorrow, rage, and tortured memory. Yes, sings: In their terse and truthful way, these poems reveal the living music of father/daughter relationships, guilt, grief, and deep, abiding love. Spoke shifts forms, breaks genres, and quotes pop tunes to tease out, tear up, and temper a woman's emotional journey." Part requiem for a lost father, part coming-of-age dance track, Spoke cycles across Gen X girlhood against the traffic of grief with wit and tenderness. This item is printed on demand. Shipping may be from our UK warehouse or from our Australian or US warehouses, depending on stock availability.

Seller Inventory # 9781944585907

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Spoke (Paperback)
• Publisher: Word Works
• Publication Date: 2026
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1944585907
• ISBN 13: 9781944585907
• Binding: Paperback
• Condition: new

About this title

Synopsis

Poetry. Spoke is a dirge, a love song, and a remixed retrospection. In Arden Levine's debut full-length collection, a woman cycles - literally and metaphorically - across decades of evolving city landscapes, the strange viaducts of cognition and memory, and the wandering geographies of the body. A catalog of childhood hazards and an elegy for a father lost young give way to a requiem for Generation X culture and a compassionate critique of language itself. Against the traffic of grief, Levine's poems offer a meditation on what rips jaggedly and what slices cleanly, navigating even the darkest turns with arch wit while pressing play. A finalist for the 2024 National Poetry Series, Spoke is a 2025 selection for The Word Works' Hilary Tham Capital Collection.

About the Author

Arden Levine's poems, essays, and reviews appear in AGNI, Barrow Street, Harvard Review, RHINO, Indiana Review, The Missouri Review, and elsewhere, and have been featured by the Poetry Foundation, Poetry Society of America, and WNYC's Radiolab. A member of the National Book Critics Circle and a finalist for the 2024 National Poetry Series, Arden lives in New York City and works in urban housing policy and community development.