Independent Publishers Since 1975
Through October 31st, Persea is accepting entries for the Lexi Rudnitsky First Book Prize in Poetry, open to women who have yet to publish a full-length collection. The winner receives publication in Spring 2028, $1,000.00, and an expenses-paid, six week residency with the Civitella Ranieri Foundation, housed in a fifteenth century castle in Umbria, Italy.
This contest is held in commemoration of poet-activist Lexi Rudnitsky, whose posthumous book of poetry, A Doorless Knocking into Night, will be reissued by Persea in April. Click here for more information and complete eligibility guidelines. For those experiencing financial hardship, please email poetry@perseabooks.com to inquire about an entry fee waiver.
NeW & Forthcoming
Soul Cake by Lisa Russ Spaar
The poems in Lisa Russ Spaar’s seventh full-length collection wrest from their rich, sumptuous, surprising lexicon flashes of dread, beyonding, and gnosis.
Amerigun by Anne Marie Macari
In her heartrending sixth collection of poetry, Anne Marie Macari communes with a brother decades gone and calls out a gun-obsessed America has enabled countless similar deaths.
Universal Corner by Mitchell L.H. Douglas
From the author of dying in the scarecrow's arms, new poems powered by the twin musical engines of punk and Hip-Hop.
Arguments by Benjamin Gucciardi
Winner of the 2025 Lexi Rudnitsky Editor’s Choice Award
“Poems to make you think and cry and maybe love.”
—Rebecca Solnit
SOFAR by Elizabeth Bradfield
“Some poets take nonhuman nature as just one more subject; for Bradfield, however, plants and animals—Atlantic seascapes, tropical forests, marine mammals, migratory seabirds—give most of her poems their reason to exist...”
—Stephanie Burt, American Poet
From hospital rooms to dive bars, Don't Let It Kill You by Theo LeGro confronts the complexities of loss and mortality with ferocity and wit. With language that refuses to flinch or flatter, these poems tells the truth about sickness: How boring it is. How brutal. How sacred. The poems do not seek to inspire. They do not resolve. They testify.
NEWS & Updates
Acclaimed poet Patrick Rosal has been named the 2026 Poet-in-Residence at the Guggenheim Museum in New York City.
Per the Guggenheim’s website, “The Poet-in-Residence program seeks to create poetic experiences that deepen public engagement with the museum, its architecture, and its collections, while fostering a sense of community and shared experience.”
Rosal is the author of five full-length poetry collections (all with Persea), including The Last Thing: New & Selected Poems, which won the William Carlos Williams Book Award from the Poetry Society of America. His next collection, Prayers from the Protosonic, will be published in May 2027.