In her first book of new poems in twelve years, acclaimed poet Rita Dove investigates the vacillating moral compass guiding America’s, and the world’s, experiments in democracy. Deftly connecting history’s grand exploits to the triumphs and tragedies of individual lives—a trademark of the writer the Boston Globe has called “perhaps the best public poet we have”—and alternating poignant meditations on mortality with acerbic observations of injustice, Playlist for the Apocalypse takes us from the smallest moments of redemption to apocalyptic failures of the human soul.

This event originally took place August 3, 2021; it can be watched on the Rain Taxi Review of Books YouTube page.

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  (image credit: Rebecca Clarke)
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• Click below to read them now!
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• "By the Book," The New York Times (August 6, 2021)
• Interview with Chet'la Sebree, Guernica (August 11, 2021)
• Interview with Margaret Quamme, The Columbus Dispatch (August 15, 2021)

...and the reviews are in!

From Meredith Boe of Chicago Review of Books: "[Dove's] poems magnify the marginalized individual, simultaneously illuminating national and global failed attempts at democracy. As always, her words are raw, poignant, and accessible."

From Dwight Garner of The New York Times: "'Playlist for the Apocalypse,' Rita Dove’s new book of poems, is among her best. [...] You sense the books of many poets of Dove’s generation slipping to the back of the bookcase. Not hers."

From Publishers Weekly: "Dove brilliantly breathes new life into the present age, revealing it as a time for urgent change."

A piercing, unflinching new volume offers necessary music for our tumultuous present, from “perhaps the best public poet we have” (Boston Globe).

In her first volume of new poems in twelve years, Rita Dove investigates the vacillating moral compass guiding America’s, and the world’s, experiments in democracy. Whether depicting the first Jewish ghetto in sixteenth-century Venice or Black Lives Matter, this extraordinary poet never fails to connect history’s grand exploits to the triumphs and tragedies of individual lives—the simmering resentment of an elevator operator, an octogenarian’s exuberant mambo, the mordant humor of a philosophizing cricket.

Audaciously playful yet grave, alternating poignant meditations on mortality and acerbic observations of injustice, Playlist for the Apocalypse takes us from the smallest moments of redemption to apocalyptic failures of the human soul.

For more information, including pre-ordering Playlist for the Apocalypse, visit W. W. Norton's website.