As the Cuban Missile Crisis eases, President Kennedy is casting around for a demonstration of American prowess when one of his Cabinet unearths an old mandate that US Marines be fit enough to walk fifty miles in twenty hours. Perfect! Kennedy decides to throw down the gauntlet to “today’s Marines,” but before he knows it, he’s sparked a wild fad. The entire country has answered the call, it seems, and for a few crazed winter weeks, masses of Americans will embark on their own arduous Big Walks—the “JFK 50-Milers.”

This powerful companion to 2021’s Our Cancers catalogs the recovery of a cancer survivor, whose wife has recently survived her own cancer, as he returns to his daily life while raising a young daughter. This prose-poem sequence is truly a survivor’s notebook, using photos and the tools of memoir to evoke the ways in which disaster can constellate our past, present, and future.

A poetry collection examining masculinity, aggression, and violence.

In his fourth poetry collection, Matthew Minicucci examines masculinity and gun violence as he brings to life the grammatical concept of the dual, a number that is neither singular nor plural. Though now lost in English, the concept is present in other languages both extant and ancient. The poems’ forms fittingly include the elegy, palinode, and contrapuntal, which is both a single poem and two poems intertwined. They align contemporary moments with key texts from Western literature, including ancient Greek epics, in a way that helps us reconsider the aggression of young men. “The world kills kind boys,” Minicucci writes, and “we bury the bodies inside men.”

October 20th - Local book launch at Ernest and Hadley Books in Tuscaloosa Please be sure to RSVP on Eventbrite so we know how many chairs and snacks to provide! Thanks in advance -

Thursday October 26, 2023, 7-8pm, Northern Center Peninsula II - Visiting Writer at NMU w/ Christina Olson: https://nmu.edu/english/events

Reading @ University of Oregon Wednesday • November 8, 2023

Launch Party for PILGRIMS 2.0 Event date: Wednesday, November 15, 2023 - 7:00pm to 8:00pm Event location: Ciné Lab, 234 West Hancock Ave, Athens, GA 30601

Join poet and playwright Dan O'Brien live online at his home in California for an evening (or morning) of poetry, prose and performance with The Butcher's Dozen, a monthly series curated by London-based writer David Collard. This is the first time in over 150 gatherings that the program will be devoted entirely to the work […]

A reading at Powell’s City of Books (1005 W. Burnside St., Portland) on December 5th @ 7 PM

Book Signing & Reading with Former Merrill Fellow Matthew Minicucci JAMES MERRILL HOUSE VISITORS CENTER 107 Water Street, Stonington CT

The Unsung Masters Reading Room 2502B, Kansas City Convention Center, Level 2 Each year, the Unsung Masters Series publishes a book devoted to the life and work of a great but little known author. Volumes include large selections of the author's work printed alongside interviews, articles, drafts, photographs, and ephemera. This reading brings together the […]