The Sealey Challenge
The Sealey Challenge, 2025
I am doing a lot less posting/reviewing/commenting this year, but will update my reading--which I am doing--here and on Instagram. For more information about The Sealey Challenge (read a poem, or a lit journal, or a book of poems each day in August), you can head to this site and get involved! The Sealey Challenge
My 2025 reading:
1. A Detail in That Story by Sondra Zeidenstein
2. The Sinks by Ryan Walsh
3. Cold Work by Cecily Parks
4. Salt Pier by Dore Kiesselbach
5. Take Me with You by Andrea Gibson
6. The Sky Was Once a Dark Blanket by Kinsdale Drake
7. Everyone I've Danced With Is Dead by Mamie Morgan
8. Bright Wings edited by Billy Collins
9. Falling Off the Empire State Building by Jimmy Pappas
10. Is This My Final Form? by Amy Gerstler
11. Eye Level by Jenny Xie
12. What To make of a Diminished Thing by Marjorie L. Manwaring
13. The Girlhood Book of Prairie Myths by Sandy Longhorn
14. Citizen of Metropolis by Christine Howey
15. The Fight Journal by John W. Evans
16. Ancestral Demon of a Grieving Bride by Sy Hoahwah
17. The Last Mastodon by Christina Olson
18. Half Wild by Mary Rose O'Reilley
19. Teeth Never Sleep by Ángel García
20. Dark Blonde by Belle Waring
21. How the Sky Fell by Denise Duhamel
22. Ordinary Beast by Nicole Sealey
23. The Alphabet Not Unlike the World by Katrina Vandenberg
24. [ . . . ] by Fady Joudah
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The Sealey Challenge 2024
Here is my list of books read during the 2024 Sealey Challenge. I am also posting on all of my social media, and even started a subReddit group! The world would be so much better of everyone read a book of poetry each day in August!
Starred entries are books that have the word "orange" in them. This is not something I was hoping for, or even looking for, but by seeing "orange" in the first three books I read, it stood out. Then it became a quest! I was hoping each book would contain "orange," but that did not happen. Then I hoped enough books would mention the word more than once, to make up for the books that did not have "orange" in them. It does not look promising, but we'll see!
This is the link to The Sealey Challenge's official page.
August 1: The Orange and Other Poems by Wendy Cope (Faber and Faber, 2024)*
August 2: From From: Poems by Monica Youn (Graywolf Press, 2023)*
August 3: Dear Future by Jennifer Richter (The Word Works, 2023)*
August 4: Portrait of the Alcoholic by Kaveh Akbar (Sibling Rivalry Press, 2017)
August 5: Spineless: Memoir in Invertabrates by Melody Wilson (Finishing Line Press, 2023)*
August 6: The Morning You Saw a Train of Stars Streaking Across the Sky by CooXooEii Black (Rattle, 2022)
August 7: Snake Lore by Jane Morton (Black Lawrence Press, 2024)*
August 8: Walking Backwards: New Poems by Shirley Geok-lin Lim (West End Press, 2010)*
August 9: The Ferry Keeper by Judith H. Montgomery (Grayson Books, 2024)*
August 10: Habitat Threshold by Craig Santos Perez (Omnidawn, 2020)
August 11: Lock Her Up by Tina Parker (Accents Publishing, 2021)
August 12: Pietà by Frank Paino (Jacar Press, 2023)
August 13: Sweet Mercies by Dianne Stepp (Finishing Line Press, 2017)*
August 14: Peculiar Heritage by DeMisty D. Bellinger (Mason Jar Press, 2021)
August 15: for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enough by ntozake shange (Macmillan Publishing,
1977)*
August 16: Praise to Lesser Gods of Love by Noor Ibn Najam (Glass Poetry Press, 2019)
August 17: Always Filling Always Full by Margaret Chula (White Pine Press, 2001)
August 18: Shouting from the Book of Orange by Sue Ranglack (Utah State Poetry Society, 2006)*
August 19: The Garden of Persuasions by Maura High (Jacar Press, 2013)
August 20: Holy Moly Carry Me by Erika Meitner (BOA, 2018)
August 21: Baiting the Void by Penelope Scambly Schott (Dream Horse Press, 2005)
August 22: My Kindred by Paulann Petersen (Salmon Poetry, 2023)
August 23: Maps You Can't Make by Mariella Saavedra Carquin (June Road Press, 2023)
August 24: Acadiana by Nancy Reddy (Black River Press, 2018)*
August 25: Each Unkept Secret (Moon Path Press, 2024)*
August 26: Instructions for Killing the Jackal by Erica Wright (Black Lawrence Press, 2011)
August 27: The Naked Room by Willa Schneberg (Broadstone 2023)
August 28: Night Ocean by Carolyn Oliver (Seven Kitchens Press, 2023)
August 29: Ghose Exhibit by Melissa Atkinson Mercer (Glass Poetry Press, 2018)
August 30: X/EX/EXIS: poems for the nation by raquel salas rivera (Bilingual Press, 2020)
August 31: And Now, Nowhere But Here by Andrea Hollander (Terrapin Books, 2023)
THE SEALEY CHALLENGE, 2023
For more information on The Sealey Challenge, click here.
August 1: The Wild Fox of Yemen by Threa Almontaser (Graywolf Press, 2020)
August 2: A Place So Deep Inside America It Can't Be Seen by Kari Gunter-Seymour (Sheila-Na-Gig Editions, 2020)
August 3: The Night Divers by Melanie McCabe (Terrapin Books, 2022)
August 4: For My Past and Future Assassin by Terrance Hayes (Penguin Poets, 2018)
August 5: American Zero by Stella Wong (two sylvias press, 2019)
August 6: I Will Pass Even to Acheron by Amanda Newell (Rattle, 2021)
August 7: Mothman Apologia by Robert Wood Lynn (Yale University Press, 2022)
August 8: Blood Dazzler by Patricia Smith (Coffee House Press, 2008)
August 9: Bright Dead Things by Ada Limón (Milkweed Editions, 2015)
August 10: Still Life with Mother and Knife by Chelsea Rathburn (LSU Press, 2019)
August 11: Earthwork by Kristin Berger (The Poetry Box, 2022)
August 12: Forest Primeval by Vievee Francis (Triquaterly Books, 2016)
August 13: The Animal After Whom Other Animals Are Named by Nicole Sealey (Northwestern U Press, 2016)
August 14: All the Flowers Kneeling by Paul Tran (Penguin Poets, 2022)
August 15: Partial Genius by Mary Bidding (Black Lawrence Press, 2019)
August 16: Late Wife by Claudia Emerson (LSU Press, 2005)
August 17: Field Guide to the End of the World by Jeannine Hall Gailey (Moon City Press, 2016)
August 18: And So Wax Was Made & Also Honey by Amy Beeder (Tupelo Press, 2020)
August 19: Tips for Domestic Travel by Hayden Saunier (Black Lawrence Press, 2009)
August 20: They Speak of Fruit by Gary L. McDowell (Cooper Dillon Books, 2009)
August 21: Dialogues with Rising Tides by Kelli Russell Agodon (Copper Canyon Press, 2021)
August 22: Buffer Zone: Snapshots From an Abortion Clinic Escort by Christine Taylor (Vegetarian Alcoholic Press, 2020)
August 23: The Wendys by Allison Benis White (Four Way Books, 2020)
August 24: Saltwater Demands a Psalm by Kweku Abimbola (Graywolf Press, 2023)
August 25: Obit by Victoria Chang (Copper Canyon Press, 2020)
August 26: Did You Know? by Elizabeth S. Wolf (Rattle, 2019)
August 27: Silt by Erica Wright (dancing girl press, 2019)
August 28: Exploded Assembly by Karen Donovan (Sow's Ear, 2020)
August 29: To Drink from a Wider Bowl by Joanne Durham (Evening Street Press, 2021)
August 30: A Plucked Zither by Phuong T. Vuong (Red Hen Press, 2023)
August 31: The Blue Hills: Poems after the Life of Maud Gonne by Lucinda Grey (The Comstock Review, 2011)