Take Three: Agni New Poets Series: 1 (The Agni New Poets Series , No 1)

Take Three Poets

Take Thomas Sayers Ellis: Ellis's fractured syntax, his spasmodic, staccato utterance suggest a defiant sensibility. Indeed, at the center of Ellis's work is the figure of an aggressive father, taunting his son into song. Thomas Sayers Ellis was a founding member of Boston's Dark Room Collective and coeditor of AGNI's successful poetry anthology, On the Verge

Take Larissa Szporluk: This poet stalks a landscape that is humid, stylized, Southern. The poet Gregory Orr says of her work: "Faced with such rending beauty, such ravished lucidity, all we can do is stand back and gaze with gratitude and awe." Larissa Szporluk studied at the Iows Writers' Workshop, has taught at Bowling Green State University, and now resides in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Take Joe Osterhaus: Unabashedly intellectual and demanding, Osterhaus's verse displays a rare elegance. According to David St. John, "these precise meditations are dazzling for their ability to touch the seemingly ordinary moments of a life and find in them the materials of both miracle and change." Joe Osterhaus has published in such places as the Antioch Review, the Boston Review, and the Nebraska Review, and he currently lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Edited by Askold Melnyczuk and the poetry panel of AGNI magazine, Take Three is the first in an important annual series designed to launch the work of new poets.