The first review is in! Grace Cavalieri includes The Grace of Distance in her Poetry Exemplars for September in The Washington Independent Review of Books. 

Here's what she has to say:

"A new book by Thorburn is a pleasure. His familiar voice is a smooth-speaking one which imagines the poem into being with some of the finest lyrics in print. Thorburn takes a moment, explores it, then turns it on its head with a new sensibility."

You can see the review here.

I’m grateful to The Kenyon Review for giving me an opportunity to talk about my new book of poems, The Grace of Distance, and to Kristina Marie Darling for asking such good questions. I especially want to flag my advice for writers—just because for years I’ve thought the key to so much of the writing life is simply: Be Persistent. Be Stubborn. 

So please read the whole interview—and better yet, please read the book! But also please take some heart, as needed, from this:

I think it’s easy, especially when you’re starting out, to get discouraged or feel like your writing isn’t finding a place “out there” in the world of journals and book publishers. I’ve felt that way plenty of times. My best advice is… be stubborn and determined. Believe in your work—and keep sending your best work out to journals you read and admire, or to publishers whose books and chapbooks you enjoy. Just keep putting your work out there. There are so many writers trying to get published. It can take time for even the best work to find a good home.

Thanks to Heavy Feather Review for the chance to talk poetry with J.G. McClure. Our “collaborative conversation”—a sort of double-interview—was a fun opportunity to talk about putting together poetry books—in my case, The Grace of Distance, and in his, The Fire Lit and Nearing, his debut collection. 

I hope you’ll check out the conversation here.

Thanks so much to the editors of The Midnight Oil for taking two poems--"The Last Train" and "Where She Went"--for their upcoming issue. 

​You can read the summer issue here. 

Read Poetry includes The Grace of Distance among its top poetry new releases for August!

​If you haven't picked up a copy already, I hope you'll follow their good advice and take a look.

Thanks so much to the editors of Verse Daily for featuring "The Stag" as today's poem. And thank you to editor Rhett Iseman Trull for first publishing this poem in Cave Wall.

This poem is from a new manuscript I've been working on - a sequence of poems that detail the experiences of a teenage boy in a time of war and just after.

I'm excited to have a new poem online at The McNeese Review. "Someone He Loved" is part of the new book manuscript I've been working on about a teenage boy's experiences in a time of war, just before and just after. This poem focuses on the boy's Uncle Albert.

Thank you to the editors for publishing my long poem, "Forgotten Until You Find It," in the spring issue of The Southern Review. This poem, part of my forthcoming book The Grace of Distance, was inspired by a lunchtime trip to The Frick to see The Girl with A Pearl Earring when she was visiting.

Thanks so much to the editors of Poetry Northwest for including two of my poems in the new issue. And thanks to the Academy of American Poets for adding some of the poems from the issue to their website. You can read one of my poems there -- "Childhood Music."

I’m thrilled to have four poems in the new issue of Cave Wall. These poems—“Stag,” “Once,” “A Little” and “Disappear”—make a nice intro to the new book project I’ve been working on for the past few years.

This issue includes images of some of the contributors’ drafts of their poems (including mine) as artwork throughout the issue. There is also “bonus material” online that complements this issue--Q&As with the contributors on revision.

Thanks so much to editor Rhett Iseman Trull for publishing these poems and for her enthusiasm for this project of mine.