I had the pleasure of interviewing poets Justin Evans and Jeff Newberry about their collaborative book of poems, Cross Country, for PANK. 

Cross Country is a collection of epistolary poems that Justin and Jeff wrote back and forth to each other during 2016 and early 2017. These letter-poems are wide-ranging, encompassing thoughts about the nature of art, religion, family, and politics. I caught up with them over email—from New Jersey to Georgia to Utah and back—during the busy back-to-school season to get the backstory on Cross Country.

Click here to read the interview.

The Grace of Distance gets a big thumbs-up from The Midwest Book Review. Here's a highlight:

"Where [Thorburn] excels is in the patient unfolding of story where he lays a platform and then slowly changes those thoughts to extraordinary ideas that shed new light. To read this book is to feel satisfied by language refreshed, sweetly composed with honesty and grace."

Read the full review here.

Thanks to The Adroit Journal for publishing a review of The Grace of Distance. Reviewer Hannah Vanderhart praised my new book for “...what Thorburn’s poetry does best—engage the world with a serious attention and imagination, call into 'that dark glitter,' and listen for a response."

Here's the review.

I've been busy setting up more readings to share The Grace of Distance, including upcoming events in New Jersey, New York and Michigan in the fall and spring.

​Please check out the events page for more info. And stay tuned for a few additional readings to come...

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.