Hi All! I am proud to announce that Curio is now available for order through Small Press Distribution. It is also available through Amazon. You can see a preview there now. It is a beautiful book. Elixir has done a fine job. I hope you will check it out and let me know what you think. Here is a preview of the cover with amazing artwork by Madeline von Foerster:

Here are the blurbs from the back of the book:

“Augury—the bones / can only reveal what is asked of them,” John A. Nieves writes in this stunning first book. Part scientist, part shaman, Nieves is unswervingly intelligent and deftly imaginative at knowing what to ask of the world. Human-scale, empathetic, and far-reaching, these poems engage the full range of the curiosity at the root of curio: the epistemological work of a mind turning/returning. From a father’s machine work to Schrodinger’s cat, archeology, bloodwork, and language, Nieves reminds us of the “magic/ in the artifact” and “in the making.”—Alexandra Teague, author of Mortal Geography

John A. Nieves’ Curio is a cabinet of strange relics. In his poems, the detritus of human life serves to prove that we matter, in both senses of that term: both that we are significant and that we leave ourselves in traces through the world. In these carefully wrought poems, rust and dust and sediment layer together to offer a historiography of artifacts, excavated against our inevitable vanishing. The machine floor is evidence that a father lived and worked, the scab confirms that a lover made some kind of mark. “I should leave / something as proof that I was here,” the poet writes in “Landing.” In Curio, the poem itself becomes that something.—Kimberly Johnson, author of Leviathan with a Hook

To enter the world of Curio, John A. Nieves’ compelling poetic debut, is to enter a world shaped by a curious and ravenous intellect, a world where “Morning/is the cold, rigid face of a coin, shining/in spite of all those dirty thumbs.” It’s a space of copious gathering—one that shares in the rich tradition of the Cabinet of Wonders where collections of memory, history, and language are pondered for their exquisite, revelatory nature, never losing their luster, but invoking, instead renewable facets of awe and inspiration.—Jane Satterfield, contest judge, author of Her Familiars

I am also happy to announce that you can hear me read three of my poems on Superstition Review's iTunes channel. I also want to take a second to thank everyone who made my first full semester at Salisbury amazing. You all rock. Have a happy new year all & thanks for your support.