Books by Steven Leyva

Mid/South Sonnets

by C.T. Salazar, Casie Dodd, Brandon Amico, JC Andrews, Susan April, Stacey Balkun, Makalani Bandele, Anna Lena Phillips Bell, Andrea Blancas Beltran, Ellie Black, Darrell Bourque, Wendy Taylor Carlisle, Justin Carter, Michelle Castleberry, George David Clark, Adam Clay, Christian J Collier, Dorsey Craft, Brody Parrish Craig, Hannah Dow, George Drew, CD Eskilson, Ann Fisher-Wirth, Beth Gordon, Maggie Graber, David Greenspan, Andrew Hemmert, Raye Hendrix, Maggie Rue Hess, Faylita Hicks, Erin Hoover, Randall Horton, SG Huerta, T.R. Hummer, Jules Jacob, Bethany Jarmul, Grant Matthew Jenkins, Edison Jennings, Ashley M Jones, Carol Parris Krauss, T.K. Lee, Steven Leyva, Aurielle Marie, Landon McGee, Benjamin Morris, Caleb Nolen, Mónica Teresa Ortiz, Alison Pelegrin, Samuel Prestridge, Suzanne Underwood Rhodes, C. T. Salazar, Celeste Schueler, Gerry Sloan, Cody Smith, Tom Snarsky, Nathan Spoon, Colin James Sturdevant, Hiba Tahir, Nikki Ummel, Damien Uriah, Clara Bush Vadala, John Vanderslice, Cassandra Whitaker, Jim Whiteside, Marcus Wicker, Matthew Wimberley, Marianne Worthington, Jianqing Zheng

Mid/South Sonnets brings together sixty-six poets with ties throughout the American South. From Oklahoma to Florida-with larger clusters of work from the more centrally located Mid-Southern states, Arkansas, Mississippi, and Tennessee-the states represented through these writers offer a wide range of landscapes and perspectives that speak to the region's eclectic nature. While this anthology includes many conventional and experimental approaches to the sonnet form, each poem ultimately enacts an attempt to struggle through the anxieties of home in the hope of finding a place to love and belong.

Featuring:
Rasha Abdulhadi
Brandon Amico
JC Andrews
Susan April
Stacey Balkun
makalani bandele
Anna Lena Phillips Bell
Andrea Blancas Beltran
Ellie Black
Darrell Bourque
Wendy Taylor Carlisle
Justin Carter
Michelle Castleberry
George David Clark
Adam Clay
Christian J. Collier
Dorsey Craft
Brody Parrish Craig
Hannah Dow
George Drew
CD Eskilson
Ann Fisher-Wirth
Beth Gordon
Maggie Graber
David Greenspan
Andrew Hemmert
Raye Hendrix
Maggie Rue Hess
Faylita Hicks
Erin Hoover
Randall Horton
SG Huerta
T. R. Hummer
Jules Jacob
Bethany Jarmul
Grant Matthew Jenkins
Edison Jennings
Ashley M. Jones
Carol Parris Krauss
T. K. Lee
Steven Leyva
Aurielle Marie
Landon McGee
Benjamin Morris
Caleb Nolen
mónica teresa ortiz
Alison Pelegrin
Samuel Prestridge
Suzanne Underwood Rhodes
Celeste Schueler
Gerry Sloan
Cody Smith
Tom Snarsky
Nathan Spoon
colin james sturdevant
Hiba Tahir
Nikki Ummel
Damien Uriah
Clara Bush Vadala
John Vanderslice
Cassandra Whitaker
Jim Whiteside
Marcus Wicker
Matthew Wimberley
Marianne Worthington
Jianqing Zheng

The Opposite of Cruelty Poems

by Steven Leyva

Steven Leyva's second collection of poetry renders beauty through a Black man's lens in a post-pandemic world populated with superheroes and characters from ancient mythology.

In The Opposite of Cruelty, Steven Leyva's poems ask readers to see and remember beauty when the world seems to be in ruins, to notice and praise "the industrious cherry // trees budding despite a summer / full of bullets to come." For Leyva, beauty can be found in lineage and memory, in the heroes of the comics and TV shows he watched as a boy, in taking his children to the movies to see an Afro-Latino Spider-man on the big screen, and in doing so passing down that beauty, those means of survival. In these sonnets and urban pastorals you'll find Selena, UGK and Outkast, Storm, Static, and Batman, as well as Sisyphus, Medusa, Perseus, and Grendel. This weaving of modern culture and the ancient world calls attention to our need for stories, how heroes and villains take up residence inside us, how important it is to see one's self represented in art and film.

This book does not look away from life's hard and cruel moments, it simply dares to ask "What is the opposite of cruelty?" The answers: The beauty of a Black boy in his school picture, the beauty of one man's hand touching another man's face at the barber, the beauty of a family home or a memory of what it once was, "not a season of phantasmal peace, but what's left / when the world's terrors retreat."