Action Books

A new installment of Stockroom Picks is now live! Today's featured guest is @rakishheir , author of CALL THE NECROMANCER (Action Books, 2026) and she has kindly recommended five of her favorite Action Books titles at the link below. Check 'em out! Thanks to #ActionBooks assistant editor @__myaru__ for curating! Here are some highlights. Click on the link in our profile to read the entire article: "[Wild Grass on the Riverbank] is one of my favorite books! I love an epic poem! I wish this were a book taught in high school—like instead of reading Gatsby or The Cremation of Sam McGee, let’s read Hiromi Itō!" @jeffreyangles "If I ever thought about what you do and don’t put in a poem, the answer looks back at me through Heikkinen’s Fatty-XL poems. I LOVE IT when a voice is rude and the poems are saturated! That’s all lyric poetry, ever, I suppose. I say rude but might also say poignant or raw or frank. It has kind of James Tate + Chappell Roan vibes (?)!" @niinausea "Cheer Up, Femme Fatale is so Greek chorus! This is also one of my favorite books to teach because of how the reader’s gaze is weaponized and the intense polyvocal I." "OMG, what’s not to love? I remember Cronk’s [Skin Horse] as one of the first Action titles I read lol but I realize I couldn’t have read them all first. I love it when a book remakes the world around it and language turns talismanic, something sacred for sure but also something to wield—is that not the most occult? This book is a mood! I’m thinking Pretty Little Liars meets an ooze spill from TMNT meets the Syfy channel’s 2009 Alice, all rolled up in gossip & crime & mutant-y/mutiny so juicy. It’s terrifying." "[Valerie Hsiung's efg] makes me think of Anais Duplan’s ekphrastic work (“ekphrasis as an act of devotion”). Maybe the musicality of it? Dislocated voices, spiritual and linguistic echoes, funeral pyres, strange flora and fauna, Hsiung’s book is haunted and haunts. I LOVE an underworld!" @valeriehsiung [Continue reading by visiting the link in our profile]

Happening at NYU Center for Humanities for Colloquy 21 on May 5th at 6pm est: Experimental Translation with Mónica de la Torre, Robert Fitterman, @m_litgeek_martin ⁠ This event will feature iterative translation, English to English translation, and self-translation, among other genre-defying modes. We will ask what defines the act of translation, how can we expand this understanding, and where the lines exist between translation and "original" writing. Learn more: /e/colloquy-21-experimental-translation-tickets-1987074256592 @worldpoetrybooks @nyuhumanities

In the muddy muck and mire the planting’s better thus modularity applies to us to occupy the existing zone between the laser discs this month's poetry in action is now up at the @actionbooks blog featuring poems by @carolinadaviladd translated by Ryan Greene check out them out here: /2026/04/poetry-in-action-55-from-alien-animal-by-carolina-davila-translated-by-ryan-greene/ #poetry #colombianpoetry #poetryinaction #poesiacolombiana #carolinadavila #ryangreene #actionbooks

@laraglenum and POP CORPSE!!

Shitholes of the World, Unite! Scenes from yesterday's oetry-in-translation marathon reading at @strochtavern @neworleanspoetry Thanks to everyone who came out! Photos by @pcunning1

BUNDLE NOW AVAILABLE! Get our latest titles for a discount! Bundle includes Two Poems, by Jaime Saenz (translated by @kit_sch_ and @ted_dodson ), and call the necromancer, by @rakishheir #ActionBooks #poetry #translation #newbooks #books

You're invited to SHITHOLES OF THE WORLD, UNITE! NEXT FRIDAY at @neworleanspoetry !!! Featuring poets from Action Books @cardboardhousepress , @carrionbloombooks , —co•im•press— @stevehalle77 , @lavender.ink.dialogos , @eulalia.books , @worldpoetrybooks , and more!!! #Poetry #Translation #NOLA #NOPF #NewOrleans

Incantation or hex? The story continues! If you purchased @rakishheir 's CALL THE NECROMANCER chapbook from @carrionbloombooks in 2022, now you can experience the full-length version from #Action Books! Leia Penina Wilson's CALL THE NECROMANCER performs boldly on the page. Be medusa'd, be transmogrified: follow cordeliababy (King Lear) down a terricus rabbit hole where the poet, acting as voice mediator and corpse manipulator, prompts readers to weigh the value of death against the absurdity of reason. #Poetry #Books #NewBooks #Shakespeare

TWO new titles dropping on April 1st, 2026. Check them out.

This is a joint review of I Have Brought You a Severed Hand by Ghayath Almadhoun and Document by Amelia Rosselli. It was published in Wasafiri, issue no. 125. By Godelieve de Bree.

@rakishheir with her brand new book: CALL THE NECROMANCER!! Come pick up a copy for yourself! 🌻

#awp