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Joshua Coben‘s first book, Maker of Shadows (Texas Review Press, 2010) won the X.J. Kennedy Poetry Prize. His second collection, Night Chaser (David Robert Books, 2020), was a finalist for the Vassar Miller Prize, the New American Poetry Prize, and the Donald Justice Poetry Prize.

“One of the very best collections ever to grace the Texas Review Press’s series. The poems are wonderfully fresh and closely packed, with a lot of superior music going on. ” — X.J. Kennedy

“Joshua Coben is a lyric poet of the first order….“
Bruce Weigl

“Joshua Coben’s poems have a somber beauty and tender metaphysical playfulness that mark him out as a poet of exceptional talent and originality.”
James Lasdun

“In these heartbreakingly honest poems, Joshua Coben goes ‘down to the underworld’ to chase the complexities of being a son, a father, a lover, a husband, a self….[W]hat most balances their dark wisdom is the beautiful music of the language.”—Martha Collins

[S]trong, imaginative poems not afraid to take risks…that aim at the communication of the human experiences they spring from, and make no effort to distort those experiences into stylish obscurity, or banish the feelings they evoke.
Rhina P. Espaillat

Coben’s lines are deft and elegant, approaching revelation, showing us the way to sober beauties.
Afaa Michael Weaver