Ideal Cities: Poems

“These poems are so generous, so bright and sharp, so funny and winning, they feel immense.”
—Paul Guest

“Erika Meitner is the new voice of intelligent and emotional poems. Good for poetry. Good for poetry lovers. Good for the rest of us, too.”
— Nikki Giovanni

Exploring themes of pregnancy, motherhood, ancestry, and life in the borderline slums of Washington, DC, the richly felt and adroit poetry of Erika Meitner’s Ideal Cities moves, mesmerizes, and delights. The work of an important emerging voice in contemporary American poetry—a winner of the 2009 National Poetry Series Prize as selected by Paul Guest—Ideal Cities gloriously perpetuates NPS’s long-standing tradition of promoting exceptional poetry from lesser-known poets.

Exploring themes of pregnancy, motherhood, ancestry, and life in the borderline slums of Washington, DC, the richly felt and adroit poetry of Erika Meitner's Ideal Cities moves, mesmerizes, and delights. The work of an important emerging voice in contemporary American poetry—a winner of the 2009 National Poetry Series Prize as selected by Paul Guest—Ideal Cities gloriously perpetuates NPS's long-standing tradition of promoting exceptional poetry from lesser-known poets.

“Ideal Cities by Erika Meitner is velocity and landscape, language and heart, the modern blur in which we live. These poems are so generous, so bright and sharp, so funny and winning, they feel immense: from the first lines, I was captivated. They were an unassailable announcement that the reader would never be bored or unmoved, that they were places one would never want to leave.” - Paul Guest

“Erika Meitner is the new voice of intelligent and emotional poems. Good for poetry. Good for poetry lovers. Good for the rest of us, too.” - Nikki Giovanni

The poems in Erika Meitner’s Ideal Cities are road maps, blueprints, dollhouses, dioramas.....Meitner’s poetry isn’t afraid of history and personal histories. Her voice is smart, sassy, and savvy. Her ideal poems are built with mortar and quirkily astounding metaphors - Denise Duhamel

“The poems in Erika Meitner’s Ideal Cities are road maps, blueprints, dollhouses, dioramas. Her decidedly unsentimental, poignant odes celebrate grand subjects and the joys of domestic life with idiosyncratic flair. Meitner’s poetry isn’t afraid of history and personal histories. Her voice is smart, sassy, and savvy. Her ideal poems are built with mortar and quirkily astounding metaphors.” - Denise Duhamel

“There are times, not too often I must admit, when you are downright glad you know somebody. And if that somebody is also a poet the story gets a lot better. And if that poetry is good, well, that’s butter in your grits, kisses on your pillow, someone to put your cold feet on while you curl up with Ideal Cities. Erika Meitner is the new voice of intelligent and emotional poems. Good for poetry. Good for poetry lovers. Good for the rest of us, too.” - Nikki Giovanni