[02/03/26] Zwart, Jane: Oddest & Oldest & Saddest & Best

Orison Books, paperback

Publication Date: February 3, 2026

Publisher Marketing: As its title hints, Oddest & Oldest & Saddest & Best insists on the links between congruous and incongruous things: the rusting moon and a katydid, Eden and Yugoslavia, blackbirds and imaginary numbers—not to mention between any two people. Jane Zwart has hoarded wonders large and small in these poems, holding them up beside life's inevitable pain and grief. Oddest & Oldest & Saddest & Best demonstrates an enduring faith in the written word to bind us closer together, in our sorrows and in our joys: "Every poem // is riddled with holes. But I am threading two tin cans' / punctured ends that you might know me yet."