Description: "The Necessary Poetics of Atheism" collects poems and essays by three award-winning contemporary poets who demonstrate how atheism informs their poetics: as "a vehicle of political protest" (Martín Espada), as a form of secular activism (Lauren Marie Schmidt) and as an aesthetic confrontation of a theistic worldview (J. D. Schraffenberger).
Brief description: Lauren Marie Schmidt is the author of three collections of poetry: Two Black Eyes and a Patch of Hair Missing, The Voodoo Doll Parade, and Psalms of the Dining Room. Her poems have appeared widely, including in North American Review, Alaska Quarterly Review, and Nimrod. Her fourth collection, Filthy Labors, is forthcoming in 2017 from Northwestern University Press.