Be Easy: New and Selected Poems

by Adrian Matejka

From award–winning poet Adrian Matejka, a vibrant and indispensable collection of new and selected poetry.


A finalist for the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize, Adrian Matejka has been a mainstay of contemporary American poetry for over two decades. Collecting hits from six extraordinary collections, Be Easy showcases Matejka’s singular sonics and narrative vision in fresh, dynamic poems that lyrically complicate place, race, and identity in contemporary America. New poems explore the twitchy unease of unintentional migration and economic instability as the country faces a future every bit as unsettling and circuslike as the parking lot carnivals in the Midwest. Selections from Mixology (2008)—“a post–soul tour de force” (Kevin Young)—shapeshift before our eyes; while “revelatory” (Gabrielle Calvocoressi) odes from The Big Smoke (2013) reimagine the legacy of prizefighter Jack Johnson; and transcendent poems from Map to the Stars (2017) brim with cosmic jazz. From a “rocket-powered” writer (Campbell McGrath), Be Easy affirms Adrian Matejka as one of the most revelatory and exciting voices of our times.

224 pages, Hardcover

Expected publication March 31, 2026

About the author

Adrian Matejka was born in Nuremberg, Germany but grew up in California and Indiana. He is a graduate of Indiana University and the MFA program at Southern Illinois University Carbondale. His first collection of poems, The Devils Garden, won the 2002 Kinereth Gensler Award from Alice James Books. His second collection, Mixology, was a winner of the 2008 National Poetry Series and was published by Penguin Books in 2009. Mixology was subsequently nominated for an NAACP Image Award. He is a Cave Canem fellow and is the recipient of two Illinois Arts Council Literary Awards. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in American Poetry Review, The Best American Poetry 2010, Crab Orchard Review, Gulf Coast, Pleiades, and Prairie Schooner among other journals and anthologies. He teaches at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville where he serves as Poetry Editor for Souwester."