The Near and Distant World: Poems

by Bianca Stone

A vivid, enthralling new collection of poems from the Vermont Poet Laureate and award-winning author of What is Otherwise Infinite, The Möbius Strip Club of Grief, and Someone Else’s Wedding Vows

In her latest, brilliant collection, Bianca Stone continues to explore and interrogate the full spectrum of life, from an unexpectedly intimate conversation with an internet technician in Brooklyn, to a deep dive into Greek mythology, psychoanalysis, and modern philosophy. “I am thinking of what it means to be alive in this world,” Stone muses, “I want to get it not right but near.” With her signature incisive perspective, Stone debates the paradoxes of finding one’s own self amid parenthood, global change, and the constant press of mortality. 

In these fifty-one poems, Stone seamlessly ties together allusions to Jordan Peele’s Nope, Rilke’s elegies, and other cultural touchstones to arrive at new revelations. With fluidity and wryness, she brings readers to the brink of psychic wounds, operatic dramas, and strange dreams, with a fresh narrative in the rich mytho-poetic tradition.

Genres: Poetry

112 pages, Paperback

Expected publication January 13, 2026

About the author

Bianca Stone is a writer and visual artist. She was born and raised in Vermont and moved to New York City where she received her MFA from NYU in 2009. Her poems, poetry comics, and nonfiction have appeared in a variety of magazines including The New Yorker, Poetry Magazine, American Poetry Review and many others.

She has returned to Vermont with her husband and collaborator, the poet Ben Pease, where she is director of programs for The Ruth Stone House, a literary nonprofit artist residency, letterpress studio and community poetry center.

Reviews

[Hannah · Rating 5 out of 5]

I, too, am deeply distracted by the question of existing and then also of having meaning. These works are so big and small at the same time, which I think is one of my favorite feelings when reading poetry. I want a universal truth that makes me feel part of something, and at the same time deeply alone. I get to pick which I feel at any given moment. This collection has a lot of new favorites and I'm happy this was my introduction to Bianca Stone.

Thanks for the ARC

[Nancy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Belief

The briar patch where I was born is flowering.
A stone path leads to the brook.
Hummingbirds find the greensward’s stargazer lilies,
their sepals open like the intimate eye of belief.

Yes, I would.
I would repeat this life.

I loved the unexpected imagery in these poems. An overcoat flapping open like a hospital gown. Fall “staggering on”, as if “beautiful and stung from battle.” Being “run through by feeling as if by a bayonet.” The references to Greek myths, poets, artists, music, philosophers.

What’s Poetry Like describes a young man asking about a book of poetry, what poetry was like, something that can’t be explained. So, she gives him the book, later imagining the book “waiting to be opened, waiting to torment him, thinking of it changing his life.” And, of course, poetry has that ability to change your life.

The Translation Elegies references Rilke, attempting “to articulate the question of why the innocent suffer, why we cannot gain our innocence back.”

Thoughts at the Grave considers Rodin: “Even Rodin must have sensed it. How when a face emerged out of nothing in his obsessive work, that what was hidden was lost in the stone, once it was carved into something.”

Civilization and Its Discontents caught me: I have two apple trees and wasps on the group. I adopted a dog no one wanted. I used to blow bubbles for our son to chase. The poem shifts to the recollection of a line written a decade ago. “When you write you try and make sure it’s ready before you serve it”, she writes, “I want to get it not right but near.” Near is all we can expect, anyway, as we put feelings into words. But near is more than good enough.

There are disturbing questions asked, the “death instinct” desiring to return “to the old state of things, the first stoney lifeless form we held, how we live merely a circuitous path towards inertia,” the “letting go.”

But in Belief, the startling acceptance of life’s beauty is enough to affirm, “I would repeat this life.”

Thanks to the publisher for a free book.

[Ann · Rating 4 out of 5]

Vermont Poet Laureate Bianca Stone strikes a tonal mix of seriousness and wit in her newest collection. Stone blends everyday encounters with myth/psyche and an ethos that is near/distant, seeking "to get it not right but near" right. Of the 51 poems, my favorites are:
-"Old Bio in Snow," a snowy, peripatetic ars poetica: driving, lecturing, doubling back—using weather, philosophy, and repetition to think about how a life “lectures” itself and rewrites the past. 
-"What’s Poetry Like?", a meta-poem that stages poetry’s strange usefulness through a chance encounter between a young, apprentice IT guy and the poet.
-"Memory Palace," which refers to the mnemonic “rooms” of mind—how stored images, griefs, and selves are arranged, reopened, and re-narrated
-"Thoughts at the Grave," an elegiac poem that lends the collection its title with the line: "Even the near world is distant."
-"Black Sunflower," a mind-in-bloom image—a dark sunflower turning toward its source of light/darkness—suggesting language’s absences as the very conditions of attention and desire.
-"Liriope's Poem," which frames the Narcissus story through Liriope (his mother)—the maternal “near” set against a child’s “distant” fate.

[Thanks to Zando Projects | Tin House and NetGalley for an opportunity to read and share my opinion of this book.]

[Sacha · Rating 4 out of 5]

4 stars

This is my first experience with Stone's poetry, and it was a pleasant one.

I really enjoyed the variety of motifs and perspectives here, though I think that for a modern collection, the choices in form and subject matter are not necessarily as accessible as I prefer these days. Frequently, when I'm reading new-to-me poems, I'm looking for teachable content, and that's here, but it's the kind of material that (college) students would need GUIDANCE for in many cases rather than be able to approach successfully on their own. This is not to say that a less student-friendly collection isn't good or that I didn't enjoy it; the reverse is true, but these details also shape how I'm reading and considering overall. I'm a fan of transparency.

For my own part, I appreciated having to work at these in some cases, and I have no doubt that adventurous and adept readers will also find a lot to ponder here.

I appreciate the opportunity to engage with this work and look forward to reading more from Stone.

*Special thanks to NetGalley and Tiffani Ren at Tin House for this widget, which I received in exchange for an honest review. The opinions expressed here are my own.

[Mariah · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC of Bianca Stone's, The Near and Distant World, collection of poems.

This narrative is not for the weak of heart, Stone's text is heavy and rich with philosophical/literary references. More than that, the writing feels like a Florence + the Machine song, wherein the writer uses her writing as a muse - communicating depressive episodes and philosophical meanderings. Stone's writing stopped me in my tracks as she noted, "I was eating my croissant at a discreet window/and felt for the first time/blameless for being born and contemplating suicide." Stone's writings are powerful, delivering heavy topics like delicate lace.

[K Rejsek · Rating 5 out of 5]

"something with lungs / and no face, the immortal freak / of language you haunt and hunt."

This collection has gravity, the existentialism is balanced by allusion and ekphrasis, by conversation with Rilke and all of the other terrifying angels of the world. I think it's ambitious to question mortality without getting too caught in the darkness, but Stone teeters skillfully at the edge, never relying on sentimentality or ego. What is questioned is also informed. Tears and laughter blur together. The threads connect but require a revisit. A good read for the dark of winter.

Thank you Zando for the galley!

[Wendy Wisner · Rating 5 out of 5]

I had read Bianca Stone’s poems before, but I had never read a full length book of hers. I was totally transported by the poems in this book, and by the book as a whole. You never know where the poems are going to go and yet they feel inevitable and authentic. You trust the poems and they take your breath away. Stone weaves in mythology, dreams, psychology, parenthood, depression, and real questions of mortality–so seamlessly and in a voice that is wholly her own.

Thanks to NetGalley for an advanced reader copy of this book.

[sarah panic · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is my first introduction to Bianca Stone's poetry and I am left awestruck and scrambling for more. I feel a bit of a hunger for more of the words they were able to craft together. The musings about life and the duality and complexity of not only reality, but parenthood hit home for me and I felt a certain kind of closeness to the writing.

Thank you as always to Tinhouse Publishing / Zando Projects for allowing me to read an advance copy of this book. I am voluntarily leaving this review.

[Rhiley Jade · Rating 3 out of 5]

Thank you to NetGalley for the E-ARC! This E-ARC was sent to me in exchange for an honest review.

Oh, to be a strange and beautifully written poetry collection. The whimsical and weird side of poetry and prose will always splay my heart open. Will always fit right in alongside my favorite poets, even if it isn't a favorite collection. This one was not a favorite collection but wow oh wow, the drama. The substance. The joy of feeling understood and seen through the weird, wonderful side of prose that most people will never truly comprehend.
Stunning.

[Kara · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bianca Stone's The Near and Distant World is broken into three sections, and while they don't have a distinct tile other than their numerical order, each section feels like an evolution.

I didn't connect very well with the first section; it felt flat to me. I tend to favor poetry that's more lyrical and cerebral, but Stone's style is decidedly more direct. The second section dabbles into some prose (or at least some prose-leaning poetry), and this was more enjoyable for me. Section three felt somewhat more explorative, but I don't think Stone's style works well for me overall.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the arc.

[Ric · Rating 5 out of 5]

Equal parts humor, grief, and existential crisis, Bianca Stone has once again crafted a spectacular collection that feels haunted by its own ghosts. Small threads of Rilke, Oliver, the bible and ancient Greece weave themselves into and through each of these pieces, lending their spectral presence to a modern-day monotony: "I come back/ an antichrist in June/ standing in the yard/ with my haunted weedwhacker." Fans of Stone's previous collections will not be disappointed, and new readers will find themselves knee-deep in some of the best work by one of our finest contemporary poets.

[Caity · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars - The collection of poems was well written, but only about half resonated with me. It was a bit easy to disconnect from the other half, and diminished the overall collection for me. Those that did stand out to me were some of the longer ones that seemed to cross from modern day philosophical pondering to reflection inspired by Ancient Greeks and their epic heroes, gods, and goddesses.

[Nicole · Rating 4 out of 5]

A slim volume of lyrical poetry. I had it on my nightstand and read a few pages each night.

[Danielle Robertson · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Yes. I would. / I would repeat this life."
A stunning and powerful collection. These are poems to savor, full of imagery I'm still thinking of, days later.