While it’s vital to expose and do everything we can to fight against this country’s government’s stupidity, lies, and greed; its violence in the form of police brutality, its ongoing drone warfare, its anti-democratic policy of regime change, its mass deportation of immigrants, its manifold assaults on the poor, etc.; to do everything we can to expose its many broken promises, its tepid, at best, response to climate change and its already devastating effects; to fight against the day-to-day violence—in the form racism, sexism, classism, ageism, homophobia, transphobia, xenophobia, Islamophobia, antisemitism, war, militarism, imperialism, nationalism, etc.—perpetrated by it and its citizenry; it’s also vital for us to share our good news, our successes, the funny things that happened in our lives, the things we’re struggling with and against, the silly things, the art we’ve made, art others have made, the things we’re reading and writing, the things we’ve published, the praise we’ve received, etc.
In other words, let’s not allow all terrible things in this “mutilated world” keep us from celebrating and sharing the good things, too, the personal things, the intimate things. As poet Jack Gilbert said, “We must have the stubbornness to accept our gladness in the ruthless furnace of this world.”
All to say, I am deeply grateful for the many wonderful things that happened in 2025.
And here are just a few of the Big Other-related things I want to celebrate:
On September 15, 2025, Big Other contributor Arthur Sze was named the twenty-fifth Poet Laureate of the United States by the Library of Congress! I think of Arthur as a kind of library, of marvelous images, keen observations, profound feeling, and more besides, so it was wonderful to see him receive this honor. And it’s such an honor for me to have published some of his wonderful poems in Big Other.
2025 saw the publication of the following ten books, all of which feature writing previously published in Big Other:
Kim Chinquee’s Contact with the Wild (Madhat Press)
Michael Leong’s Dear Vase Already Shattered Against the Fragile Floor (Black Square Editions)
Heller Levinson’s Crossfall (Black Widow Press)
Robert Lopez’s The Best People (Dzanc Books)
Michael Martone’s Table Talk & Second Thoughts: A Memoir in Flashes (Cornerstone Press)
Peggy Robles-Alvarado’s Burn Me Back (Four Way Books)
Arthur Sze’s Into the Hush (Copper Canyon Press)
John Yau’s Diary of Small Discontents: New & Selected Poems 1974-2024 (Omnidawn Press)
Dead Code and Other Dramatic Entertainments (Anti-Oedipus Press), which includes Andrew Joron and Andrew C. Wenaus’s “An Aerobatic Alogue: Andrew ± Joron ± Wenaus on the Novum”
Here are ten ways you can help these books (and other superb off-the-radar books):
1. Buy the book.
2. Read the book.
3. Review the book.
4. Interview the author about the book.
5. Ask your bookstore to order the book.
6. Ask your library to order the book.
7. Attend events related to the book.
8. Give the book to someone else.
9. Talk about the book.
10. Teach the book.
On June 22, 2025, I hosted the 2024 Big Other Book Awards Ceremony. Recognizing excellence in literature published in 2024 and supporting the vital work of innovative writers and adventurous presses, I announced the winners of the 2024 Big Other Awards in each of the following categories: fiction, poetry, nonfiction, and translation. A Readers’ Choice Award and awards for lifetime achievement and outstanding service to the literary community were also presented.
On June 23, 2025, I announced the deadline and guidelines for the 2025 Big Other Book Awards.
On October 12, 2025, we celebrated Big Other’s 16th birthday.
2025 found me publishing superb writing by the following sixty-two literary artists in Big Other:
Alejandro Albarrán Polanco, Jeffery Renard Allen, Rae Armantrout, Martine Bellen, Charles Bernstein, Traci Brimhall, Jeff Bursey, Cao Kou, Chen Zeping, Kim Chinquee, S. C. Delaney, Elaine Equi, Virág Erdős, Ariel Francisco, Rachel Galvin, Antonio Gamoneda, Karen Gernant, Robert Glick, Katherine M. Hedeen, Noy Holland, Paul Hoover, Andrew Joron, Jared Joseph, Dezső Kosztolányi, Karen An-hwei Lee, Michael Leong, Tony Leuzzi, Lyu Guangzhao, Michael Martone, Joe Milazzo, Rick Moody, Helen E. Mundler-Arantes, Yannick Murphy, Lance Olsen, Ottó Orbán, Aimee Parkison, Agnès Potier, Kathryn Rantala, Víctor Rodríguez Núñez, Martha Ronk, Joanna Ruocco, Joe Sacksteder, Melissa Sauma, John Schertzer, Jason Schwartz, David M. Sheridan, Jack Skelley, George Szirtes, Lisa Russ Spaar, Angus Stewart, Paul Stubbs, Terese Svoboda, Cole Swensen, Anna Terék, Steve Tomasula, Tony Trigilio, Michel Vachey, Chris Vaughan, Marjorie Welish, D. Harlan Wilson, Can Xue, and Yi Zhou.
See the anthology (Big Other‘s seventh!) of all this exemplary work below!
Finally, Big Other is a one-person operation that runs on a (left) wing and a (secular) prayer, so your gift will, among many other things, help me continue to publish new experimental and innovative work from both established and emerging writers and artists.
Besides helping to support our efforts to publish marvelous literary art, your gift will support the final production and release of a backlog of podcasts with many stellar literary artists: Pulitzer Prize winner Rae Armantrout, National Book Award winner Daniel Borzutzky, U.S. Poet Laureate and National Book Award winner Arthur Sze, Will Alexander, Laura Cronk, Andrew Joron, Karen An-hwei Lee, Eugene Lim, Garielle Lutz, Michael Martone, Lance Olsen, Dawn Raffel, Victoria Redel, Luis Othoniel Rosa, Lisa Russ Spaar, Edwin Torres, Marjorie Welish, Angela Woodward, and John Yau.
I hope you’ll show your support for this work by including Big Other in your year-end giving plans. Whether you give $5, $10, $25, $50, $100, $500, $1,000, or more, your support will help ensure that Big Other continues to publish fiction, poetry, art, hybrid works, reviews, essays, interviews, and more in 2026 and beyond.
Excelsior!
John Madera, Editor
Big Other Anthology 2025
Poetry
Three Poems
Alejandro Albarrán Polanco
(Translated by Rachel Galvin)
Four Poems
Jeffery Renard Allen
Three Poems
Rae Armantrout
Eight Poems
Charles Bernstein
Six Poems
Traci Brimhall
Five Poems
Elaine Equi
Two Poems from Erroneous Song
Antonio Gamoneda
(Translated by Katherine M. Hedeen and Víctor Rodríguez Núñez)
The Memory of the Poem
Paul Hoover
Seven Poems
Andrew Joron
Discriminatory Anti-discrimination
Michael Leong
Dissolve to Cloud: Treatments for Five Frames from Tierney Gearon’s Explosure
Tony Leuzzi
Six Poems
Joe Milazzo
Censored Haiku and Translations of Matsuo Bashō
Rick Moody
Four Letters North
Kathryn Rantala
Four Poems
Martha Ronk
Five Poems
Melissa Sauma
(Translated by Ariel Francisco)
Four Poems
Lisa Russ Spaar
Four Poems
Paul Stubbs
From Lumenocracy
Cole Swensen
Two Poems
Marjorie Welish
Hungarian Poetry Folio
(Translations by George Szirtes)
Fiction
The Doctrine of Notions
Martine Bellen
Four Fictions
Kim Chinquee
Colossal
Noy Holland
1/5040
Cao Kou
(Translated by Chen Zeping and Karen Gernant)
Father
Cao Kou
(Translated by Chen Zeping and Karen Gernant)
Einspänner
Karen An-hwei Lee
Follies, Ruins, and Ducks
Michael Martone
Four Hours
Yannick Murphy
The Room Without Dreams
Lance Olsen
Lethal Conversations
Aimee Parkison
Tree Ears and Velvet Feet
Aimee Parkison
Eight Microfictions
Joanna Ruocco
Carrion Bull
Jason Schwartz
Some Chairs at the Art Museum
David M. Sheridan
As Far into the Dark
Lisa Russ Spaar
Now So Closed and Dark
Terese Svoboda
Z, The Turning
Steve Tomasula
Tribute to the Killer
Michel Vachey
(Translated by S. C. Delaney and Agnès Potier)
Dead Hare Explains
Chris Vaughan
Like a Sermon in the Mud
D. Harlan Wilson
Young Tide
Can Xue
(Translated by Karen Gernant)
When No One Was Sure About the World
Yi Zhou
(Translated by Chen Zeping and Karen Gernant)
Reviews
Ceaseless Imaginative Striving: A Review of Gabriel Josipovici’s Partita / A Winter in Zürau
Jeff Bursey
The Gods Are (Not) Okay: A Review of Kurt Baumeister’s Twilight of the Gods
John Schertzer
I Shall Live Here in Your Ghastly Forever: A Review of Ray Levy’s School
Robert Glick
Life May Be Elsewhere: A Review of Charles Holdefer’s Don’t Look at Me
Helen E. Mundler-Arantes
Serious Play: A Review of Jesi Bender’s Child of Light
Jared Joseph
Uncanny Humor: A Review of Robert Lopez’s The Best People
Joe Sacksteder
Interviews
Pulsing in Parallel: The Mirror Worlds of British and Chinese Science Fiction: An Interview with Lyu Guangzhao
Angus Stewart
Punishment Lab: A Conversation Between Tony Trigilio and Jack Skelley
