The Near and Distant World: Poems

A Most Anticipated Poetry Collection of 2026 from LitHub

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.