Glass Jaw
Raisa Tolchinsky

Winner of the 2023 Lexi Rudnitsky First Book Prize in Poetry

Striking and big-hearted, Glass Jaw depicts the grit and glamor of women’s boxing based on the poet's time training as a fighter in New York City. Beginning on the ropes, fighting back against the limitations of gender, Raisa Tolchinsky situates us within the dynamic context of the boxing gym, through both a chorus of named women boxers and a single fighter battling for her selfhood.

“Even as her speakers grapple with violence, competition, and isolation under the patriarchal spotlight, Tolchinsky, through masterful craft and storytelling, weaves a web of feminine solidarity, deftly navigating the paradoxical connection of each punch. Hers is a poetics of profound intimacy and fierce joy.” - Katherine James, Pleiades

“What a stunning debut from an essential new voice! Glass Jaw sparkles with rare intensity; let this book light your way through darkness, to the stars.”― Kiki Petrosino

“An astonishing, unforgettable collection.”― Laura van den Berg

Raisa Tolchinsky has published poems in Boston Review, Kenyon Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, and many other journals and magazines. She earned her M.F.A. from the University of Virginia and her B.A. from Bowdoin College. She was the 2022–2023 George Bennett Writer-in-Residence at Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire, and is currently a student at Harvard Divinity School. Previously, she lived in Chicago, Bologna (Italy), and New York City, where she trained as an amateur boxer.

Paperback / $17.00 (Can. $23.00) / ISBN 978-0-89255-579-6 / 88 pages / Poetry