First printing: 2000 copies (trade paper). Improvisation Without Accompaniment is Matt Morton’s debut poetry collection. He is the winner of the 2018 A. Poulin, Jr. Poetry Prize, selected by Patricia Smith. This title is part of BOA’s New Poets of America Series, which have seen strong sales in recent seasons. Previous Poulin winners in this series have seen outstanding attention from The New York Times, Publishers Weekly, Library Journal, The Rumpus, Forward Reviews, etc. Matt Morton is the recipient of an NEA fellowship and is the associate editor for the poetry journal 32 Poems. Morton’s NEA grant received media coverage by KERA radio in Texas and the NEA’s arts.gov’s Writers’ Corner page. Poet Patricia Smith will write a new foreword introducing the collection. Smith is a four-time winner of the National Poetry Slam, a National Book Award finalist, and winner of the 2018 Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award. Morton’s poems bring a fresh perspective to the universal themes of grief, self-identity, and the search for meaning and belonging. Stuffed with lyric associations and robust images, Morton’s poems fit with a trend of young writers influenced by Dean Young and A.R. Ammons. These poems will appeal to fans of these authors. Strong regional appeal in Dallas, TX, and Baltimore, MD. Both cities are referenced in the collection from the author’s time living and working there. Strong regional appeal in rural bookstores in Texas, Oklahoma, the Great Plains states, the Rocky Mountains states, and the Southwest.