Mirrors for Princes

Forward-Prize winning poet Sam Riviere is published faithfully by Faber in the UK, in handsome editions that engage variously with artifice, AI, privacy, and process as both a creative engine and subject unto itself. His novel, Dead Souls (Catapult, 2022), was published to massive critical acclaim, and captured a wide US audience for the first time. Now, After Hours Editions is proud to introduce an American audience to Riviere’s poetry, in a varied collection representing roughly a decade of work.

MIRRORS FOR PRINCES gathers poems that have, until now, only appeared in magazines, as limited-edition chapbooks, or as commissions for artists—not quite “B-sides and rarities,” but “other writings,” which represent a more outward-looking, varied, collaborative approach to poetry, and a mode that owes little to the processes and conceptual forms that characterize Riviere’s previous collections.

These poems playfully and provocatively take their cue from a mediaeval genre of handbooks for minor rulers (“mirrors for princes”), with Riviere offering “advice” for the young poet or artist, on a range of topics such as masculinity, the fine arts, poetry prizes, identity politics, academia, long distance relationships, technology, drugs, internships, international cuisine, fan mail, interview etiquette, festivals, depression, sports, mindfulness, monarchy, sexting, divorce, and death.