Line Study of a Motel Clerk

Finalist of The National Jewish Book Award and the Ohioana Poetry Award

Allison Pitinii Davis speaks Ohioan, as James Wright wryly put it, and gives us a world in this utterly fresh, well-crafted, and exhilarating debut volume.  —EDWARD HIRSCH, author of Gabriel

Poppy Seeds

Winner of the Wick Poetry Chapbook Prize

As the title Poppy Seeds suggests, Allison Davis's poems are hard and small and round enough to travel just about anywhere.
—KATHY FAGAN, author of Sycamore 

The Best American Poetry

Edited by Edward Hirsch

"The Heart of It All + A Free Beer" (Originally printed in The Sycamore Review)

Peatsmoke

Art by Karl Zuehlke

Two poems from Lordstown Syndrome

DUSIE: Tuesday Poem

#442

"Old World Orthography"

Academy of American Poets

Selected by Joy Harjo

"The Function of Humor in the Neighborhood"

The Missouri Review

Finalist of the Editors' Prize

"The Neighborhood Girls Caught Lordstown Syndrome," "The Neighborhood and Surrounding City, 1926-2019," “The Neighborhood Girls Fantasize About the WKBN Meteorologist,” “The Neighborhood Girls Ask the WKBN Meteorologist,” “10¢ Beer Night at Municipal Stadium, Cleveland, Ohio, June 4, 1974,” “The WKBN Meteorologist Finally Stops by the Dairy Queen,” “The Neighborhood Girls Go On Strike,” “The Neighborhood Girls Offer Me” 

The Cincinnati Review

miCRo Series

"The Neighborhood Girls Sabotage the Dairy Queen Order"

Nominated for Best of the Net 2021

Split This Rock

The Quarry: A Social Justice Database

"The Motel Clerk's Son Drives Out to Check on Business, 1977" 

​

The Jewish Book Council

Paper Brigade 

Poems: "In the Begin­ning the Neigh­bor­hood Girls Read Philip Roth Drunk in Their Baths" and "The Goodyear Blimp Flies Over the Neighborhood Girls"

Essay: "Writ­ing the Jew­ish Rust Belt"

Reviews and author page
 

Marsh Hawk Review

Fall 2020

"On a Day Off, The Neighborhood Girls Try to Save the 1917 Paramount Theater" and "The Neighborhood Girls Can't Measure Up"

Diode

11.3

"The Neighborhood Girls Watch Attack of the 50 Foot Woman," and "The Neighborhood Girls Rise Like Man-Eating Zombies" (Verse Daily Web Weekly Feature, Nov. 19, 2018)

​

Juked

Number 17

"The Neighborhood Girls Play the Drinking Game Thunderstruck During the Thunderstorm While Watching WKBN First News Weather Updates,” “The Neighborhood Girls Yank on the Cigarette Machine During Their Partly Cloudy Smoke Break,” and “The Neighborhood Girls Take a Road Trip to Cleveland” 

Linebreak

Read by Emilia Phillips

“The Neighborhood Girls Fall for the WKBN Meteorologist" 

Crab Orchard Review

22

"The Neighborhood Girls Watch the New WKBN Meteorologist" 

Construction

Conflict and Displacement Issue

"The Neighborhood Girls Split Tips After Their Shift, Late May" 

Foreward Reviews

Poetry Month Feature

"The Marquee is Empty at the Big Rig Saloon"

The New Republic

243.20

“Waiting in the Midwest” 

Connotation Press

Interviewed by Cheryl Torsney

“Greetings from 41°6′0″N 80°39′0″W,” “Last One Out Of Youngtown Turn Off The Lights,” “Swings, 1970,” and “Boom Boom"  

Crazyhorse

Number 89

"In the Back of the Innkeeper's Mind, The Key Rack"

Black Warrior Review

41.2

“Falls In Love, Or Reads Spinoza,” reprinted in Corpus Poeticum Spinozanum

Poecology

Issue 4

“Night Portrait of a Motel Clerk” and “Ohio” 

Verse Daily

Features

Web Weekly Feature, November 19, 2018:  "The Neighborhood Girls Watch Attack of the 50 Foot Woman" 

“Beautiful, The Dead End" reprinted from Poppy Seeds

The Missouri Review

Finalist of Editors' Prize

Poems: “Inheritance," “Arriving in Canada,” “Language Loosened Back,” “The Innkeeper Gets Bad Reception of Cleveland 100.7 FM,” “Dead Language,” “Song of the Dead Office,” and “Greetings from the End of the Line" 

​

Essay: “The Ethics of Address: Writing to The Rustbelt in the Age of Trump"

Blue Lyra Review

4.3

Translation of "Songs of a Poorman 1 & 3" by Moyshe Kulbak from Yiddish

Interviews and Reviews for Line Study and Poppy Seeds

Selected

• Review by Timothy Otte at Stanza Break: Dispatches on Poetry

• “High culture takes on new meaning at local bars" by Grant Segall in The Plain Dealer (2020)​

• Review by Nina Murray on The Same (2018)

• Craft talk with Ryan Walsh at The Baoblog (2018)

• "The poetry of Youngstown" by Guy D’Astolfo in The Youngstown Vindicator (2017)

• Interview with Bailey Boyd at The Missouri Review (2017)

• Interview with Allison Reck at Midwestern Gothic (2017)

• "The Aesthetics of Ruin: "Come rummage through our guts," by Rochelle Hurt at The Best American Poetry Blog (2014)

• Review of Poppy Seeds by Erica Spriggs in Poetry International Online (2015)