“One of the most exciting, capacious, and daring debuts I’ve read in years. Migwi Mwangi is a true one—and here to stay.” 

—Ocean Vuong, author of Time is a Mother 

“Migwi Mwangi is going to be a significant poet not only because of his poetic intelligence, but also because of the background enriching the poems: a rich experience in the world, a rich curiosity, a rich sense of empathy, and a richness of humility. The balance between maximal range and syntactic elegance defines the book. Many of the poems move between intimacy and estrangement, religion and food, tenderness and danger, without flattening any of these domains. Throughout Desire Path, the poems scale outward toward nationhood and community and inward toward the beloved, the body, and belonging. Always with dexterities of diction and perception. The title suggests longing is a journey, a route worn into being by repeated attention. The Levis, the Whitman, the food, the forms and charts, the landscapes and languages: All of this poet’s reading and living is metabolized in a voice that feels unmistakably personal, elegant, and assured.” 

—Terrance Hayes, author of So to Speak and judge of the 2026 Agnes Lynch Starrett Poetry Prize 

“Desire Path is a book of plurals: full of inventive forms, evocative references, and sensory aliveness. Opening this book is like stepping into a library of sight, smell, intimacy, alienation, and geography. Migwi Mwangi’s curation is staggering. Oh, how I wanted to linger in each room.” 

—Ama Codjoe, author of Bluest Nude 

Marketing Plans

• Galley mailing 
• National print and online reviews and features  
• Targeted outreach to African American and literary media 
• Select author appearances 
• Online and social media promotion 
• Feature at AWP 2027