The Clearing by Allison Adair – Winner of the Max Ritvo Poetry Prize / Milkweed Editions / 978-1-57131-514-4 / 88 pages / June 9, 2020 I first cracked open Alison Adair’s The … [Read more...]
Funny Weather by Olivia Laing, reviewed by Callum McAllister
Funny Weather by Olivia Laing / Picador / 368 pages / 2020 It feels as though we are living in an alternate timeline. Sometime in 2016, we entered a parallel version of history and have not since … [Read more...]
The Soul in Paraphrase, the Heart in Pilgrimage: Amounting to Nothing by Paul Quenon, reviewed by Gregory Stephenson
Amounting to Nothing by Paul Quenon, OSCO / Paraclete Press / 978-1-64060-201-4 / 93 pages / 2019 The coincidence of a vocation as monk and a vocation as poet — though far from commonplace — is one … [Read more...]
Finding Freedom in the Female Voice: Threed: This Road Not Damascus by Tamara J. Madison, reviewed by Jessica Gigot
Threed: This Road Not Damascus by Tamara J. Madison / Trio House Press / 2019 In Threed: This Road Not Damascus, Tamara Madison’s first full-length collection of poetry, this poet and … [Read more...]
Music In A Blade of Glass: Jim Whiteside’s Writing Your Name on the Glass, reviewed by Alina Stefanescu
Writing Your Name On the Glass by Jim Whiteside / Bull City Press / 35 pages / 978-1-949344-08-0 / 2019 fugue (n.) in music, a contrapuntal composition in which a short melody or phrase … [Read more...]
Read The Fabulous Ekphrastic Fantastic! by Miah Jeffra With Multiple Browser Tabs Open — a review by Laura Eppinger
The Fabulous Ekphrastic Fantastic! by Miah Jeffra / Sibling Rivalry Press / 978-1-943977-73-4 / 140 pages / March 20, 2020 An ekphrastic piece of writing responds to a work of art--usually one … [Read more...]
Carmen Maria Machado’s In the Dream House, reviewed by Emma Gregory
In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado / Graywolf Press / 264 pages / November 5, 2019 In the Dream House follows the story of Machado’s own relationship with an emotionally and … [Read more...]
Writing for Human Dignity: Mao’s Town by Xie Hong, reviewed by Tang Qiyun
Mao's Town by XIE Hong / Whyte Tracks / 978-8-792632-93-7 / 2018 / 204 pages This review is written by TANG Qiyun, and translated from Chinese by SUN Jicheng and Hal Swindall. If Jean-Paul … [Read more...]
Hope Amidst Uncertainty: Subduction by Kristen Millares Young, reviewed by Jessica Gigot
Subduction by Kristen Millares Young / Red Hen Press / 978-1-59709-892-2 / 240 pages / April 14, 2020 What happens when the world as you know it changes course? When your seemingly rock-solid … [Read more...]
The Elvis Machine by Kim Vodicka, reviewed by Alex Carrigan
The Elvis Machine by Kim Vodicka / Clash Books / 978-1944866648 / May 2020 It’s fascinating that America, despite the passage of time and more updated social and cultural norms, still can’t get … [Read more...]
José Manuel Cardona’s Birnam Wood translated by Hélène Cardona, reviewed by Neil Leadbeater
Birnam Wood / El Bosque de Birnam: Antología poética. A Bilingual Edition with English translation by Hélène Cardona / Salmon Poetry / 94 pages / 2018 Poet, writer, and translator José Manuel … [Read more...]
Dawn’s Fool by Kyla Houbolt, reviewed by K Weber
Dawn’s Fool by Kyla Houbolt / IceFloe Press / 2020 Kyla Houbolt’s debut microchap, Dawn’s Fool, portrays nature with reverence and the act of communing. This may be no surprise to those of us who … [Read more...]
Mesmerizinlgy Sadly Beautiful by Matthew Lippman, reviewed by Rochelle Jewel Shapiro
Mesmerizinlgy Sadly Beautiful by Matthew Lippman / Four Way Books / 978-1945588488 / 64 pages / March 2, 2020 The award-winning poet, Matthew Lippman, has won yet another award, this time … [Read more...]
Heart Like a Window, Mouth Like a Cliff by Sara Borjas, reviewed by Tatiana M.R. Johnson
Heart like a Window, Mouth like a Cliff: Poems by Sara Borjas / Noemi Press, Inc. / / 978-1-934819-79-1 March 15, 2019 / 95 pages / $15 Sara Borjas’ Heart Like a Window, Mouth Like a Cliff … [Read more...]
The Utterance of Poison and Pain: Toxicon and Arachne by Joyelle McSweeney, reviewed by Mike Corrao
Toxicon and Arachne by Joyelle McSweeney / Nightboat Books / 9781643620183 / 112 pages / April 7, 2020 From the author of The Necropastoral (University of Michigan Press 2015) and Percussion … [Read more...]
To Keep from Turning Away: Ghost Dogs by Dion O’Reilly, reviewed by Michele Sharpe
Ghost Dogs by Dion O’Reilly / Terrapin Books / 978-1947896239 / 106 pages / February 17, 2020 Ghost Dogs, a witness to evisceration in five untitled parts, begins with pure gore. The poems appear … [Read more...]
Unnatural Habitats & Other Stories by Angela Mitchell, reviewed by Michael Caylo-Baradi
Unnatural Habitats & Other Stories by Angela Mitchell / WTAW Press / 978-0-9988014-6-9 / 2018 In “Animal Lover,” the first story in Unnatural Habitats & Other Stories, we encounter a post-sex … [Read more...]
Death Industrial Complex by Candice Wuehle, reviewed by Tom Snarsky
Death Industrial Complex by Candice Wuehle / Action Books / 978-0-900575-06-8 / paperback / 85 pages / April 1, 2020 If you love the life and work of Francesca Woodman, odds are good you have had … [Read more...]
Moth by Alice Pettway, reviewed by Mary Ellen Talley
Moth by Alice Pettway / Salmon Poetry / 2019 / 978-1-912561-39-1 / 64 pages Alice Pettway’s second full-length collection of poetry, Moth, is full of tight poems of travel, remembrance, nature, … [Read more...]
Red Rover, Red Lover by Preston Smith, reviewed by K Weber
Red Rover, Red Lover by Preston Smith / Roaring Junior Press / March 10, 2020 Mythology and outer space, corporeal bodies and celestial bodies interplay in stanzas and dance through couplets in … [Read more...]
