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...]
Praising the Paradox by Tina Schumann, reviewed by Mary Ellen Talley
Praising the Paradox by Tina Schumann / Red Hen Press / 2019 / 109 pages / 978-1-59709-617-1 Tina Schumann’s newest volume of poems, Praising the Paradox, speaks of seasons, relationships, and … [Read more...]
Little Masticated Darlings by Lannie Stabile, reviewed by Danielle Rose
Little Masticated Darlings by Lannie Stabile / Wild Pressed Books / December 5, 2019 Memory is fragile and unreliable. We know this as studies have shown a distinct relationship between the called … [Read more...]
Birds Fly Over the Rainbow, Why Then, Oh, Why Can’t I? On Lanette Cadle’s The Tethered Ground
The Tethered Ground by Lanette Cadle / Woodley Press / 2019 / 978-0998700366 / 102 pages “You wanna fly, you got to give up the shit that weighs you down.” —Toni Morrison, Song of Solomon … [Read more...]
David Hanlon’s Spectrum of Flight, reviewed by Kaleb Tutt
Spectrum of Flight by David Hanlon / Animal Heart Press / February 18, 2020 David Hanlon captures readers from the beginning of his evocative, shockingly vulnerable “Spectrum of Flight”. When I … [Read more...]
The Joyous Silence, Selected Poems by Maxim Amelin, trans. by Derek Mong and Anne O. Fisher, reviewed by Elias Siqueiros
The Joyous Science, Selected Poems by Maxim Amelin. Translated by Derek Mong and Anne O. Fisher / White Pine Press / 2018 / 978-1-945680-19-9 / 180 pages Part of the excitement of coming across the … [Read more...]
The Fire Eater by Jose Hernandez Diaz, reviewed by Bailey Cohen-Vera
The Fire Eater by Jose Hernandez Diaz / Texas Review Press / 978-1-68003-208-6 / February 14, 2020 Jose Hernandez Diaz’s debut chapbook of prose poems is a delightful exploration of the … [Read more...]
Mouthful of Birds by Samanta Schweblin, translated by Megan McDowell, reviewed by Bethany Darby
Mouthful of Birds by Samanta Schweblin, translated by Megan McDowell / Riverhead Books / 2019 / 978-0399184628 / 240 pages “In the flat darkness of the countryside. There is only disappointment, … [Read more...]
All That Shines Under the Hollywood Sign by Iris Berry, reviewed by Marc Olmsted
All That Shines Under the Hollywood Sign by Iris Berry, with illustrations by Scott Archer / Punk Hostage Press / 978-1940213057 / November 11, 2019 / 21 pages You've heard this: Hollywood is a … [Read more...]
Divided Loyalties by Nilofar Shidmehr, reviewed by Lea Bickel
Divided Loyalties by Nilofar Shidmehr / House of Anansi / 978-1487006020 / 2019 / 320 pages With Divided Loyalties, Nilofar Shidmehr takes on the demanding challenge of uniting historical … [Read more...]
The Ribbon Around the Bomb by Elizabeth Levine, reviewed by Dimitri Reyes
The Ribbon Around the Bomb by Elizabeth Levine / Finishing Line Press / 2019 Elizabeth Levine is a trilingual writer who teaches creative writing at William Paterson University in New Jersey. As … [Read more...]
Memory as Mapmaking: Reading Chew Yi Wei’s Indelible City, by Matthew Wu
Indelible City by Chew Yi Wei / Marshall Cavendish International / 2018 / 9789814794251 / 112 pages Chew Yi Wei's book Indelible City begins with a map. It is haphazardly drawn and populated by … [Read more...]
“Where the water flows down”: Wounds of Heritage and Home in Eunice Andrada’s Flood Damages
Flood Damages by Eunice Andrada / Giramondo / Sydney, Australia / 2018 Eunice Andrada’s Flood Damages is a forceful debut poetry collection that explores narratives of diaspora, family and … [Read more...]
Jericho Brown’s The Tradition, reviewed by Daschielle Louis
The Tradition by Jericho Brown / Copper Canyon Press / 2019 / 978-1556594861 Soft. When a baby is born, we call their skin, their eyes, and the top of their heads soft. Soft hair. Soft baby. … [Read more...]
Shelter in Place by Catherine Kyle, reviewed by Alexis David
Shelter In Place by Catherine Kyle / Spuyten Duyvil / 978-1-949966-40-4 / 84 pages Shelter In Place is a book which investigates safety while being under attack. Catherine Kyle divides the … [Read more...]
Imagine Touching Words: A New Lispector for Readers of English, reviewed by Pınar Türer
The Besieged City by Clarice Lispector. Trans. by Johnny Lorenz & Ed. by Benjamin MoserNew Directions / Penguin Random House / 2019 Lucrécia Neves “mulls over her inability to reason"; when we … [Read more...]
The Word Pretty by Elisa Gabbert, reviewed by Marilyn Duarte
The Word Pretty by Elisa Gabbert / Black Ocean Press / November 15, 2018 / 184 pages / $18.95 The Word Pretty by Elisa Gabbert is divided into three sections and consists of twenty-two short … [Read more...]
New poetry books by Harmony Holiday, Christina Xiong, and Lily Trotta, reviewed by Clara B. Jones
“When a woman tells the truth, she is creating the possibility for more truth around her.” —Adrienne Rich In Maafa (Fence Books, 2020), Harmony Holiday crafts a surrealistic tale employing … [Read more...]
On Courage, Hope, and Reclaiming the Future: A Personal Reflection on Marisa Crane’s Our Debatable Bodies, by Heather Derr-Smith
Marisa Crane’s new book of poetry, Our Debatable Bodies, published by Animal Heart Press, 2019 was a welcome companion to me as I journeyed alone across Bosnia-Herzegovina this past spring. Though … [Read more...]
The Perseverance by Raymond Antrobus, reviewed by Kendrick Loo
The Perseverance by Raymond Antrobus / Penned in the Margins / 2018 / 91 pages Raymond Antrobus' latest book, The Perseverance, opens with a sentence from American poet Robin Coste Lewis: "There is … [Read more...]
Notes and Dispatches: Essays by rob mclennan, reviewed by Julian Day
Notes and Dispatches: Essays by rob mclennan / Insomniac Press / 2014 / 978-1554831265 / 318 pages rob mclennan has operated above/ground press from his home base of Ottawa for more than … [Read more...]
