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The Clearing by Allison Adair, reviewed by Dasha Bulatova

Dasha Bulatova

The Clearing by Allison Adair

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

Callum McAllister

Funny Weather by Olivia Laing

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

Gregory Stephenson

Amounting to Nothing: Poems by Paul Quenon

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

Jessica Gigot

Review of Threed by Tamara Madison poems

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

Alina Stefanescu

Jim Whiteside - Writing Your Name On the Glass - Bull City Press

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

Laura Eppinger

Miah Jeffra essays The Fabulous Ekphrastic Fantastic!

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

Emma Gregory

review of In the Dream House - Carmen Maria Machado

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

TANG Qiyun, Sun Jicheng and Hal Swindall

Mao's Town by Xie Hong

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

Jessica Gigot

Subduction by Kristen Millares Young

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

Alex Carrigan

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

Neil Leadbeater

José Manuel Cardona's Birnam Wood translated by Hélène Cardona

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

K Weber

Dawn's Fool - Kyla Houbolt

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

Rochelle Jewel Shapiro

Mesmerizingly Sadly Beautiful by Matthew Lippman (poetry)

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

Tatiana M.R. Johnson

Heart Like a Window, Mouth Like a Cliff

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

Mike Corrao

Toxicon and Arachne by Joyelle McSweeney

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

Michele Sharpe

Ghost Dogs by Dion O'Reilly, Terrapin Books

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

Michael Caylo-Baradi

UNNATURAL HABITATS & OTHER STORIES by Angela Mitchell

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

Tom Snarsky

Death Industrial Complex - poems by Candice Wuehle

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

Mary Ellen Talley

Moth by Alice Pettway - Salmon Poetry

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

K Weber

review: Red Rover, Red Lover, poems by Preston Smith

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...]

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Empty Mirror

Established in 2000 and edited by Denise Enck, Empty Mirror is an online literary magazine that publishes new work each Friday.

Each week EM features several poems each by one or two poets; reviews; critical essays; visual art; and personal essays.

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Recent features

  • My Father’s Map
  • On Waiting
  • Seeing Las Meninas in Madrid, 1994
  • Visual poems from 23 Bodhisattvas by Chris Stephenson
  • Historical Punctum: Reading Natasha Trethewey’s Bellocq’s Ophelia and Native Guard Through the Lens of Roland Barthes’s Camera Lucida
  • Panic In The Rear-View Mirror: Exploring The Work of Richard Siken and Ann Gale
  • “Art has side effects,” I said.

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