Empty Mirror

a literary magazine

  • About
    • About Empty Mirror
    • Get in Touch
    • Support EM
    • Colophon
  • Submit
  • Contributors
  • Essays
  • On Literature
  • Poetry
  • Reviews
  • Art
  • Interviews
  • Beat
    • Beat Generation
    • Ted Joans Lives!
  • +
    • Fiction
    • Music & Film
    • News
    • On Writing
    • Book Collecting

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...]

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...]

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...]

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...]

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...]

Praising the Paradox by Tina Schumann, reviewed by Mary Ellen Talley

Mary Ellen Talley

Praising the Paradox, by Tina Schumann

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

Danielle Rose

Lannie Stabile - Little Masticated Darlings

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

Lindsey Novak

The Tethered Ground by Lanette Cadle review

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

Kaleb Tutt

Spectrum of Flight, poems by David Hanlon

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

Elias Siqueiros

The Joyous Science - Maxim Amelin

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

Bailey Cohen-Vera

The Fire Eater. Prose poems by Jose Hernandez Diaz

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...]

All That Shines Under the Hollywood Sign by Iris Berry, reviewed by Marc Olmsted

Marc Olmsted

Iris Berry

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...]

The Ribbon Around the Bomb by Elizabeth Levine, reviewed by Dimitri Reyes

Dimitri Reyes

The Ribbon Around the Bomb - Elizabeth Levine

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...]

Next Page »

DONATE TO BLACK LIVES MATTER

BLACK LIVES MATTER

The EM newsletter

Receive fresh poetry, reviews, essays, art, and literary news every Wednesday!


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.

Subscribe Submissions Support

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.

Books

Biblio
© 2000–2025 D. Enck / Empty Mirror.
Copyright of all content remains with its authors.
Privacy Policy · Privacy Tools · FTC disclosures