Ceremonial by Carly Joy Miller / Orison Books / 978-0-9964397-7-0 / 2018 Ceremonial, a debut full-length release from Carly Joy Miller, is praise and rage blended into one. It’s a delicate … [Read more...]
Frivolity and Elegy: On Dennis Lee’s Heart Residence: Collected Poems 1967-2017
Heart Residence: Collected Poems 1967-2017 by Dennis Lee. Edited by Robert Bringhurst. / House of Anansi / 978-1487001490 /2017 Like many readers, I encountered the writing of Dennis Lee at least … [Read more...]
To The Many: Collected Early Works by Lola Ridge, reviewed by Billy Mills
To the Many: Collected Early Works by Lola Ridge. Daniel Tobin, ed. / Little Island Press / August 2018 Lola Ridge’s life was, in many ways, a tale of her times. Born Rose Emily Ridge in … [Read more...]
American Sonnets for My Past and Future Assassin by Terrance Hayes reviewed by John Yohe
American Sonnets for My Past and Future Assassin by Terrance Hayes / Penguin / 2018 / paperback / 9780143133186 I knew Terrance Hayes' new book was going to be powerful when some of the poems … [Read more...]
Douglass by Day / Douglass by Night: Reading F. Douglas Brown’s ICON
ICON by F. Douglas Brown / Civil Coping Mechanisms / 2018 / 978-1948700009 Icon is an ekphrasis of the place where personal and global histories coalesce. F. Douglas Brown examines the prominent … [Read more...]
Echo Bay: Poems by Jennifer Battisti, reviewed by Emily Hoover
Echo Bay: Poems by Jennifer Battisti / Tolsun Books / 9781948800013 / 2018 / paperback; 42 pp. Jennifer Battisti’s chapbook of poems, Echo Bay, has its roots in the sand and rock of Las Vegas. … [Read more...]
Absences: A Sequence by John A. Griffin, reviewed by Wm. Anthony Connolly
Absences: A Sequence by John A. Griffin / The Esthetic Apostle / In The Presence of Absence In ancient philosophy, the soul is described as a slab of wax. When the soul is impacted by … [Read more...]
Eileen R. Tabios’ Manhattan: An Archaeology reviewed by Neil Leadbeater
Manhattan: An Archaeology by Eileen R. Tabios / Paloma Press / ISBN: 978-1-365-87509-0 / 2017 Manhattan, probably from the Lenape language word Mannahatta, meaning "island of many hills," is the … [Read more...]
Now What’s Wrong? Reflections on Allen Ginsberg’s Cosmopolitan Greetings: Poems 1986-1992
After the accomplishments of late nineteenth and early twentieth century experimentalists Whitman, Dickinson, Rimbaud, and the Modernist poets Apollinaire, Cendrars, Mayakovsky, Stevens, Williams, … [Read more...]
Mortal Trash: Poems by Kim Addonizio, reviewed by John Yohe
Mortal Trash: Poems by Kim Addonizio / W. W. Norton / 978-0-393-35434-8 / paperback / August 1, 2017 I've reviewed Kim Addonizio before, for her short story collection The Palace of Illusions … [Read more...]
A Shimmering Blue: a review of Susana H. Case’s Drugstore Blue
Drugstore Blue by Susana H. Case / Five Oaks Press / 2017 / 9781944355340 / 71 pages Susana H. Case is an American original. In poem after poem, book after book, she brings her incisive wit and … [Read more...]
farnessity by Randee Silv, reviewed by John Greiner
farnessity by Randee Silv / dancing girl press & studio / 2018 Without a doubt we are living in disorientating times and in these disorientating times we are the receptacles of a plethora of … [Read more...]
PRE- by Barbara Tomash reviewed by Dina Paulson-McEwen
PRE- by Barbara Tomash / Black Radish Books / paperback / 74 pages / ISBN 978-0-9979524-6-9 / 2018 PRE-, the fourth poetry collection from California-based poet Barbara Tomash, will delight (lay) … [Read more...]
Susan Howe’s Federalist 10: a literary approach to colonial America
Susan Howe was born on June 10th, 1937 in Boston, Massachusetts, to the American law professor Mark De Wolfe Howe and the Irish playwright and director Mary Manning. From the very beginning of her … [Read more...]
12 Points: tenderling by Emily Corwin
tenderling by Emily Corwin / Stalking Horse Press / 2018 / 64pgs. Before diving into the book proper, a point to say that I very much appreciate that Emily Corwin’s debut full-length collection … [Read more...]
Homing In: Our Sudden Museum by Robert Fanning, reviewed by Z.G. Tomaszewski
Our Sudden Museum by Robert Fanning / Salmon Poetry / 2017 / 978-1-910669-67-9 / 82 pages In Our Sudden Museum, poet Robert Fanning is no stranger to tragedy. As readers of this collection, we … [Read more...]
Holy Ghost by David Brazil, reviewed by Michael Kirby
Holy Ghost by David Brazil / City Lights Books / 9780872867147 / 113 pages / May 2017 Originating with the poststructuralists (Derrida and The Gift of Death being one example), then reaching a sort … [Read more...]
Filthy Labors: Poems by Lauren Marie Schmidt, reviewed by Eugene A. Melino
Filthy Labors by Lauren Marie Schmidt / Curbstone Books / ISBN: 978-0810134690 / 104 pages / 2017 I was nursing another cold Peroni at a wobbly table at the Bowery Poetry Club when I first heard … [Read more...]
Book Review – The Education of a Young Poet by David Biespiel
The Education of a Young Poet by David Biespiel / Counterpoint / 978-1619029934 / October 10, 2017 In a lot of ways, I have regarded my writing and my reading as being the product of some … [Read more...]
“No, this was all first person”: Revisiting Jorie Graham’s Hybrids of Plants and of Ghosts
Jorie Graham’s first poetry collection, Hybrids of Plants and of Ghosts (1980) has a way of receding from memory despite its potency due, in part, to the great success of her second collection. Her … [Read more...]