REVIEW: HOMIE – DANEZ SMITH (GRAYWOLF PRESS)
These poems are beautiful and messy and surprising and honest; they are everything a storied friendship is. Continue reading REVIEW: HOMIE – DANEZ SMITH (GRAYWOLF PRESS)
The janitors clean up the mess left from cheers, jeers, and broken hearts. The lights go out. You say goodbye to the players, loved ones, enemies, and continue with the game of life. As long as the ball keeps bouncing, life will continue. Continue reading REVIEW: DISTANCE TRAVELED – MICHAEL CHIN (BENT WINDOW BOOKS)
They are our pain. Our love. Our fight through relationships when we can’t do it ourselves. They need food and water and shelter but don’t always have that option – even if they’ve been there for years. Continue reading REVIEW: HOW MY CAT SAVED MY LIFE AND OTHER POEMS – JULIETTE SEBOCK (BOTTLECAP PRESS)
It’s who we are when least expected. It’s the big feelings we can’t explain. It’s the reason we cower in the dark. It’s the reason we raise our voices to those we are said to love. It’s the reason some loves end or begin or don’t. Continue reading REVIEW: BEAUTIFUL & FULL OF MONSTERS – COURTNEY LeBLANC (VEGETARIAN ALCOHOLIC PRESS)
Most of all, it’s about when body meets the inside of the body because the outside just doesn’t make sense anymore. It’s when space feels like a metaphor for a much larger universe, and you wish for a black hole within which to hide. Continue reading REVIEW: LITTLE ENVELOPE OF EARTH CONDITIONS – CORI A. WINROCK (ALICE JAMES BOOKS)
POWER OF POETRY #79: VENUS DAVIS
I knew that writing wasn’t about being the best – it’s about expressing yourself and being happy with what you’ve written. It’s not a chance for validation. Continue reading POWER OF POETRY #79: VENUS DAVIS
REVIEW: BOAT BURNED – KELLY GRACE THOMAS (YESYES BOOKS)
I found myself walking away from it often, not out of discontent but out of a need to process the full brunt of the emotions laid bare by the author. Continue reading REVIEW: BOAT BURNED – KELLY GRACE THOMAS (YESYES BOOKS)
REVIEW: BECOMING THE BRONZE IDOL – RITA MOOKERJEE (BONE & INK PRESS)
This collection helps readjust the way we look at our world and showing that the first step in fixing something broken is to recognize that it needs to be fixed in the first place. Continue reading REVIEW: BECOMING THE BRONZE IDOL – RITA MOOKERJEE (BONE & INK PRESS)
REVIEW: THE WHIMSY OF DANK JU-JU – SASCHA AURORA AKHTAR
Magic is broken unless we understand the trick or allow ourselves to suspend our disbelief and just know that everything is taken care of, and that we are okay. Continue reading REVIEW: THE WHIMSY OF DANK JU-JU – SASCHA AURORA AKHTAR
This is not a guide toward love, light, and inspiration. This is not a tribute to finding God through death. This is looking at Death, and letting them know that while it might be a minute, you’ll leave a light on. Continue reading REVIEW: EMPIRE OF DIRT – THOMAS STEWART (RED SQUIRREL PRESS)
It is not just a book of confessions, but of acceptance that we can be beautiful and flawed and problematic and good, that the only thing we ought to require of ourselves is the permission to be fully human. Buddy no longer apologizes for fucking things up. Continue reading REVIEW: A CHOIR OF HONEST KILLERS – BUDDY WAKEFIELD (WRITE BLOODY PUBLISHING)
REVIEW: A LIVE THING, CLINGING WITH MANY TEETH – KOLLEEN CARNEY HOEPFNER (SPOOKY GIRLFRIEND PRESS)
We’re shown a woman who has to come to terms with pain and discomfort being her new reality. And then the idea of change is more frightening than her continued torture. Continue reading REVIEW: A LIVE THING, CLINGING WITH MANY TEETH – KOLLEEN CARNEY HOEPFNER (SPOOKY GIRLFRIEND PRESS)
Reading each section becomes the experience of the burning fire; it builds and burns and, even as it goes out, smolders and lingers long after it’s gone. Continue reading REVIEW: INEVITABLE IGNITION – KAYT CHRISTENSEN (WIDE EYES PUBLISHING)
What will Kayleigh Campbell, winner of the Gloucestershire Poetry Competition 2019, include in today’s #TPQ5? Find out inside! Continue reading #TPQ5: KAYLEIGH CAMPBELL
These poems make clear that Olayiwola, current poet laureate of Boston, is just beginning what is sure to be a long and much-lauded tenure in American poetics. Continue reading REVIEW: I SHIMMER SOMETIMES, TOO – PORSHA OLAYIWOLA (BUTTON POETRY)
Trying to get away is understandable–hell, it’s even appealing to a certain degree–and it’s here that we can discover what’s so intriguing about McCartt-Jackson’s collection: your history doesn’t allow you to hide from it. Continue reading REVIEW: CALF CANYON – SARAH McCARTT-JACKSON (BRAIN MILL PRESS)
from how people viewed them to how they viewed themselves, we’re given an intimate look at their effects on the world. Continue reading REVIEW: CHOSEN COMPANIONS OF THE GOBLIN – KATHRYN SMITH (OPEN COUNTRY PRESS)
FORGIVE YOURSELF THESE TINY ACTS OF SELF-DESTRUCTION – JARED SINGER @buttonpoetry
“…a manual for the last kid in the kickball line. It’s a must-read for those who can’t remember why they need to remember. It’s for those who sometimes forget they matter.” Continue reading REVIEW: FORGIVE YOURSELF THESE TINY ACTS OF SELF-DESTRUCTION – JARED SINGER (BUTTON POETRY)
Denehan is sort of like Bukowski, if Bukowski wrote while drinking rather than drunk. It’s proof that poetry doesn’t need to be complicated to tell a damn good story. Continue reading REVIEW: MILES OF SKY ABOVE US, MILES OF EARTH BELOW – STEVE DENEHAN (CAJUN MUTT PRESS)
This collection is about taking stock of your life and how things have changed or remained the same. It is a look at how your perspective shifts over time and people inevitably view you differently as your circumstances transform. Continue reading REVIEW: MADE AND UNMADE – EMILY PEREZ (MADHOUSE PRESS)
This is the past seen as scenes with edits. This is how family works and doesn’t and how people are more than just reflections of what came before. Continue reading REVIEW: REBOUND, RESTART, RENEW, REBUILD, REJOICE – TIMOTHY OTTE (LITHIC PRESS)
Her work explores the sheer vastness of the Canadian landscape with a personal lens; experiences we cannot share are made beautiful and engaging. Continue reading REVIEW: ONE THING – THEN ANOTHER – CLAIRE KELLY (ECW PRESS)
This book is, quite simply, indispensable. My only lament is that it does not fit in my pocket, as it is the kind of collection one wishes to have with them at all times, the sort that reminds one how to live with equal parts grief and grace. Continue reading REVIEW: ODES TO LITHIUM – SHIRA ERLICHMAN (ALICE JAMES BOOKS)
It’s a headfirst take on being simply yourself in a sardonic world that wants to throw cancer and queer and God’s erect penis at you like they are insults. Continue reading REVIEW: THE BOOK OF DANIEL – AARON SMITH (UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH PRESS)
#TPQ5: D.A. GRAY
What will D.A. Gray, author, Retired soldier and veteran, include in today’s #TPQ5? Find out inside! Continue reading #TPQ5: D.A. GRAY
#TPQ5: TJ NEER
What will TJ Neer, a bookseller at The Book Loft in Columbus, OH, include in today’s #TPQ5? Find out inside! Continue reading #TPQ5: TJ NEER
Review: An Offering – Stewart Sanderson (Tapsalteerie Publishing House)
A small, majestic journey is what comes to mind while reading An Offering; the kind you take close to home in the fresh damp of morning’s first light. Continue reading Review: An Offering, Stewart Sanderson, Tapsalteerie Publishing House
Review: 99 Names of Exile, Kaveh Bassiri (Newfound Poetry)
This is a work of tender vulnerability, offering a glimpse of deeply personal stories through the abstraction of metaphor. Continue reading Review: 99 Names of Exile, Kaveh Bassiri (Newfound Poetry)
he visceral memories echo Sharon Olds and Rachel McKibbens, taking on a confessional style that does not flinch at trauma but also makes space for complexity of loving one’s parents even as abuse continues. Continue reading REVIEW: HELP IN THE DARK SEASON – JACQUELINE SUSKIN (WRITE BLOODY PUBLISHING)
Though a quick read, it’s unique and candid look at this relationship offers quippy anecdotes and humor. Continue reading REVIEW: BULL – JAMES ROOME (RED CEILING PRESS)
REVIEW – SPACE STRUCK BY PAIGE LEWIS (SARABANDE BOOKS)
In a year of absolutely gorgeous verse, Paige Lewis sets themselves apart, at once informed by the masters of craft and entirely unique in their own right. This is a collection you won’t want to miss. Continue reading REVIEW: SPACE STRUCK – PAIGE LEWIS (SARABANDE BOOKS)
REVIEW: CAN I KICK IT? – IDRIS GOODWIN (HAYMARKET BOOKS): The lines are sometimes swift, sometimes heavy, but there is always a discernible rhythm which propels the reader forward with deliberate, measured pace. Continue reading REVIEW: CAN I KICK IT? – IDRIS GOODWIN (HAYMARKET BOOKS)
REVIEW: EVE AND ALL THE WRONG MEN – AVIYA KUSHNER (DANCING GIRL PRESS)
Religions converse along with the characters as works of art come alive, translated into the text by the viewer’s keen eye. Continue reading REVIEW: EVE AND ALL THE WRONG MEN – AVIYA KUSHNER (DANCING GIRL PRESS)
REVIEW: THE DEATH OF A CLOWN – TOM BLAND (BAD BETTY PRESS)
Bukowski and Monica Drake would be proud. This is sex and hard drugs and love and the general misfiring of everyday life when nothing is really everyday life. Continue reading REVIEW: THE DEATH OF A CLOWN – TOM BLAND (BAD BETTY PRESS)
Instead, we find a couple working on a relationship – because after-all, they are work. Relationships are wonderful and beautiful and trying and difficult and sometimes we don’t always like the person we love, but it’s not something that we can’t overcome. Continue reading REVIEW: EMILY AS SOMETIMES THE FOREST WANTS THE FIRE – DARREN C. DEMAREE (HARPOON BOOKS)
REVIEW: SELF-PORTRAIT – ELISABETH HORAN (CEPHALO PRESS):
What do you do when you must lie on your back? When you can’t stand up for yourself – literally. You make the best of it. You create art like you’ve never created before. Continue reading REVIEW: SELF-PORTRAIT – ELISABETH HORAN (CEPHALO PRESS)
REVIEW: UPTALK – KIMMY WALTERS (BOTTLECAP PRESS)
The poems are pacy, well-timed vignettes where the protagonist tries to bottle steam from the shower to throw at a lover… Continue reading REVIEW: UPTALK – KIMMY WALTERS (BOTTLECAP PRESS)
But when someone nails it you can feel that sweet spot where they’ve balanced the raw emotion and nostalgia. Adrienne Novy hits this balance in Crowd Surfing with God. Continue reading REVIEW: CROWD SURFING WITH GOD BY ADRIENNE NOVY (HALF MYSTIC PRESS)
#TPQ5: WENDY CHEN
What will Wendy Chen, author of Unearthings (Tavern Books), editor of Figure 1, and managing editor of Tupelo Quarterly, include in today’s #TPQ5? Find out inside? Continue reading #TPQ5: WENDY CHEN
Life is built on how we deal with our trauma, and Alexus Erin reminds us that it will actually be okay. That we can thrive in a world where survival might be the only option. Continue reading REVIEW: ST. JOHN’S WORT – ALEXUS ERIN (ANIMAL HEART PRESS)
Review: Last Stop to Saskatoon, Tony Nesca (Screaming Skull Press):
It’s a world apart – both past and present, angry and sardonic; laughing to keep from crying. Continue reading REVIEW: LAST STOP TO SASKATOON – TONY NESCA (SCREAMING SKULL PRESS)
The writing is as vulnerable as it is nuanced, as arresting as it is confounding. Oliver de la Paz is not afraid to leave the reader reaching for meaning, in effect mimicking the very experiences that compelled the allegory in the first place. Continue reading REVIEW – THE BOY IN THE LABYRINTH BY OLIVER DE LA PAZ (UNIVERSITY OF AKRON PRESS)
Matvejeva writes this rise and fall of love with stark honesty, making it hard to look away from. It’s arresting and engaging and makes the reader yearn to find a connection of their own that elicits such a strong and introspective emotions. Continue reading REVIEW: FLOWERS I SHOULD HAVE THROWN AWAY YESTERDAY BY ELISA MATVEJEVA (MAIDA VALE PUBLISHING)
REVIEW: WHEN WE WERE FEARSOME BY JOANNA PENN COOPER
I generally have a pretty good idea what the point of living is—at least for myself—but there are these times when nothing seems to add up and I’m simply adrift in the sea of existence. Continue reading REVIEW: WHEN WE WERE FEARSOME BY JOANNA PENN COOPER
The poems here are grounded and quaint. They’re not necessarily trying to say anything larger than themselves, and that’s why I enjoyed them so much. Continue reading REVIEW: 10 POEMS ABOUT BEES (CANDLESTICK PRESS)
REVIEW: AMUSE GIRL – HANNAH RAYMOND-COX (BURNING EYE BOOKS)
The reader finds themself met with images of Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood and cobblestone streets, sex scenes and outbreaks of disease. Continue reading REVIEW: AMUSE GIRL – HANNAH RAYMOND-COX (BURNING EYE BOOKS)
This is beauty. It’s power. It’s uncomfortable because it needs to be. It’s timeless because tradition comes and goes and comes again until you can brush it from your teeth. Continue reading REVIEW: THE TRADITION – JERICHO BROWN (COPPER CANYON PRESS)
It’s a study in being a spectator. Viewing life and love like bird watching. Like waiting for something to happen, to change, but not knowing what it is, or what it’s changing. Continue reading REVIEW: FIELD NOTES ON ORDINARY LOVE – KEITH WILSON (COPPER CANYON PRESS)
There is a way to not hide among the trees. A way to say no. A way to take the power back. A way to not be eaten by those you bring into your space – or who bring themselves into yours. Because, you can conquer anything. Continue reading REVIEW: EVEN CURSES END – CATHERINE GARBINSKY (ANIMAL HEART PRESS)
#TPQ5: RACHEL CRUEA
What will Rachel Cruea,
a poetry editor for GASHER, include in today’s #TPQ5? Find out inside! Continue reading #TPQ5: RACHEL CRUEA
There is a distinct musicality to the poems, syllables punctuated and softened by an underlying rhythm that echoes both hip hop and the long history of oral performance in poetry. Continue reading REVIEW: EVERYTHING MUST GO – KEVIN COVAL (HAYMARKET BOOKS)
We are the children of those who falter and call us by the wrong name. But we still believe. We still think there is hope. We still practice prayer because, by God, “I’m not dead yet.” Continue reading REVIEW: EVEN THE SAINTS AUDITION – RAYCH JACKSON (BUTTON POETRY)
This was written for a glass of whisky, late at night, in front of the fire with a photo album. This was written to share at the baby’s graduation and wedding. This is a reminder of mislabeled key collections and dreams realized. This is important. This is personal. Continue reading REVIEW: LATE FATHER & OTHER POEMS – TAYLOR MALI (QUERCUS REVIEW PRESS)
It’s desolate. It’s too calm. It’s winter and nothing resembles anything, because everything is gone. Two roads do converge, but both have been swallowed by nature. Continue reading REVIEW: 61 CENTRAL – INK (FINISHING LINE PRESS)
We see ghosts. They are buried inside our brain, hidden beneath hair and skin and skull. They push at the back of our eyes for every decision we make. They remind us of all our mistakes and fears, but rarely our accomplishments. Continue reading REVIEW: DAD, REMEMBER YOU ARE DEAD – JACQUELINE SAPHRA (NINE ARCHES PRESS)
What will Maria Castro Dominguez, author of A Face in The Crowd, 2016 Erbacce–press prize winning collection, include in today’s #TPQ5? Find out inside! Continue reading #TPQ5: MARIA CASTRO DOMINGUEZ
…an ode to the complexity of relationships and how often we may be hiding in order to sustain someone else Continue reading REVIEW: EVERY BIRD IS A MIRACLE – TARA ROEDER & ARMAN SAFA (NEW MICHIGAN PRESS)
If you want a quick dive into our collective punk-rock past, these poems will transport you back to being 15 again; old enough to sneak into the bar from backstage but young enough to still covet the drummer Continue reading REVIEW: FORGET THE FUCK AWAY FROM ME – JESSIE LYNN McMAINS (BONE AND INK PRESS)
Because of this she believes pain accrued is simply part of life and develops a calloused outlook on love and sex. Continue reading REVIEW: SKELETON PARADE – MELA BLUST (APEP PUBLICATIONS)
We are equals who do not know it. We are hidden behind skin and bones and names and colors and genders and identity, but we are not whole. Continue reading REVIEW: ADVANTAGES OF BEING EVERGREEN – OLIVER BAEZ BENDORF (CSU POETRY CENTER)
these poems are tender and honest and complex. The speaker turns a critical gaze on himself often, acknowledging his part in the distance that grew between himself and his lover. Continue reading REVIEW: A FORTUNE FOR YOUR DISASTER – HANIF ABDURRAQIB (TIN HOUSE BOOKS)
What will Nassere Hussain, Lecturer in Creative Writing and Literature (Leeds Beckett University, UK), author of SKY WRI TEI NGS (Coach House Books 2018), include in today’s #TPQ5? Find out inside! Continue reading #TPQ5: NASSER HUSSAIN
And if things get scary, there’s a comfortable scrap of wool left to pull over their eyes. Hiding in comfort. Things are still good. Stop being so dramatic. Continue reading POWER OF POETRY #64: MELA BLUST
Through poems predicated on the Turing Test structure, Choi introduces the reader to questions that test not just whether or not the respondent is sentient, but also seek to undermine the humanity of specific identities in daily life. Continue reading REVIEW: SOFT SCIENCE – FRANNY CHOI (ALICE JAMES BOOKS)
While the poems can at times express hopelessness, rage and what feels like a long held grudge, there is a resilience in these words that very much feels like a reclamation of power – a reversal of every wrong done. Continue reading REVIEW: IF THE GIRL NEVER LEARNS – SUE WILLIAM SILVERMAN (BRICK MANTEL BOOKS)
Sometimes we are bored. Sometimes we are lonely. Sometimes we are horny. Sometimes we have to turn around and around and around again to simply fit. Continue reading REVIEW: HUMAN TETRIS – VI KHI NAO & ALI RAZ (11:11 PRESS)
It’s becoming immersed in that which you do not know. It’s starting from scratch. It’s acknowledging the past that had been left out of the histories you told. Continue reading REVIEW: I AM A BODY OF LAND – SHANNON WEBB-CAMPBELL (BOOK*HUG PRESS)
What will Shazia Hafiz Ramji, the author of Port of Being, a finalist for the 2019 BC Book Prizes (Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize), the Gerald Lampert Memorial Award, and winner of the Robert Kroetsch Award for Innovative Poetry, include on her #TPQ5? Find out inside! Continue reading #TPQ5: SHAZIA HAFIZ RAMJI
[This] is a haunting and eye opening collection which recounts heartbreaking personal experiences being both mother and mothered Continue reading REVIEW: MOTHER MAY I? – JULIETTE van der MOLEN (ANIMAL HEART PRESS)
Too many people are Goodwill books – spines taped together, hoping for enough threads to keep them in place. Too many wear covers by which they are judged. Too many are discarded without being read. Continue reading REVIEW: HIJITO – CARLOS ANDRÉS GÓMEZ (PLATYPUS PRESS)
Because Cepeda wants you to be the paper to your lover’s pen. Because poetry is so much more than words on paper. Because sometimes sex is more than sex. Sometimes sex is the poem you become for your partner when they need you the most. Continue reading REVIEW: BETWEEN THE SPINE: A COLLECTION OF EROTIC LOVE POEMS – ADRIAN ERNESTO CEPEDA (Picture Show Press)
This is a call to all who grew up wondering how they ended up who they became, and how to enjoy every second of it before you realize that “no amount of surgery could erase those scars.” Continue reading REVIEW: THE GIRL WITH THE MOST CAKE: POEMS ABOUT COURTNEY LOVE – JESSIE LYNN McMAINS (BONE & INK PRESS)
These poems take the reader through generations and geographies a lens that feels deeply personal; the reader becomes a fly on the walls as these families are presented and personified. Continue reading REVIEW: THE PROTECTION OF GHOSTS – NATALIE LINH BOLDERSTON (V. PRESS)
What will Jose Hernandez Diaz include in today’s #TPQ5? Find out inside! Continue reading #TPQ5: JOSE HERNANDEZ DIAZ
These are conversations between friends, lovers, inmates, and acquaintances. These are the stories of someone who lived their life until there was no more. And then, unfortunately, there was no more. Continue reading REVIEW: WE’RE DANCING LIKE PLANETS NOW – M. TYLER ESPLIN (LINE RIDER PRESS)
It can be both the push and pull that keeps you moving through life – even if it’s more an I-could-probably-do-this-on-my-own-but-I’m-not-going-to-unless-you-force-me type of push. Other times it just fucking hurts. Continue reading REVIEW: IN A DREAM YOU SAW A WAY TO SURVIVE – CLEMENTINE von RADICS (ANDREWS MCMEEL PUBLISHING)
It’s okay to be comfortable. To live life day-by-day, and keep it simple. It’s okay to feel like we move through life as a slow drawl – not slow, but easy. Continue reading REVIEW: THE BOY WHO COULDN’T SAY HIS NAME – JOHN LAWRENCE (V. PRESS)
“It’s knowing that it was okay to not want to be royalty. To, instead, want it to be Halloween – to want the ability to wear Vulnerable as a mask without any consequence of laughter.” Continue reading REVIEW: RUST BELT LOVE SONG – MEGAN NEVILLE (GAME OVER BOOKS)
If you could reshape history, would you stay woodworm, or would you scrape, claw, stab, and squeeze your way to the top? Continue reading REVIEW: WOODWORM – MATT DUGGAN (HEDGEHOG PRESS)
From those we love, to those we’ve loved in mirrors, we are left to sift through and decide between thoughts, facades, and realities. This is our path to survival, to strength, to moving on regardless of those who’ve hurt us. Continue reading REVIEW: FORGIVENESS – CHELSEA BUNN (FINISHING LINE PRESS)
It’s an acknowledgement of those we’ve lost in the fire, and those we’ve gained because of it. That, it’s never the drug, but rather the longing to quell the quiet. Continue reading REVIEW: THE ONLY WORLDS WE KNOW – MICHAEL LEE (BUTTON POETRY)
This is the poet, reflecting inwardly, recalling moments when ‘the sad trickles in like morning rays’ with the empowering and uplifting revelation: ’you can rise to face it’. Continue reading REVIEW: RADIANT SOULS – LENEE H. (SELF-PUBLISHED)
And after All tackles the passage of time with snapshots of life that has me searching through my own for moments and memories that speak as musically as her words do. And as a fellow Latina poet, she’s an inspiration worth reading again. Continue reading REVIEW: AND AFTER ALL – RHINA ESPAILLAT (ABLE MUSE PRESS)
breathtaking flights of fancy that will give you the bends before undercutting these mercurial moments with a healthy dose of dark humour. These balloons have anchors. Continue reading REVIEW: BLACK JAM – MATTHEW HAIGH (BROKEN SLEEP BOOKS
People want what they want. They want to be dominated, pissed on, talked down to, used, pleased, titillated, and teased. More than anything, they just want to feel like they don’t have to feel anything other than their truest desires for however long time, or money, can afford. Continue reading REVIEW: THE SPLOOGE FACTORY – CHRISTINA SPRINGER (FRAYED EDGE PRESS)
What did Fred Schmaltz put in his top 5? Find out in this edition of The #TPQ5. Continue reading #TPQ5: FRED SCHMALZ
She becomes the alpha and the omega, earth and firmament as we become willing travellers on her journey through the hills of Ireland and the drumlins of memory Continue reading REVIEW: CARNIVOROUS – MOYRA DONALDSON (DOIRE PRESS)
“…remember that “if you double a bubble / you will have two bubbles / but this information isn’t worth / a pile of rubble.” We don’t always want what we find, but we are often the reason we’ve found ourselves there.” Continue reading REVIEW: MOTEL OF OPPOSABLE THUMBS – STUART ROSS (ANVIL PRESS)
Monsters are truly everywhere. Usually, though, they look just like us. Continue reading REVIEW: BITE ME!: MUSINGS ON MONSTER AND MAYHEM – JOE ROSENBLATT (THE PORCUPINE’S QUILL)
It’s the slant-rhyme hymnals with a push-away-from-God-and-man chorus you can’t keep out of your head. These are hymns for the hopeless who long to be significant. Continue reading REVIEW: ODD LIST ODD HOUSE – ELISABETH HORAN (TWIST IN TIME)
Some ask us how many beats our hearts have left. Others just cut to the core of all our fears, to the ‘kelp-nest of wires’ as her fifth born slumbers ‘tiny and certain’ Continue reading REVIEW: THE SAINT OF MILK AND FLAMES – KATE GARRETT (RHYTHM AND BONES PRESS)
We can certainly watch The Shining as a movie about ghost leading a man down a path of madness, but isn’t it scarier to think the ghosts are figments of his imagination, and his madness’ provenance is in the anger he ignores and represses? Continue reading REVIEW: CHOKING BACK THE DEVIL – DONNA LYNCH (RAW DOG SCREAMING PRESS)
The reason isn’t always so obvious, but wear masks and costumes at each stage of life. We are, in most moments, who we choose to be. And in others, we become, well, others. Continue reading REVIEW: DECIDUOUS QWEEN – MATTY LAYNE GLASGOW (RED HEN PRESS)
We all have our ideals of life, love, and the pursuit of happiness. If eventually we all die, then what is life if we can’t burn through a paycheck in a day – especially with the ones we love. Continue reading REVIEW: STARVING ROMANTIC – VINCENT PERRONE (11:11 PRESS)
Deglane successfully submerges us into the mind of a person troubled by depression, anxiety, trauma, and a Lexapro-fogged brain with an overarching story of hope. Continue reading REVIEW: LADY SATURN – WANDA DEGLANE (RHYTHM & BONES)
We are caretakers to those who don’t even know they need it. We don’t matter. We are a secondary character in a long history of other people’s lives. We are found in the footnotes. Continue reading REVIEW: BUILD YOURSELF A BOAT – CAMONGHNE FELIX (HAYMARKET BOOKS)
While it can never be too late, it can be not enough, or just enough, or meaningless. But when most things are stuck somewhere between our dreams and the idea of reality, we tend to cling to some extrinsic hope – real or not. Continue reading REVIEW: GYPSY QUEEN – NICOLE HENNESSY (CRISIS CHRONICLES PRESS)
Is it worth all the struggles and hassles and deductions only to die in the end? Should it all just be sped up? But more importantly, what happens when you don’t have a choice? Continue reading REVIEW: OUT OF THE SKY – MICHAEL PRIHODA (HESTERGLOCK PRESS)
we get a straight forward here’s-what-I’m-thinking-and-maybe-I-should-have-just-done-it-earlier thread running from cover to cover. Things don’t always work, but sometimes you need to open the book and find out for yourself. Continue reading REVIEW: INSIDE THE GOLDEN DAYS OF MISSING YOU – NATE LOGAN (MAGIC HELICOPTER PRESS)
Sometimes your body is not a wonderland. Sometimes your body wants to be wrapped in clothing or bedsheets or not the arms of someone who will no longer know your name. Continue reading REVIEW: SWALLOWTAIL – BRENNA TWOHY (BUTTON POETRY)
I have authored a devil in me to cull in meto lace these boots with rainbows and wade the bogs to Breathe smoke in the cryogenyBreak dismal syntaxof existing as abomination — from “Lottery” Think back to before the digital sky overshadowed the world. Think back to small hands, poppy seeds, summer scenery, vermillion skies, and the sound of a film spool falling off its … Continue reading REVIEW: CHANDELIER – ZACH JACKSON (BROKEN SLEEP BOOKS)
There is not a right or wrong way. There is only advice. There is only a suggestion of what you might need – if you were here, and I was not alone. Continue reading REVIEW: WHAT I KNOW [HOW TO DO] – MICHAEL GARRIGAN (FINISHING LINE PRESS)
Music provides a table of contents for life. It doesn’t always make sense, but it’s the order of things and it tries to present some pretty scenery. Continue reading REVIEW: THE FUTURE IS HERE AND EVERYTHING MUST BE DESTROYED – COLETTE ARRAND (SPLIT LIP PRESS)
When language and bodies and heritage and history don’t make sense, it’s not easy to find yourself within the world. When the words your family speak turn to those once spoken. When your parents silence your voice, and all you want to do is remember the sound of theirs. Continue reading REVIEW: GOLD THAT FRAMES THE MIRROR – BRANDON MELENDEZ (WRITE BLOODY PUBLISHING)
What do you do when you have a sentence where the same 10 years acts as the minimum and maximum? When there is no light? A spoonful of food? Pepper sprayed and left without water for weeks? You pace in your cell. Continue reading REVIEW: PACING IN MY CELL – ERIC KING (RADICAL PAPER PRESS)
It’s the wondering if we have purpose or if we are allowed to change, or if we are stuck with the who that we are even we are not who thought we could be. Continue reading REVIEW: HEROINES ON THE BLUE PENINSULA – BECKY VARLEY-WINTER (V. PRESS)
Because at first we are skeletal; we crack, break, and hurt; we lose and win, and lose again until the only choice we have is to either heal, or heel. Continue reading REVIEW: UNDONE, STILL WHOLE – TIANNA HANSEN (APEP PUBLICATIONS)
“…the attitude and actions of horses have not changed. They live, love, falter, get dragged around, manipulated, fed, ridden, and eventually buried. Sound familiar?” Continue reading REVIEW: TEN POEMS ABOUT HORSES – SELECTED BY ALISON BRACKENURY (CANDLESTICK PRESS)
Sometimes we forget that when we say “I love you” to someone, it is life changing. It affirms and confirms what you feel and what will hopefully be reciprocated. But love can be two-faced and effacing. Continue reading REVIEW: MICRO – JULIETTE SEBOCK (NIGHTINGALE & SPARROW PRESS)
“We are maps to the present and the past. An erasure poem of everything that has been a part of our life. It’s cloudy, dense, and filled with fog. And then everything repeats…” Continue reading REVIEW: HUGE CLOUDY – BILL CARTY (OCTOPUS BOOKS)
“Postpartum depression is still surrounded by stigma and shame is often directed at mothers. Horan does not shy away from sharing this darker side of motherhood…” Continue reading REVIEW: BAD MOMMY STAY MOMMY – ELISABETH HORAN (FLY ON THE WALL PRESS)
“…he has taken all the pieces, the histories of hands, waterfalls, sanity hammers, shepherds, and suitors, and built the puzzle only to watch it fall to the floor, and have to put the pieces back in the box.” Continue reading REVIEW: FAIR DAY IN AN ANCIENT TOWN – GREG ALLENDORF (BRAIN MILL PRESS)
I kept thinking to myself about the idea that nature is—and will always be—in charge, and we’re destined to bend to its will Continue reading REVIEW: NIGHT BECAME YEARS – JASON STEFANIK (COACH HOUSE BOOKS)
Havens has a savage wit and open wound for you to see on every page. Their lyricism surpassed only by the abundant imagery, you can almost feel the poems being written for YOU. Continue reading REVIEW: SURVIVE LIKE THE WATER – LYD HAVENS (RISING PHOENIX REVIEW)
Wars are waged. Bodies are born and bathed and dying. Language is lost. Friends and lovers, too. If we are “guardians of God’s words” then what is it exactly that we are guarding Continue reading REVIEW: SKELETON OF A RUINED SONG – BOLA OPALEKE (ICE FLOE PRESS)
We are stuck in age-old definitions of gender and personhood and parenting and life. Somewhere in between those definitions is the person we, ourselves, long to be, and who we should “just be.” Continue reading REVIEW: IN THE TREE WHERE THE DOUBLE SEX SLEEPS – ROBERT SHLEGEL (U OF IOWA PRESS)
She’s taking understated moments from life and creating fantastic poems around them, bring a whole new meaning to day-to-day moments. Continue reading REVIEW: EMMA – GABRIEL OLADIPO (GHOST CITY PRESS)
Kirby’s poem had to be read twice and three times and more because it grips you by the throat and doesn’t let go. Continue reading REVIEW: THIS IS WHERE I GET OFF – KIRBY (PERMANENT SLEEP PRESS)
It’s an encyclopedia of the seedy, the attractive, the “I” of life within modern times and modern body. It’s sort of like the words many want to say, but then get caught up in the moment, and can’t remember what they were thinking anymore. Continue reading REVIEW: NANOPEDIA – CHARLES JENSEN (TINDERBOX EDITIONS)
It’s the way the ants that crawl from skin become guides and senses. It’s the way that when you meet another splinter, the bugs are meant for each other – in sickness and in health. Continue reading REVIEW: YOU’VE GOT A PRETTY HELLMOUTH – MICHAEL SIKKEMA (TREMBLING PILLOW PRESS)
Reading Lyd Haven’s work makes me want them to win. Makes my real world seem to fade away, replaced with someone I want to see succeed despite and because of their troubles. Continue reading REVIEW: I GAVE BIRTH TO ALL THE GHOSTS HERE – LYD HAVENS (NOSTROVIA! PRESS)
It’s the mirror as a reflection of who you think they want – the makeup, the high heels – but really it’s the only way to be seen. No(Body) asks you to question the idea of being capable within the moment. It’s the attempt to be Beyonce, or not death. Continue reading REVIEW: NO(BODY) – JOANNA VALENTE (MADHOUSE PRESS)
Adam Sol’s How a Poem Moves: A Field Guide for Readers Afraid of Poetry, is a window into how poems move rather than what they state. It’s a personal approach to understanding how someone else’s words make you feel. Continue reading REVIEW: HOW A POEM MOVES: A FIELD GUIDE FOR READERS OF POETRY – ADAM SOL (ECW PRESS)
There is a misconception of place, time, and atmosphere of the Heartland. It’s not always calm. It’s not rolling hills and farmland and nice people who do nice things for other nice people, and continue their existence in a silo of that same nice feeling. Continue reading REVIEW: THE BONEYARD – JULIA MADSEN (TREMBLING PILLOW PRESS)
If life is lived, vicariously, through dreamscapes and if the moon hotel’s bellhop is “trolleying [the moon’s] baggage on a brass birdcage cart,” then we are destined to hold the weight of the universe on our backs. Continue reading REVIEW: THE CARTOGRAPHY OF SLEEP – LAURA VILLAREAL (NOSTROVIA PRESS)
It’s being told that “making love is for making babies / and gays are intrinsically disordered,” and realizing all the misguided beliefs behind that statement. Realizing that your love for another is in no way a disorder. Continue reading REVIEW: THE WOMAN WITH AN OWL TATTOO – ANNE WALSH DONNELLY (FLY ON THE WALL PRESS)
Elfie gives us a look at the daily struggle that can be experienced when fighting against these natures, and in the end, shows us the relief that comes with the recognition of our own personal truths. Continue reading REVIEW: WILL YOU STILL LOVE ME IF I LOVE HER? – ELFIE (ELFIE IN BLOOM)
If Death brings a flash of life before our eyes, and we see each detail of what and how we’ve lived, and everything that was once background became foreground, then Where the Road Runs Out, the new collection from Gaia Holmes is that flash. Continue reading REVIEW: WHERE THE ROAD RUNS OUT – GAIA HOLMES (COMMA PRESS)
Dominik Parisien’s poems embody chronic pain, elevating the traumas, and illuminating the act of breathing being the most essential part of living. He uses body parts, the act of breathing, religion, and science, to illustrate the struggle and the pain that the poetic voice endures. Continue reading REVIEW: WE, YOUNG OLD ONES – DOMINIK PARISIEN (FROG HOLLOW PRESS)
This is a notice that life is genuinely what you make it, and that if you live it while looking at it, you might miss what is actually in front of you. Continue reading REVIEW: MORNING WALK WITH DEAD POSSUM, BREAKFAST AND PARALLEL UNIVERSE – BETH GORDON (ANIMAL HEART PRESS)
Alongside beautiful imagery there is stark loneliness, the desire to curl up apart from what we might naturally think of home, a metaphor perhaps for the isolation death might bring, or the boundaries that come with having an earthly body. Continue reading REVIEW: MOON CRUMBS – SHEILA DONG (BOTTLECAP PRESS)
It’s a world where men paint women, and women have no say. It’s the world in which she knows “you wanted to fuck her unconscious / and have her wake to your fists.” Continue reading REVIEW: INCLINED TO RIOT – KMA SULLIVAN (SIBLING RIVALRY PRESS)
This is the tale of gutting it out until you think you want to tap out. It’s a glimmer of hope because, damnit, you’ve worked too hard for there to not at least be a glimmer. Continue reading REVIEW: TAP OUT – EDGAR KUNZ (MARINER/HMH BOOKS)
This is a collection of survival in spite of all that happens in life. It’s the learning of “the sound liquid makes as it works through the body’s waterways.” The unrelenting feeling that while life is draining from one body, another is taking it back. Continue reading REVIEW: WE MEANT TO BRING IT HOME ALIVE – ARMIN TOLENTINO (ALTERNATING CURRENT PRESS)
“…it’s the constant feeling that some person, some feeling, some moment is lurking in the shadows, waiting for the opportune time to make their move…” Continue reading REVIEW: PORT OF BEING – SHAZIA HAFIZ RAMJI (INVISIBLE PUBLISHING)
Generally, I will take another sip of water (but it’s really vodka) and make deep eye contact with whomever I’m speaking to, whether it’s the niece Lily or the Prime Minister of Britain. — from “When I am President of the United States” I remember the day that Kurt Cobain died, sitting on my neighbor’s couch, crying to the Kurt Loder MTV News report. I … Continue reading REVIEW: WHEN I AM A FAMOUS PERSON – JOSEPH HAEGER (OPTOGRAPHY PRESS)
Written masterfully, in prose form, quotations italicized, Walsh’s stories embed the past and the present, while questioning religion and the hetero-normative masculinity. Continue reading REVIEW: THESE ARE NOT THE POTATOES OF MY YOUTH – MATTHEW WALSH (GOOSE LANE)
It’s the push-and-pull of one language and culture erasing the other; it’s the beauty and decay of both. It’s the changes that feel like too much change. The Sea that Beckoned is the tightrope walk between being ourselves and the self we may yet become. Continue reading REVIEW: THE SEA THAT BECKONED – ANGELA GABRIELLE FABUNAN (PLATYPUS PRESS)
In short, this book is a microcosm of identity politics, giving faces and names to those who must learn how to exist in various spaces simultaneously. Continue reading REVIEW: A CONSTELLATION OF HALF-LIVES – SEEMA REZA (WRITE BLOODY PUBLISHING)
To them, she is not real. She is who they will fantasize about when home with their wives. She is the babysitter driven home by every father. She is the toy of their desire. She is within reach, but untouchable from above them. Continue reading REVIEW: CANDY CIGARETTE WOMANCHILD NOIR – KRISTIN GARTH (HEDGEHOG PRESS)
One thing that distinguishes Kaminsky from many poets writing in English is that his poems are never just rage, never just fear, never just joy or whimsy or lust. Instead, Kaminsky’s lines are fraught with the full, messy truth of humanity. Continue reading REVIEW: DEAF REPUBLIC – ILYA KAMINSKY (GRAYWOLF PRESS)
Brumett walks through “butcher paper bed sheets” because sometimes that’s how it feels to evolve. Sometimes you have to discover the clitoris and learn about dolphin masturbation in order to get to the part where we can leave legacies and deal with cleaning out memories from closets. Continue reading REVIEW: BONEHOUSE – ERIKA BRUMETT (GREEN LINDEN)
But, body is language. Code talking is language. Coding is language. Even “math is poetic in nature;” It’s just that people aren’t too interested in listening to that which they don’t care to understand, let alone anything poetic. Continue reading REVIEW: LIBRARY OF SMALL CATASTROPHES – ALISON C. ROLLINS (COPPER CANYON PRESS)
These poems are moving, beautifully written, and fascinating, elaborating on the fears, the excitement, the trauma of pregnancy, and anything in between from the labor, and the everlasting relationship between Gruber and her daughter, Quintana. Continue reading REVIEW: Q&A – ADRIENNE GRUBER (BOOK*HUG PRESS)
all this can be yours is a patchwork quilt of what should have been said by all the dicks in the room. Continue reading REVIEW: all this can be yours – ISOBEL O’HARE (UNIVERSITY OF HELL PRESS)
You have to be ready for this collection. You have to prepare to feel. You have to be able to breathe. You have to know that War/Torn is a journey, and a metaphor that digs well beyond the surface. Continue reading REVIEW: WAR/TORN – HASAN NAMIR (BOOK*HUG PRESS)
Giantess is like an a cappella Americana album — it’d be nice to hear the picking of the strings, but they aren’t needed to dance with these words. Continue reading REVIEW: GIANTESS – EMILY VIZZO (YesYes Books)
Directness is difficult. It’s not easy to be bluntly-gentle. But that is exactly what Whiteside has done in his newest collection of poems from Bull City Press. Continue reading REVIEW: WRITING YOUR NAME ON THE GLASS – JIM WHITESIDE (BULL CITY PRESS)
REVIEW: UNMONSTROUS – JOHN ALLEN TAYLOR (YesYes Books):
It’s rare to read a piece that so beautifully captures the anger, emotions, beauty, and need for survival while trying to navigate all the evils of the child-to-adult journey. Continue reading REVIEW: UNMONSTROUS – JOHN ALLEN TAYLOR (YesYes Books)
REVIEW: Most of My Heroes Don’t Appear on No Stamps
Walker gives us our “Window Seat” to the world, as we consider why we are where we are – the good and the bad, the understood and ignorant, the anger and excitement, the love and passion of the way the world is today. Continue reading REVIEW: Most of My Heroes Don’t Appear on No Stamps – Ran Walker (University of Hell Press)
