REVIEWS: “THE DANDELION SPEAKS OF SURVIVAL” QUINTIN COLLINS (CHERRY CASTLE PUBLISHING)
What makes The Dandelion Speaks of Survival special is that it is more than a collection by a Black writer, but rather an Ode to Blackness.
REVIEW: GIRLS LIKE US – ELIZABETH HAZEN (ALAN SQUIRE PUBLISHING)
Hazen has an acute ability to make a reader feel many unwanted things. Like recollection. Like commiseration. Like retroactive fear.
REPLAYS: HEARTBREAK ANNIVERSARY – GIVEON
I love the emotion as his baritone voice accentuates the rawness and sincerity in its lyrics. The relatability of the song draws people in and you cannot help but sing along.
#TPQ5: HALLE PRENETA
What will Halle Preneta include in today’s #TPQ5? Find out inside!
REVIEW: SELF-PORTRAIT AS A SINKING SHIP – ERICA ABBOTT (TOHO PUBLISHING)
At times, certain stanzas feel like diary entries not meant for us to read– intimate glimpses into tormenting experiences: the illness of a parent, the paralysis of true friendship, the lure of self-harm, the temptation of suicide. –
POETRY IN CINEMA: YOU WERE LOST AND GONE FOREVER, OH MY DARLING
Their flaws are immediate; “I’m a vindictive little bitch truth be told” she tells him. While he ruminates that he falls in love with anyone who gives him attention. – Jessica Mookherjee
REVIEW: FOEVERHAUS – KAILEY TEDESCO (WHITE STAG PUBLISHING) – review by Kristin Garth
There is a candy-coated communion of saints inside these poems that encapsulates the terror of treats of childhood. A “peppermint Jesus” and “cinnamon virgin” cohabitate in these pages with the Bloody Mary.
REVIEW: WOUND FROM THE MOUTH OF A WOUND – TORRIN A. GREATHOUSE (MILKWEED EDITIONS)
it is of value, why try to fix the other parts, “…make them/more normal”? Would it be better to embrace the body in its natural state? – Martha Warren
#TPQ5: COLLIN JONES
What will Collin Jones include in today’s #TPQ5? Find out inside!
REVIEW: WOUND FROM THE MOUTH OF A WOUND – TORRIN A. GREATHOUSE (MILKWEED EDITIONS)
Her poems don’t just show the reader these issues, they pull the reader into them, making them wear them like a skin.
REVIEW: THE TALES OF FLAXIE CHAR – ELIZABETH HORNER TURNER (DANCING GIRL PRESS)
“…explores the line between the fantastical and insanity in a woman pushed to the brink by tragedy…”
REVIEW: THE TALE OF TURKISH CARPET – JACQUELINE SAPHRA (BAD BETTY PRESS)
The poem is a great tale of how we ‘interpret’ other people’s lives when we go to other’s cultures and yet might forget the constraints on our own, thinking them normal. Until – it all gets too much.
WOMEN WRITERS OVER 30: REVIEW: LARARIUM – RAY BALL (VARIANT LIT)
She says “snakes always my company” and just like Medusa she apparently has the power to elicit stoicism in her father. In this way, she is taking some of the power back from her father in their difficult relationship. However, also just like Medusa she is mortal, as seen in the line “cannot shed their skins.”
#TPQ5: SHAWN BERMAN
What will Shawn Berman include in today’s #TPQ5? Find out inside!
REVIEW: BODEGA NIGHT PIGEON RIOT – AMANDA DEUTCH (ABOVE/GROUND PRESS)
Like riding in the car, riding the subway is a moment where many people wrestle with their thoughts. Sometimes these thoughts are a diagnosis of the self, other times they are external, a commentary on the troubles of the world around us.
REVIEW: F LETTER – GALINA RYMBU, EUGENE OSTASHEVSKY, AINSLEY MORSE, EDS. (Isolarii)
Am I a poet or a poetess? Do I need to embrace a male style of writing, of interest, of canon, or someone else’s definition of radical feminist poetry?
#TPQ5: TOMMYE BLOUNT
What will Tommye Blount include in today’s #TPQ5? Find it inside!
POETRY & CINEMA #2: ANYWAY… TEENAGE STUFF FOREVER – JESSICA MOOKHERJEE
This week it’s Charlie Kaufman’s (writer of Being John Malkovitch) difficult, angsty, psychological horror film “I’m Thinking of Ending Things” and a cool, young, and defiant Canadian poet, Eva HD’s poem “Bonedog”.
REVIEW: TRAVELOGUE – PAIGE MELIN (GHOST CITY PRESS)
“….she recognizes that she no longer has complete agency, having surrendered to her travels: “nothing will pull me / from this trajectory”, she writes, “not even its own / destruction”.
#TPQ5: ROY VORAGEN
What will Roy Voragen include in today’s #TPQ5? Find out inside!
REVIEW: LA BELLE AJAR – ERNESTO CEPEDA (CLASH BOOKS)
A revitalized love story for an upended generation. Cepeda brings beauty to the parts of us we fear the most: desires, sex, love, guilt, self.
#TPQ5: I.S. JONES
What will I.S. Jones include in today’s #TPQ5? Find out inside!
REVIEW: LET’S PHOTOGRAPH GIRLS ENJOYING LIFE – JASMINE GRAY (BROKEN SLEEP BOOKS)
This small poetry collection hits hard, it makes us voyeur and complicit in the diminishment of what gender and sex are.
Rev by @jessmkrjy