Seeking Stars: Jordan Rice’s Constellarium
Review by Hannah Widdifield // August 7, 2017Orison BooksISBN 978-0-9906917-7-890 pp. / $16.00 In her debut collection of poetry, Jordan Rice guides readers through the transformative process of being and becoming. The central topic at hand is Rice’s transition from biologically male to female, but as the title of her collection suggests, this is only […]
Mostly in Dreams: Chris Santiago’s Tula
Review by Tyler Burdwood // July 31, 2017Milkweed Press, December 2016Paperback, 100pp., $16 Chris Santiago’s first book of poetry, Tula from Milkweed Editions, opens with a definition. It turns out “tula,” referring not to four letters but two syllables, two sounds, exists as many words in many languages. Many poems in the book are titled only, “Tula,” and […]
The Skin that Heats and Sparks: Anya Krugovoy Silver’s From Nothing
Review by Paige Sullivan // March 27, 2017Louisiana State University Press, September 2016Paperback, 80pp. $17.95 Though From Nothing, Anya Silver’s third collection of poetry, begins with the titular, Donne-esque poem that distills the book’s overarching themes, one can flip a few pages ahead to “Just Red” to feel the collection’s pulse. In the poem, the speaker […]
Impossible Questions: Leif Haven’s Arcane Rituals
Review by Justin Goodman // March 13, 20171913 Press, 2016Paperback, 100 pp. $15.00 Exhortations are poetic. Think Homer’s “Tell me, O Muse,” to Rilke’s “you must change your life,” to Whitman’s “This is what you shall do.” One can say they are diaristic, but it is more an acknowledgement of one’s temporality; poems are extended […]
Justin Boening’s Not on the Last Day, But on the Very Last
Review by Emily Corwin // January 9, 2017Milkweed Editions, 2016Paperback, 61 pp. $16 Justin Boening’s Not on the Last Day, But on the Very Last is a book that gives pleasure, a visceral sensation that starts somewhere in the chest and ripples down to the feet. These poems are wild, lush, and dreamy. I even love the […]
Hard Lines: Rough South Poetry
Review by Paige Sullivan // November 14, 2016University of South Carolina Press, April 2016Hardcover, 312pp. $49.99 Hard Lines: Rough South Poetry anthologizes contemporary Southern poetry filled with the “visceral, gut-level realism” of a gritty South that swiftly denounces “the sweet-rotten effluvium of magnolia in the moonlight.” Readers will find 20th and 21st century Southern poetry stalwarts–James […]
In the Room Made of Broken Mockingbirds: Ocean Vuong’s Night Sky with Exit Wounds
Review by Jeremy Michael Reed // September 19, 2016Copper Canyon Press, April 2016Paperback, 70 pp. $16 Ocean Vuong’s debut collection, Night Sky with Exit Wounds, has received rave reviews from seemingly everywhere, but, beneath all of this fanfare, his poetry speaks in a quietly strong, self-questioning tone. From cover to cover, Vuong narrates the process of […]
Emily O’Neill’s Make a Fist & Tongue the Knuckles
Review by Emily Corwin // August 29, 2016Nostrovia Press, June 2016Paperback, 30 pp. $5.00 What I love and admire about O’Neill’s poems is where they take me. Often, she starts with an image—such as the image of the “world’s smallest woman” in the opening poem—and this image quickly twists and leaps and transforms, bringing me […]
Political Punch: Contemporary Poems on the Politics of Identity
Review by Ryo Yamaguchi // August 15, 2016Edited by Fox Frazier-Foley and Erin Elizabeth SmithSundress Press, March 2016Paperback, 236 pp, $20.00 When I finished reading Political Punch: Contemporary Poems on the Politics of Identity, edited by Fox Frazier-Foley and Erin Elizabeth Smith, I was waiting for my partner in Daley Plaza in Chicago under its famed […]
To Take Note of Where We Are: Adam Clay’s Stranger
Review by Jeremy Michael Reed // February 26, 2016Milkweed Editions, February 2016Paperback, 96pp. $16 Adam Clay’s third book, Stranger, examines the ways we can be estranged from each other and the places we live, as well as the philosophical questions that arise from our attenuated relationships. Throughout the book, Clay uses colloquial phrases to convey abstract […]