Review by Grace Gardiner The title of Judy Kronenfeld’s fourth full-length collection Bird Flying through the Banquet alludes to a metaphor for existence posed by the 8th century English monk Saint Bede the Venerable in his Ecclesiastical History of the English People. In this seminal text on English religious history and identity, Bede describes “[t]he present life of man upon earth” as brief, rich, and mysteriously bounded as the flight of a sparrow through a warm and lively banquet, the bird first escaping, then (un)willingly returning to the cold winter night and its storms. Kronenfeld, who is Lecturer Emerita at the…
Author: Mom Egg Review
Janet Garber’s comic debut novel, Dream Job, Wacky Adventures of an HR Manager, has been named a Runner-Up in the 2016 Shelf Unbound Best Indie Book contest and a Finalist in the 2017 New Generation Indie Book Awards, making the author very happy indeed. She has also been interviewed on a UK radio broadcast here. Janet’s website is www.janetgarber.com.
Review by Jennifer Martelli Field Guide to Autobiography is a mingling of sound, disintegration, and copulation, using the gorgeous Latinate language of insects and oceanic creatures, to reach this tragic and “absolute brightness” of life. The very title of the book hints at scientific nomenclature with a brilliant female voice. Melissa Eleftherion blurs the expectations and parameters of a book of poetry, also. The poems surprise with their flouting of poetic rules, as if the speaker is responding to an inner law, one that is generative, holy: To become solemnly visible, gratification of the body A curving, a fabric, tidal…
Review by Ros Howell Ellen Meeropol’s third novel, Kinship of Clover, explores difference, interconnectedness and the potential for new life to grow in the ashes of tragic loss. Her characters are linked together like winding tendrils leading back to one night when the commune they were involved with held a naming ceremony in a forest: two children died and the community was blown apart. Eleven years later, Jeremy is a botany major at college and his father has been recently released from prison. The novel traces how Jeremy struggles to manage the trauma of that tragic night as it…
Please join us this Sunday for a Reading: MER at Summer on the Hudson: Mamapalooza – Sing Out Sister Sunday, May 28, 2017 Readers: Keisha Gaye Anderson Tina Kelly Colleen Michaels Deena November Lee Schwartz Lynne Shapiro Pier I in Riverside Park South — West 70th Street Manhattan MER reading 3:40-4:20 (Festival 12-5 PM) More readings coming up soon! We’ll keep you posted!
Review by Christine Salvatore Music sets the tone for Lori Desrosiers’ second full collection of poetry, Sometimes I Hear the Clock Speak, in which poems relay a family history of music, dance, and song. Like a tango, Desrosiers leads us from adulthood to childhood, from the present and back to the 1960s. Each movement brings us closer to an understanding of how time stays in motion but the voices of the past accompany us generation after generation. Sometimes I hear the Clock Speak is divided into four sections, linked by imagery of violin music, guitar thrumming, and lots of dancing.…
Heaven Halloween was my mother’s favorite holiday. My youngest brother was quite a pro gathering candy and money at a time when it was safe to go into strange buildings. Starting with the building nearest, he would fan out in all directions, returning to empty his pockets of jingly change, shopping bags of candy that carried my mother to heaven. My mother rarely left the house, sent us out each night in search of sweets. Sitting there in her easy chair watching TV she would wait for our return with a paper bag filled with two-for-one penny candies, marshmallow twists,…
Review by Eve F.W. Linn Alexis Marie Chute’s memoir, Expecting Sunshine: A Journey of Grief, Healing and Pregnancy After Loss, documents with intimate detail and incident her recovery after the loss of a child. Chute’s book offers an authentic new voice and important insights to the literature on pregnancy loss and parental bereavement. The conspiracy of silence that surrounds this universal issue only increases the pain of those dealing with a tragedy and perpetuates the stigma that prevents open discussion about this painful subject. Chute is an award-winning artist, writer and filmmaker. She received…
Review by Marcene Gandolfo Many people associate the Tarot with fortune-telling and supernatural experience, but this is a somewhat limited perspective. Most historians believe that the Tarot first manifested as game-playing cards. Others view the cards as a study in archetypes and images. As we look through a deck of tarot cards, we can recognize—in the kings and queens, the hermit and devil, the illuminating sun and collapsing tower—images from a life, any life, even our own. The Tarot reveals characters and situations to which most people relate. In Ordinary Magic, Alison Stone celebrates…
Review by Issa M. Lewis Peonies are relatively fragile flowers, both to grow and to maintain in cut flower arrangements. They require the right balance of light and water to thrive, and have difficulty growing in close proximity with others. The fact that peonies were a favored flower of celebrated Czech writer Franz Kafka has not gone amiss for Judith Skillman; in her latest collection of poetry, Kafka’s Shadow, she frequently makes reference to it, alluding to Kafka’s own character and personal life, as well as his writings, in the process. For those well-versed in Kafka’s body of…