Review by Mindy Kronenberg A favorite course of mine back in graduate school (under the tutelage of poet Julie Sheehan) was a “First Books” examination of established contemporary poets, seeing their early literary discoveries and distinctive voices take shape and provide signs for the familiar refinement and profound declaration associated with their work. The pleasure in reviewing debut collections is getting that same exciting sense of discovery—witnessing a determined and inspiring poetic voice begin its journey. Julene Waffle’s So I Will Remember is a well-crafted and moving first collection of memories and meditations that engages the reader and sets…
Author: Mom Egg Review
Review by Abby Orenstein Ash Popular culture flattens the lives of disabled people beyond caricature, reducing the complexity of lived existence to a simplistic narrative that either wallows in pain and exploitation or relies on sports cliches of odds-defiance and triumph in the face of adversity. The tendency to flatten the lived experiences of people with disabilities is well known. As James C. Wilson and Cynthia Lewiecki-Wilson write in Disability, Rhetoric and the Body, [When] Americans think, talk and write about disability, they usually consider it as a tragedy, illness or defect … that is as personal and accidental,…
Review by Laura Dennis As I write, it is late June 2022. We are reminded more each day of the perils of living in a female body, of the constant scrutiny. Perhaps that is why it feels fitting that Two Brown Dots, penned by Danni Quintos, opens under the watchful eye of the male gaze, one protective––the father––the other threatening––a serial killer. Fitting too is the fact that this poem, “Portrait of My Dad Through a Tent Window,” introduces the question of the racialized body from the outset, with a police officer checking the photo of the killer several…
Review by Michelle Panik I read DeMisty D. Bellinger’s latest book, New to Liberty, while flying from San Diego with my husband and kids for a month-long stay in Costa Rica. With travel and cultural differences at the top of my mind, I instantly focused on these themes of the book. But the book encompasses much more. What lies within these pages are the complete stories of three women from different decades, races, and socioeconomic levels. Told in three reverse-chronological order, first-person sections, these women’s stories are sad, tragic, playful, and—ultimately—uplifting. Part I opens in 1966 with Sissily, a…
Review by Glenis Redmond In We are not Wearing Helmets, Cheryl Boyce Taylor populates the poetic landscape with flowers: Hibiscus. Delphiniums. Morning glories. Petunias. Peonies. Cosmos. Hydrangeas. Moonflowers. The litany goes on and on, proving how this Trinidadian poet not only loves blossoms but also knows them. She weaves a floral chain as an extended metaphor throughout the entire collection that transports the reader. Though the ground is riddled with emotional land mines, Taylor does not sidestep them but uses floral imagery to deftly wield her elegiac pen to uplift the reader and memorialize her loved ones. Taylor’s blooms act as portals for…
Review by Ellen Miller-Mack Carol Potter, a strong swimmer though language and experience, is an imaginative, far-ranging and often funny poet. What Happens Now is Anyone’s Guess is her sixth collection of poems, awarded the 2021 Pacific Coast Series Award from Beyond Baroque Books. Other books include Some Slow Bees, a winner of the 2014 Field Poetry Prize from Oberlin College Press, Otherwise Obedient (Red Hen Press, 2007), a finalist in the Lambda LGBT awards for 2007, and Short History of Pets which won the 1999 Cleveland State Poetry Center Award and the Balcones Award. Two previous books were published by Alice James Books:…
Review by Emily Webber Ways the World Could End, Kim Hooper’s latest novel, is intricately constructed and deals with mourning, sexual identity, developmental disorders, confronting secrets, acts of violence, and the complicated act of forgiveness. There’s a lot the novel tackles, and Hooper handles it all well, giving each area the focus and depth it deserves. In the opening chapter, Dave, a doomsday-obsessed prepper, discusses the end of life as we know it. We’ve had a good run, as a species. Half a million years. We’ve built cities from nothing, created complex languages, visited outer space. We’ve invented…
Review by Julia Lisella Pigeon Soup and Other Stories is a slim volume of interconnected short stories set in the 1970s in Canada that gives us a glimpse into the first-generation post-WWII Italian immigrants and their second-generation Canadian children. As in most immigrant families, the “Old World” and the “New World” do battle as the older generation seeks to understand the younger assimilated generation. Sometimes generations are blind to each other’s challenges and needs, and at other times these characters understand each other silently and completely. Rosanna Micelotta Battigelli, the author of several children’s books, romance novels and the…
Interview: Neema Avashia Lives in Another Appalachia by Kristen Paulson-Nguyen Neema Avashia is the author of Another Appalachia: Coming Up Queer and Indian in a Mountain Place, which was released from West Virginia University Press in March 2022. Much of her writing pertains to the unique experience of growing up as a member of a tight-knit Indian community in West Virginia, where Indian community members comprised less than half of one percent of the state population. Avashia’s essays have been published in The Bitter Southerner, Kenyon Review Online, and Cosmonauts Avenue, among other outlets. She recently read her work…
Review by Katy Carl What is the question in question? We are left to formulate and to pose it ourselves, and yet the poetic texts of Marjorie Maddox’s Begin with a Question leave the reader certain that the endeavor is worth taking up. A professor of English and creative writing at Lock Haven University and an editor of Presence: A Journal of Catholic Poetry, Maddox has been celebrated within and beyond the world of religiously themed poetry for her probing insight and nimble wit. Her previous work spans a wide range, from topical poetry—on baseball, current events, education, emotion,…