Review by Rachel Howe Lisa Grunberger is a real working writer whose work spans genres from poetry [I am dirty (Moonstone Publishing, 2019), Born Knowing (Finishing Line Press, 2012)] to fiction [Yiddish Yoga (Harper Collins, 2009)] to playwriting (Almost…
Browsing: Book Reviews
Review by Emily Webber If you’ve ever seen shed snakeskin, you’ll know it has intricate texture and patterns, the way the light catches it can make it seem otherworldly. Some see snakes as a bad omen, but the…
Review by DeMisty D. Bellinger In her latest poetry collection, Allison Blevins offers myriad perspective on pain, all kinds of pain, through unflinching poem after poem. Cataloging Pain documents physical pain experienced by a disabled body, as well as…
Review by Nicelle Davis Permit Me to Write My Ending by Rebecca Faulkner begins with a scene of a dying boy seemingly choosing to end his life by plunging into the sea. The poem raises questions about whether suicide is…
Review by Kelly R. Samuels Some of us collect stones; we line window ledges or fill bowls with them. We often think of them as static, unless moved by another—water, a person, an animal, a machine—or altered in color…
Review by Linda K. Sienkiewicz “There were herbs in the Waters of Massasauga swamp that could be rendered into medicines for just about every affliction: yarrow and plantain for bleeding wounds, elderberries and boneset for flu, willow bark for…
Review by Laura Dennis I love novels for the vast landscapes they traverse, the many shades of human experience they evoke. Although short fiction elicits pleasure on a different scale, every so often I encounter a story collection that…
Review by Jessica Manack “It was when spring felt real. As if/it would stick around for a while (59).” In her fifth collection, Oblivescence, or “the act of forgetting,” accomplished poet Kelly R. Samuels takes the reader on the…
Review by Jennifer Martelli Lately, I’ve been obsessed with groups of three: triads, tercets, triplets. There is a wyrd sisterhood about the number, mystical and yet as sturdy as a wooden stool. Thomas De Quincey, in his book of…
Review by Sharon Tracey Emily Hockaday’s poetry collection, In a Body, is a study in shape-shifting and an exploration of the intimate relationship between the body and pain as a mother, daughter, and partner. The presence of pain hovers…