New & Noted Poetry (Full-length) Jessica Bell, A Tide Should Be Able To Rise Despite Its Moon. Vine Leaves Press 2023. Inspired by the special bond between mother and child, Bell’s poems search for meaning in a world of misconception.…
Browsing: Reviews
Review by Melissa Ridley Elmes No poet is an overnight success. While Anna Laura Reeve’s first collection, Reaching the Shore of the Sea of Tranquility was published by Belle Pointe Press earlier this year, with many of its poems…
Review by Kimberly Ann Priest Flee Evil “Is the significant difference,” asks Fox Henry Frazier in Raven King, “between a man like Cas and a man like Charlie simply that Charlie chose to run away from his violent potential,…
Review by Mindy Kronenberg Linda Scheller’s moving and eloquent third collection arrives at a time when education is under fire and the sustainability of our environment remains a crucial issue. The poems in Wind & Children cling to the…
Choices that Ache: A Review of Jacinda Townsend’s Mother Country by Brianna Avenia-Tapper “What, after all, to make of a choice?” Some choices are harder than others. Jacinda Townsend’s second novel, Mother Country, unfolds as a richly embodied exploration…
Welcome to MER Bookshelf, a listing featuring noteworthy new and recent books by our contributors, community members, and the literary world at large that share a focus on motherhood and women’s lives. Selected 2022 Poetry Releases of Note Theresa…
Review by Carolyn Roy-Bornstein Suzanne Farrell Smith’s astonishing new essay collection is a quick read but a long contemplation; even the shortest pieces stayed with me long after I’d closed the book’s (gorgeous) cover. The structure is not chronological.…
Review by Laura Dennis Sita, a young Indian-American anthropology graduate who writes copy for MetLife, marries Pierre, a French-Vietnamese businessman. His work takes them to Norway, where she struggles to adapt, despite or perhaps because she has a talking…
Review by Jane Ward In Circling Flight is the first novel by Jane Harrington, short story author and professor of English at Washington & Lee University. In 2019, the manuscript was awarded the Brighthorse Prize, an honor which included…
Review by Emily Webber In Zoe Ballering’s short story collection, There Is Only Us, each of the eight speculative fiction stories is surprising, funny, and thought-provoking. In stories spread across time—biblical times, pandemic times, future worlds—Ballering’s characters often face…