Review by Mindy Kronenberg Poetry about illness and the journey toward recovery can be the most challenging to write. It is a daunting task to expose the intimate and raw moments of discovery and fear that accompany diagnosis and…
Browsing: Reviews
Review by Tasslyn Magnusson I am a poet and historian. My dissertation examined the relationship between memory, national identity, and race in our public spaces. I am still deeply interested in how we use words, symbols, and the evidence…
Review by Jamie Wendt Anne Graue’s first full-length collection of poetry, Full and Plum-Colored Velvet, expresses the beauty and loss rooted in Kansas. This collection was fittingly published by Woodley Press, a small publishing company dedicated to showcasing Kansas artists…
Review by Laura Dennis We usually hear “Hallelujah” as a joyful chorus, a sort of incantation expressing gratitude to the divine. In Hallelujah Science, however, poet, performer, and Cave Canem fellow Kelli Stevens Kane incorporates it into a new…
Review by Christine Stewart-Nuñez I tumbled through Meghan Sterling’s debut full-length poetry collection, These Few Seeds, the poems loose gems in my hands. The facets of each are similar—domestic inspiration and intimate meditation made transcendent across branching sentences—and yet…
Review by DeMisty D. Bellinger The Hive puts a finger on what American media has been chasing since the Tea Party formed and through Donald Trump’s term as president: small-town Midwest Americans’ motivations. In her second novel, Melissa Scholes Young…
Review by Sherre Vernon Iris Jamahl Dunkle was the 2017-2018 Poet Laureate of Sonoma County, California and is the poetry director of the Napa Valley Writers’ Conference. Her poetry collections include Interrupted Geographies, Gold Passage, There’s a Ghost in…
Review by Barbara Ellen Sorensen In her haunting book, Lock Her Up, Tina Parker switches effortlessly between writing persona poems, concrete poems, and epistolary verses, as well as transforming medical forms based on real-life response into poetic renderings. My…
Review by Carla Panciera I’ve never been to New Mexico, but after reading Bosque, a collection of poetry from Albuquerque’s poet laureate, Michelle Otero, the landscape rises before me: coyote fences, January yucca fronds, lanceleaf sage, salt cedar, mesquite pods.…
Review by Lisa C. Taylor Rarely does a book come along that combines historical, literary, and artistic icons with the ordeals of intimate relationships. Woman Drinking Absinthe deftly chronicles the age-old saga of desire and deceit with unexpected detours. The…