Review by Wendy Babiak Not Stung – I have read a lot of bad poetry. Between having moderated a poem-sharing site and now judging a monthly online contest, I’ve read more than my share. I know bad poetry. And I…
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Review by Lynne Shapiro – Once I got past my initial fear that The Archivist’s subject matter and language was too remote for my taste, I found I had misjudged the book entirely. I couldn’t put it down and read…
Review by Virginia Bell In Eve Packer’s most recent book of poems, New Nails, the speaker delights in the notion that “people are strange when you’re a stranger.” She interviews, chats up, and eavesdrops on strangers she encounters everywhere, from…
Review by Katrinka Moore – To read Holly Anderson’s The Night She Slept with a Bear is to plunge into a beautiful and harsh world, fully lived in. These interwoven poems weave chaos into a coherence that you sense rather…
Review by Moira Richards – The scent of summer clings to dampened soil; we long to turn it under, let the living nestle down beneath the leaf mulch, as we, inside our houses, turn on lamps against November, wait again…
Review by Ellen Miller-Mack – The moment I finished reading Monica A. Hand’s me and Nina, I felt an intense longing to be with Nina Simone. I went to her official website, www.ninasimone.com to listen to her music just…
Review by Nancy Vona – Donna Katzin has created a haunting and gripping book of poetry that focuses on South Africa, during and after apartheid. Katzin is executive director of Shared Interest, a not-for-profit organization that provides low-income black communities…
Reviewed by Carol Dorf – Although it is “difficult to get the news from poems” Amy King’s poetry helps the reader notice and pay attention to what is essential. Her poetry juxtaposes disparate aspects of personal history, social context and…
Review by Ellen Miller-Mack – When I was pregnant with my first son, I told a friend who is from Ghana that I was dreaming every night about food. There were fine restaurants where I would order extravagant meals, or…
Review by Maria Scala – The cover of Cassie Premo Steele’s latest collection of poetry, The Pomegranate Papers, bears the image of a succulent red pomegranate bursting through and staining a page of text from the dictionary. This is an…