The Water Books by Judith Vollmer Autumn House Press: 2012 Judith Vollmer teaches at the University of Pittsburgh at Greensburg and in the Drew University MFA Program in Poetry and Poetry in Translation, and is founding editor of the literary journal 5 AM. This is her fourth collection. Review by Emily Vizzo A poem is …
Reviewed by Russell Thorburn In The Psychiatrist, a collection of poems both old and new by Mariela Griffor, we learn of her love for those she left behind in Chile during the Pinochet regime. The first poem from a previous collection entitled Exiliana, “Love for a subversive,” meditates on that very subject in lyrical lines …
It is no surprise that Margo Berdeshevsky is both fantastic poet and prose writer to boot. In her latest collection, Beautiful Soon Enough, her short stories of twenty-three fearless women “sing like an ocean”— they are beautiful, dangerous, and at times, even horrific. It is Berdeshevsky’s poetic prose that compels these women to life, brings …
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On Mariela Griffor’s “After Death” How can a poet depict grief without sentimentality? What is the best way to employ journalistic detachment while still carrying the power of nouns, of details, the weight of the fact, in the work? How can such “weight” effect the reader’s emotion? These are the questions every writer struggles with. …
David Shook. Our Obsidian Tongues. London: Eyewear Publishing, 2013. By Boris Dralyuk For decades now, American poets have made a habit of buying “an ugly NEW WORLD WRITING to see what the poets / in Ghana are doing these days.” A snatch of Akhmatova, a ream of Neruda, and one is suddenly “a habitant of …
The Wind from Vulture Peak Stephen D. Miller translations with Patrick Donnelly Review by Michael Luke Benedetto The Wind from Vulture Peak invites readers into the multifaceted world of waka poetry through powerful and moving translations as well as the in-depth analysis and historical context necessary to understand and truly appreciate the poetic form. During …
SELF-TRANSLATING – The poetry of Hélène Cardona by Fred Johnston Salmon Poetry is to be praised for publishing this poetry collection in French with facing English translations by the author. Irish poetry in the main is conservative, clinging intensely to the legacy of Austin Clarke and, too often perhaps, the disquieting ruralism of Patrick Kavanagh. …
Sylvain Galais and Cynthia Hogue’s recent translation of this collaboration between poet Virginie Lalucq and philosopher Jean-Luc Nancy is a book that, as its sub-title says, overflows its bounds. A co-authored, interdisciplinary work in which poem responds to image, philosophy to poetry, Fortino Samano is arguably even more richly layered in this (co-)translated edition wherein …
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Review by Michael Luke Benedetto Catherine Barnett’s second book of poetry, The Game of Boxes (Graywolf Press, 2012), includes three sections, which provide the reader with three disparate poetic experiences, traversing the waters between the roles of mother, wife, and lover. Winner of the 2012 James Laughlin Award from the Academy of American Poets, this …
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A review of Blas Falconer’s The Foundling Wheel. Four Way Books, 2012. Over thirty years ago, confronting my ticking biological clock and lack of a partner, I snagged a gay friend who agreed to be the father and got myself a baby. It seemed slightly mad at the time, but my mother, the one person …
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From our friends at HINGED, editor Jen Marshall Lagedrost brings you a book review of the newly minted Manor House Quarterly. *** The cover of this slim, roughly 8×9 inch magazine throbs with color and intrigue. Upon sighting on a wooden table during a poetry reading in San Diego, I felt compelled to touch every …
by Carla M Wilson How many ways can a brain revolt in a technology-obsessed culture? Why do we avert our eyes to the profit-mad corporatization of culture, fruitless recidivist wars, and irresistible climate change? Can “engaged” artists and writers make an impact? What good will peaceful protests such as the creation of “crisis art” do in …
Review by Michael Luke Benedetto In Matt W. Miller’s Club Icarus, his second collection and winner of the 2012 Vassar Miller Prize in Poetry, the opening pages offer two epigraphs: the first, a quote from Virgil’s The Aeneid, and the second, lyrics from Bruce Springsteen’s “Blinded by the Light.” Miller’s readers can expect to navigate the …
Jericho Brown’s Please explores the way love and violence coexist with each other and how the two sometimes intertwine. The collection of poems is categorized by four sections: “Repeat,” “Pause,” “Power,” and finally, “Stop”; the first three sections address self-identification both psychologically and sexually, his relationships with his father, mother, and lovers, and what it …
“I didn’t start out with any clear intention of doing a book of interviews. When I was the program director at the New England College MFA program, I interviewed a few poets who were connected to the program. Jack Gilbert and Gerald Stern were my first two subjects.”
Readers were introduced to Margo Berdeshevsky’s rich use of language with her collection of poetry, But a Passage in Wilderness, in 2007. Her recent foray into fiction with the publication of Beautiful Soon Enough demonstrates that she has not abandoned poetry. In this winner of FC2’s American Book Review /Ronald Sukenick Innovative Fiction Prize, published by The University of Alabama Press, we continue to encounter lyricism, fresh imagery and classical allusions, a language that reflects a poet’s sensibility. Comprised of twenty-three stories, ranging in length from one to eight pages, these are artfully sculpted fictions conveyed with astonishing phrasing, yet transmitted with relative ease.
In her second book of poetry, Kingdom Animalia, Aracelis Girmay continues her exploration into deep emotional issues. While her first collection of poetry, Teeth, also used a slightly fragmented style to delve into such topics as love, death, and family discord, Kingdom Animalia seems to master this technique and exploit it for all its potential.
Reviewed by Andrew Scoggins Ece Temelkuran is described first and foremost as a journalist and political commentator on her website. Embroiled at an early age in the midst of a multitude of violent coups and uprisings, Temelkuran has spent most of her life trying to fight corruption and shedding light upon the daily struggles of …
César Vallejo, one of the greatest South American poets of the 20th century, wrote about politics as well as spirituality and sexuality, and though he wrote just three books in his lifetime, he was a radical thinker, ahead of his time. He wrote about subjects such as love and death with intelligence and wit. He …
by Jill Frischhertz Requiem (the first two sections) Not under foreign skies Nor under foreign wings protected – I shared all this with my own people There, where misfortune had abandoned us. [1961] Instead of a Preface During the frightening years of the Yezhov terror, I spent seventeen months waiting in prison queues in Leningrad. …