In Katie Manning’s 28,065 Nights (River Glass Books, 2020) the speaker tells stories about her grandmother to dive into the joys and sorrows of being human: small details like poor girls using vanilla for perfume or what pieces of us hide in a grandmother’s dresser drawers. Manning’s prose poems spill out confessions, family secrets, and…
Category: Micro-Reviews
The Bugs Know How to Find the Light: A Review of Michael Sikkema’s “You’ve Got a Pretty Hellmouth”
Michael Sikkema’s poetry collection You’ve Got a Pretty Hellmouth reminds us the world is never what it seems.
The Internet Is a Bad Bandaid: A Review of “mcmxciv” by Nate Logan and JJ Rowan
Nate Logan and JJ Rowan’s chapbook mcmxciv (Shirt Pocket Press, 2018) explores the year 1994, its budding technology, and the void it left.
Neglecting the Noise: A Review of Elisa Grajeda-Urmston and Tamara Adams’ “Soundcheck: A Musician’s Journey in Song and Verse”
Elisa Grajeda-Urmston’s Soundcheck: A Musician’s Journey in Song and Verse (Jamii Books, 2018, with artwork by Tamara Adams) is written “for every girl who ever played a guitar.”
Step by Step: A Review of Mary Kovaleski Byrnes’ So Long the Sky
So Long the Sky by Mary Kovaleski Byrnes examines what it takes to make a life in a new place through the personas of Russian and Polish immigrants.
Staff Picks for Spring Reading
Social justice is central to Agape’s mission, and we thought we’d share with you some books that have changed and challenged us.
She Spirals Again: A Review of Sarah Lilius’ GIRL
In Sarah Lilius’ GIRL (Dancing Girl Press, 2017), the girls carve out pieces of themselves in a world of harassers and violence, in a world of Trump.
An Ambiguous Utopia: Review of Leah Umansky’s “The Barbarous Century”
The advent of movements like Me Too, Black Lives Matter, the Never Again student efforts against gun violence, and others speak to inevitable and necessary backlashes against misogyny, inequality, corruption, and violence. These movements are reminders of the widening cracks between what’s long been tolerated (and in many cases accepted) and the reality of what…
On Discovery and Obsession: A Review of Lillian-Yvonne Bertram’s Personal Science
The poems in Lillian-Yvonne Bertram’s book Personal Science (Tupelo Press, 2017) remind us of the intimacy of discovery.
Where Your Desire Was Left Out: A Review of Kristin Sanders’ “Cuntry”
Kristin Sanders’ “Cuntry”
(Trembling Pillow Press, 2017) uses the lens of country music to depict female sexuality and desire.
Blurring the Edge of the Tiniest Things: A Review of Ivy Alvarez’s “The Everyday English Dictionary”
In Ivy Alvarez’s The Everyday English Dictionary (Paekakariki Press, 2016), each stanza has a header word preceding it (like words in a dictionary), and the words are not everyday words: they are quite challenging. One might deduce that these words would probably need to be looked up in a dictionary. And yet, the stanzas oppose the…
Shared Mercy: A Review of Heidi Czerwiec’s “Conjoining”
Heidi Czerwiec’s haunting new book Conjoining (Sable Books, 2017) focuses on the myth of mothers as monsters.
Agape Editions 