Ariel Francisco’s Before Snowfall, After Rain (Glass Poetry Press, 2016) leads readers through a breathing portrayal of New York City where we come face-to-face with our own sense of isolation.
Category: Micro-Reviews
Open Your Mouth, Carry It to the Next Place: A Review of Jenny Sadre-Orafai’s “Malak”
Jenny Sadre-Orafai’s collection Malak (Platypus Press, 2017) creates a new language that helps us understand the metaphysical, the things we cannot see.
War, Love, and the Life Before Birth: A Review of Ruth Awad’s “Set to Music a Wildfire”
Enikő Vághy discusses themes of heritage, trauma, survival, and inherited memory in Ruth Awad’s ‘Set to Music a Wildfire’ (Southern Indiana Review Press, 2017).
Morning and Mourning: A Review of Jennifer Tseng’s “Not so dear Jenny”
Jennifer Tseng’s “Not so dear Jenny” (Bateau Press, 2017), the winner of the 2016 Boom Chapbook Contest, is born from a 30-year correspondence with her father. These poems are intimate missives on parenting, longing, and heartbreak.
This Galaxy and Everything in It: A Review of Marlena Chertock’s “On that one-way trip to Mars”
Marlena Chertock’s collection “On that one-way trip to Mars” (Bottlecap Press, 2016), contemplates the beauty on the earth and in the universe and how quickly it can dissipate if we aren’t careful.
Motherhood Unfiltered: A Review of Megan Merchant’s “The Dark’s Humming”
Megan Merchant’s The Dark’s Humming (Glass Lyre Press, March 2017) speaks to the maternal experience in the most intimate and real ways: its joys, fears, and the eternal, overwhelming responsibility.
A Human Voice Would Scare Us: A Review of Jessie Carty’s “Shopping After the Apocalypse”
Jessie Carty’s “Shopping After the Apocalypse” (Dancing Girl Press, 2016) contemplates solitude and the will to survive.
Of Melancholy in the Garden: A Review of Sarah J. Sloat’s “Heiress To A Small Ruin”
In Sarah J. Sloat’s Heiress To A Small Ruin (Dancing Girl Press, 2016), household objects and common domestic scenarios breathe, grow, and make choices on every page, but there is nothing common about them.
Let Us Eat Cake: A Review of Kelly Lorraine Andrews’ “I want to eat so many kinds of cake with you”
Kelly Lorraine Andrews’ “I want to eat so many kinds of cake with you” offers an honest, witty look at lust, lost love, and isolation. Seductive as cake.
Pieces of Us Scattered on the Coffee Table: A Review of Gathered Bones are Known to Wander
In Amy Strauss Friedman’s poetry collection Gathered Bones are Known to Wander (Red Bird Chapbooks, 2016), the familiar is made strange and surreal, and what’s “real” is slippery at best.
Forgiveness Like a Slow Doe: A Review of Tammy Robacker’s R
Tammy Robacker’s poetry collection R (Seven Kitchens Press) sets masculinity and the male gaze against female adolescence to heartbreaking effect.
The Happy Genius of Amorak Huey: A Review of Ha Ha Ha Thump
Janeen Pergrin Rastall reviews Amorak Huey’s Ha Ha Ha Thump, a collection that finds humor and beauty in every situation it encounters.
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