Jennifer MacBain-Stephens
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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
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Michael Sikkema’s poetry collection You’ve Got a Pretty Hellmouth reminds us the world is never what it seems.
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Nate Logan and JJ Rowan’s chapbook mcmxciv (Shirt Pocket Press, 2018) explores the year 1994, its budding technology, and the void it left.
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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.
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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.
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Kristin Sanders’ “Cuntry” (Trembling Pillow Press, 2017) uses the lens of country music to depict female sexuality and desire.
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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
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Jenny Sadre-Orafai’s collection Malak (Platypus Press, 2017) creates a new language that helps us understand the metaphysical, the things we cannot see.
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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.
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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.
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Jessie Carty’s “Shopping After the Apocalypse” (Dancing Girl Press, 2016) contemplates solitude and the will to survive.
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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.
Agape Editions 