(North Adams, MA: Tupelo Press, 2021) In her stunning debut collection, Music for Exile, Nehassaiu deGannes acts as a symphonic or choral conductor, deftly incorporating a multitude of voices, themes, and structures from Kamau Brathwaite, Jay Wright, Gwendolyn Brooks, the … Continued
Books discussed in this review: The Language of My Captor (Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 2017) Sometimes I Never Suffered (New York: FSG, 2020) The Gilded Auction Block (New York: FSG, 2019) As a first-generation white American, I have … Continued
(Wyncote, PA: Split/Lip Press, 2021) A glance down the table of contents of The Part That Burns: A Memoir in Fragments, by Jeannine Ouellette, immediately shows the reader how Ouellette has chosen to organize her work. Here we see … Continued
(Winston-Salem, NC: C&R Press) “Why would anyone find the train schedules interesting when it is possible to learn about astronomy.” – Kristina Marie Darling, “Orpheus Really Loved that Girl,” Dark Horse Kristina Marie Darling’s collection In the Room of Persistent … Continued
“Divorce her,” Nicole pleaded to her husband. “You’ve divorced the two mothers of your children. Breaking away from Sally should be easy by comparison. You deserve a little peace.” “She’s old.” Adam fiddled with his wedding ring, removing … Continued
You’re supposed to thank the fumes. To be grateful for the toxic patch on the rail track. For the craquelure in the asphalt, seeping green— it reroutes you, proffers with each commute a forced adventure. Who’s to say … Continued
(Colombus, OH: Two Dollar Radio, 2021) I have read the book to beat this year. Melanie Finn’s latest novel, The Hare, follows Rosie Monroe, an art school student living on her own in New York City in the 1980s, as … Continued
My whole life I was a pretty girl until one day I woke up with this hole in my face. The hole keeps growing. It’s not a surreal hole, there’s no going into it; the only thing that … Continued
I have lush grass in my mouth come sit, come mess with my unplumbed sum, let your finger at leisure destroy my mute, my hermetically sealed little baggie of spit. I treasure whatever will stay in the room: … Continued
(Edmonds, WA: Ravenna Press, 2021) In Lord Baltimore, poet Peter Ramos offers a dark vision of mid-to-late twentieth-century America as a lonely urban and sub-urban, post-industrial wasteland. The poems, named for Cecil Calvert, the 18th-century patron saint of Baltimore, teem … Continued
The way she wears her sweater is so Sunday. If her parents were here she’d say why don’t you go watch Dancing With the Stars. It is every generation’s job to feel deprived. If she had kids she’s scared of … Continued
Two Californias (C&R Press. 2019) Sunsphere (BlazeVOX. 2019) Andrew Farkas and Robert Glick, both fiction writers, speak here about their books, Two Californias and Sunsphere. Through a conversation that took place over e-mail, the two discuss non-traditional narratives, hyper-objects, as well as formal … Continued
Before a globe is pressed into a sphere, the shape of the paper is an asterisk. This planet is holding our place in line: look out for metallic chips of meteor hurtling through the universe. On my drive … Continued
Growing up, my mother called it nuni. My father called it nunus, pronouncing it new-newshh. It was the shh sound that I never liked about that one, like my stream hitting the toilet bowl. My grandmother never called … Continued
(North Adams, MA: Tupelo Press, 2020) “How young were my boys when I moved them to a town, actually not even a town but a hamlet situated inside a town that would, within months, become the site of the largest … Continued
Yvette and I were in bed, watching through a gap in the curtains as my neighbor, Lou Spellman, stood at his mailbox and cried. The corner of the box was pressing into his gut, and he took a handkerchief from … Continued
1. Daddy In his last photos he looked unhappy cutting the thick dry ham For Thanksgiving he sat alone eating in the snow under the crow’s irritating call He should have posed for another picture on another day Instead he … Continued
(Denver, CO: Clash Books. 2019) In an age where sprays and sprays of digital and streaming media envelop us in bright blooms and the rich scents of reality, poetry may not serve social change as much as it desires to … Continued
I was sixteen and for the first time in my life I was on the move. A forced exodus. My mother packed me up and dropped me at the airport with a cursory wave. I knew she was … Continued
This poem imagines the exchange on audiotapes from “the wife” to “the blind man” in the story “Cathedral” by Raymond Carver. The story is typically taught and discussed as if the blind man’s relationship with the wife was entirely platonic … Continued
(San Francisco, CA: Outpost19. 2020) Imagine the world going silent. All cars and buses, trains, subways, and planes stop in their lanes and patterns. Tiny particles drifting quietly through the air slowly and then pause, waiting. Even you are still. … Continued
The first invitation led to the roulette invasion. These words echo in nightmare after nightmare. Luckily, the invasion was a success. Success—as is well known—does not preclude the ransacking of sleep. The Hired Chair accepted the invitation and … Continued
I close the shutters, leave a wink of light to keep from burning down my paper house. The seams are creased. I move about in my tattered plight slowly. Elbow on the table, skin puckered makes a kissing … Continued
(Edmonds, WA: Ravenna Press 2021) Raven with huge paws and a brown snout. Boots with an active tongue and a fluffy tail. Bird the husky mix who “sings.” Spiff. Doodle. Elle. These are but a few of the delightful dog … Continued
to explain how a tributary becomes a river there isn’t a way but for the tributary to deny it— I deny the very river I deny the paying of tribute grow up, say the men in my life … Continued
(North Adams, MA: Tupelo Press/Leapfolio 2020) In a slim paperbound volume, which sports a pale blossom on its rain-colored cover — reminiscent of Pound’s “In a Station of the Metro” — poet and oncologist Matthew Mumber’s thirty-nine poems offer a … Continued
(Kenmore, NY: BlazeVOX Books 2019) Wade Stevenson’s Going Head to Head is a book-length poem that takes the head as its central theme and uses it as a way to explore various states of being — from the metaphysical to … Continued
(Cleveland, OH: Cleveland State Poetry Center 2020) Lauren Shapiro’s second poetry collection, Arena, deals with a father’s attempted suicide and its traumatic aftereffects. These poems move back and forth between lyric and prose modes as the speaker seeks to bring … Continued
After a briefly too-long period of agonizing over the matter, I’ve concluded that it’s impossible to artistically justify why we, at TLR, wanted to do a John le Carré issue, and nearly impossible to summarize how the magazine you’re reading … Continued
The husband of one of our editors was pursuing a doctorate in Game Theory when I first arrived at the magazine six years ago. I thought then I had never heard of a more evocative subject for advanced … Continued