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A Review of The Sweet Indifference of the World by Peter Stamm

December 23, 2019

Translated from German by Michael Hofman (New York: Other Press, 2020) The minimal-inducing fiction of Swiss author Peter Stamm, winner of the Hölderlin Prize and short-listed for the Man Booker, has been garnering attention from English readers since his first … Continued

The Ghost Zoo ||| Alaska Quarterly Review

December 20, 2019

Jody Azzouni

We live underground. More or less all the time. We eat roots, berries, tubers and insects. Occasionally rodents. Naked mole rats if we’re lucky enough to find a colony. Then we party. We even cook them if … Continued

A Review of Codependence by Amy Long

December 16, 2019

Lisa Grgas

(Cleveland, OH: Cleveland State University Poetry Center, 2019) The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)’s website is chock-a-block with opioid overdose statistics. From 1999-2017, nearly 400,000 people have died from an overdose involving opioids. There is a tendency (among … Continued

A Review of Empire de la Mort by Robert Nazarene

December 9, 2019

Lisa Grgas

(Intuit House, 2019) Robert Nazarene is a poet on a mission. He established MARGIE, a well-respected journal, years ago to address his concern that poets are often relegated to the back seat in literary reviews. In an interview with “Winning … Continued

Honey in the Carcase ||| The Threepenny Review

December 6, 2019

Josip Novakovich

Ivan Medvedich was washing his silvery mustache after eating a slice of dark bread with honey when a whistle cut through the air, deepened in frequency, and sank into an explosion that shook … Continued

A Review of No Finis; Triangle Testimonies, 1911 by Deborah Woodard

December 2, 2019

Cody Lee

(Edmonds, WA: Ravenna Press, 2018) Deborah Woodard has written a little masterpiece. No Finis; Triangle Testimonies, 1911 transported me back in time to an event that had somehow, until now, eluded me: the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in New York … Continued

At the Beach ||| SoftBlow

November 29, 2019

Lawrence Ypil

The distance from one person to the next was equal to the length of a Bridge. There. Right at the edge of it Forty-four full miles from the heart of the house to where the road hit … Continued

An Interview with Robin Myers, translator of Lyric Poetry Is Dead by Ezequiel Zaidenwerg

November 25, 2019

Heather Lang

Translated from Spanish by Robin Myers (Phoenix, AZ: Cardboard House Press, 2018) HLC: Thank you so much, Robin, for taking the time to chat with me today, and thank you even more for translating Ezequiel Zaidenwerg’s Lyric Poetry Is Dead, … Continued

And Are We Yet Alive ||| The American Journal of Poetry

November 20, 2019

Samuel Cheney

The woman has a Salt Lake stormcloud for a hairdo. She yells from her wheelchair like a man whose prayers have gone unanswered for years. There’s no one else in the hallway. The flesh of her neck … Continued

A Review of The Rapture Index by Molly Reid

November 18, 2019

Cynthia-Marie Marmo O'Brien

(Rochester, NY: BOA Editions, 2019) Molly Reid’s The Rapture Index: A Suburban Bestiary is a stunning debut of interlacing short stories that, together, offer a warning about a human society that sees itself as disconnected from the natural world. The … Continued

Self-portrait before Penalty Kick ||| Prairie Schooner

November 13, 2019

James Ciano

You are on the line the ref’s whistle opens a cloud opens your stomach its shrill is something you swallow a silence opens like a door and on the other side are one thousand closed mouths … Continued

A Review of Pain by Zeruya Shalev

November 11, 2019

Trevor Payne

Translated from Hebrew by Sondra Silverston (New York: Other Press, 2019) America’s Got Talent winning sleight-of-hand magician Shin Lim sits across from Ellen and signs a playing card, folds it up, then clenches it between his teeth, as Ellen had … Continued

Wanting a Lover Man ||| Berkeley Fiction Review

November 8, 2019

James Braziel

Some people never stop talking, and that was, I am certain, without any doubt, the main problem with Bubba. I am certain of it. Every morning ‘round nine a.m. he came into Mrs. Holtin’s Supermarket and sat … Continued

[If the rain is everywhere]

November 6, 2019

Kathleen Jesme

If the rain is everywhere and it is we will soon be taking to the boats and carrying with us only our most precious and lightest things: the birds, in pairs or in flocks, two or … Continued

A Review of Mars by Asja Bakić

November 4, 2019

Amelia Fisher

Translated from Croatian by Jennifer Zoble (New York: Feminist Press, 2019) A confession: I’m a chronic page-flipper. Usually I end up scouting ahead for the end of the chapter because I’m desperate to get it over with. But in Mars, … Continued

Home with H

November 1, 2019

Henrik Nordbrandt

Translated from Danish by Thomas E. Kennedy Especially in spring in a large party it is clear which persons are closest to death: They don’t know why they avoid each other’s gaze One stares himself blind … Continued

Tech Perdu: In Search of Sepia and Poses of the Past ||| Chronogram

October 30, 2019

Laura Shaine

Even as I depress the shutter of my iPhone, my heart longs for the more formal photographs of the past. My family albums begin with a leather volume, labeled ALBUM 1—RUSSIA. The album itself is aged—its … Continued

A Review of Labyrinth by Burhan Sönmez

October 28, 2019

Elizabeth Jaeger

Translated from Turkish by Ümit Hussein (New York: Other Press, 2019) I am incapable of forgiving people who have hurt me. I’ve tried the whole Christian philosophy of turning the other cheek and proffering forgiveness. But what I’ve learned is that others, … Continued

Magnet ||| Kenyon Review

October 23, 2019

Karen Luper

I. The Void When the number zero had not been invented, when quantities themselves were represented by lines or by pebbles arranged in patterns like those found on dice or dominoes. . .when the composition of matter … Continued

A Review of In the Tree Where the Double Sex Sleeps by Rob Schlegel

October 21, 2019

Andrea Syzdek

(Iowa City, IA: University of Iowa Press, 2019) Rob Schlegel’s third collection of poems, In the Tree Where the Double Sex Sleeps, is artfully eclectic, an intricate fusion of meditative lyric and personal narrative that explores creative notions of identity … Continued

Quality of Life ||| New England Review

October 18, 2019

Christine Sneed

Mr. Fulger called when he wanted to see her and she obliged. For a while it was all very matter-of-fact, like a visit to the library, the reasons for going unequivocal. Regret rarely played a … Continued

The Space Traveler’s Father’s Missing Brother ||| Superstition Review

October 16, 2019

Benjamin Grossberg

Picture this: on a planet at the edge of a spiral arm, a kid brother leaves an apartment. And never comes back. As if the apartment door opened onto the pull of space, and he fluttered … Continued

A Review of Topographies by Stephen Benz

October 14, 2019

Abagail Belcastro

(Wilkes-Barre, PA: Etruscan Press, 2019) Historically minded and introspective of both the culture of the landscapes and the people who inhabit them, Stephen Benz’ “Topographies” is a vivid and engaging collection of overlooked places and history. Benz travels widely from … Continued

AUTOBIOGRAPHY ||| Dunes Review

October 9, 2019

Natalie Solmer

My mother’s eyes—a green sometimes blue, or gray— my father studied them the way he studied light with his camera lens constantly, there was a sadness, Slavic and cloud-like. My … Continued

A Review of Strange What Rises by Gary J. Whitehead

October 7, 2019

Heather Lang

(West Caldwell, NJ: Terrapin Books, 2019) Some poets remind us what quietude can bring, that it is not synonymous with disengagement nor weakness. Rather, bringing the noise level that surrounds us down for a few moments (to read a poem), … Continued

Kudzu Vine ||| Exchanges: Journal of Literary Translation

October 2, 2019

Michael Farman

Translated from the ancient Chinese Book of Odes (Seventh Century BCE) The kudzu vine has spread to the middle of the gorge, heavy with leaves! Orioles fly by to gather in the bushes and practice … Continued

A Review of Melanie’s Song by Joanna Biggar

September 30, 2019

Nandini Bhattacharya

(Bethesda, MD: Alan Squire Publishing, 2019) It is of course a truth universally acknowledged that of all possible story arcs devised since the beginning of time, the hero’s journey is the most successful one, etcetera, etcetera. In Joanna Biggar’s Melanie’s … Continued

A Review of Bougainvillea by Elizabeth Quiñones-Zaldaña

September 23, 2019

Bruce Isaacson

(Tolleson, AZ: Tolsun Books, 2019) In her collection of unusually powerful utterances, Elizabeth Quiñones-Zaldaña, with only her first book, has done more for my hopes for religious feeling — a poetry of faith — than any other modern poet. The … Continued

A Review of Life in Translation by Anthony Ferner

September 16, 2019

Elizabeth Jaeger

(London: Holland Park Press, 2019) Life happens and then I write about it. It’s what essayists and memoirists do. We take real life stories and put them down on paper so others can read about them. However, writing non-fiction is … Continued

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