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[If the rain is everywhere]

November 6, 2019

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

A Review of Native Voices: Indigenous American Poetry, Craft and Conversations by CMarie Fuhrman and Dean Rader

September 9, 2019

P. Joshua Laskey

(North Adams, MA: Tupelo Press, 2019) Native Voices: Indigenous American Poetry, Craft and Conversations should be on your shelf, your reading list, or your syllabus — or even all three. Edited by poet-scholars CMarie Fuhrman and Dean Rader and published … Continued

A Review of Headlong by Ron MacLean

September 2, 2019

Kirk Sever

(Winston-Salem, NC: Mastodon Publishing, 2018) In the Boston of Ron MacLean’s new novel, Headlong, a janitor’s strike lights the fuse that sets off rallies, protests, and political unrest. These events come to a boil during a heatwave, suggesting we are … Continued

A Review of Temper CA by Paul Skenazy

August 26, 2019

Forrest Roth

(Oxford, OH: Miami University Press, 2019) For a familial investigation of self-discovery preferring to simmer instead of boil, Paul Skenazy’s Temper CA, winner of the Miami University Press 2018 Novella Prize, conspicuously decides to extract its choice moments not through … Continued

Totem

August 21, 2019

Geoffrey Brock

Hatched from the wet egg of a sculptor’s eye a quarter century ago, it grips its squat stump, wings outstretched as if to dry. Its bones are wires, its plumage ragged strips of pages torn from my … Continued

A Review of Fake News Poems by Martin Ott

August 19, 2019

Nandini Bhattacharya

(Kenmore, NY: BlazeVOX [books], 2019) If the chronicle of the political spectacle of the past several years has had the feel and texture of running one’s fingers over a rough, opaque blanket covering what is categorized as hard reality — … Continued

I never meant to be mean ||| Crab Orchard Review

August 14, 2019

Natalie Kawam

Though it happened. When I threw the plant across the kitchen counter, I never meant to crush its unstraight stalk crude with green sureness, cracking pottery chips across the tile floor. I meant to scoop handfuls of … Continued

A Review of Gloss by Rebecca Hazelton

August 12, 2019

PK Eriksson

(Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 2019) Sharply contemporary and certainly urbane, Rebecca Hazelton’s third collection of poems, Gloss, balances a candor with, as one might expect from a collection named for a quality of appearances, an appreciation for the … Continued

So Wild

August 7, 2019

Adalena Kavanagh

Pearl was limp with boredom and Taiwan’s humidity. That morning Pearl’s mother, Wen Hua, told her that visitors were coming to the house and ordered her to wear one of the playsuits she’d bought … Continued

A Review of Scorpio by Katy Bohinc

August 5, 2019

Lisa Grgas

(Oxford, OH: Miami University Press, 2018) In the spring of 2011, I underwent a tympanoplasty to reconstruct my left eardrum and the bones of my middle ear. I had damaged the ear about a decade earlier while water skiing on … Continued

Suspensions

July 31, 2019

Michel Vachey

Translated from French by S.C. Delaney and Agnès Potier First it was two false incisors falling on his plate. In the past he might have laughed, written some pages, maybe a decent story he’d have put away with some … Continued

An Interview with Julia Van Middlesworth, Author of Daddy Dead

July 29, 2019

Elizabeth Jaeger

(Florham Park, NJ: Serving House Books, 2019) I read incessantly. This morning, I was at a department meeting at work and my supervisor commented that she always sees me with a book — a different one every week. I read … Continued

Snapshot

July 24, 2019

Rachel Zucker

The Husband & I stand next to each other: not speaking, sometimes speaking. See? Asks the photograph. A closeness or almostness? The photograph is meaningless except insofar as it is a record of us in a place at a moment … Continued

A Review of Quantum Heresies by Mary Peelen

July 22, 2019

Heather Lang

(Glenview, IL: Glass Lyre Press, 2019) If you have enjoyed the works of Mary Quade, either Guide to Native Beasts or Local Extinctions, or are enamored with molecular biologist and field ecologist Katherine Larson’s poetry collection, Radial Symmetry, Mary Peelen’s … Continued

Honeymoon

July 17, 2019

Jeannine M. Pitas

1. Is This Canada? There are aliens living on top of Toronto’s CN Tower. They are attempting to send you a message. They want to spy on earthlings before they make their final invasion and start a full-out … Continued

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