(Kalamazoo, MI: New Issues, 2017) In Mark Irwin’s ninth full-length collection of poetry, A Passion According to Green, we find an accomplished and confident voice grappling with the realities of age, decay, and death, while also holding on tightly to … Continued
(New York, NY: New York Review Books, 2017) There is a bitter pleasure to encountering the work of a “new” poet – enjoying and even loving their work – only to learn that the poet is deceased. The poems then … Continued
(Kirksville, MI: Truman State University Press, 2016) Myths survive in the world for a reason. Just when they seem to have taken on too much tarnish, too much dust, an artful hand can reach out and wipe their surfaces clean, … Continued
(New York, NY: Black Lawrence Press, 2016) I’ll confess, when Renée Ashley’s sixth full-length collection of poetry arrived in the mail, the title, The View from the Body, gave me pause. Body, body, body. More than enough poets, I thought, … Continued
(Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2016) At its absolute worst, “travel writing” (including poetry) can come off as the uninspired musings of the self-indulgent, in the way that touristy family photos really only matter to you if the subject … Continued
(Brooklyn, NY: Ugly Duckling Presse, 2015) In Ben Fama’s debut full-length collection, Fantasy, one is struck not by how much of our contemporary culture (actual culture: smart phones, luxury cars, internet pornography, cyberspeak, etc.) is present, but by the contrast … Continued
(Brooklyn, NY: Brooklyn Arts Press, 2014) Many of the poems in Erika Jo Brown’s debut collection, I’m Your Huckleberry, are “traditional” love poems written to the speaker’s beloved. But Brown’s poems are also love poems to language (not the language … Continued
(Minneapolis, MN: Graywolf Press, 2012) As a writer, I create yearlong, but because of my position as an instructor of English composition, summer remains my season of “play,” three months when I treat writing like a full-time job. The giddiness … Continued
(Cleveland, OH: Cleveland State University Poetry Center, 2014) More and more contemporary American poems, particularly those of younger poets, seem preoccupied with the nexus of family, self, and identity. While these topics are not inherently flawed or unworthy of exploring, … Continued
(Graywolf Press, Minneapolis, MN, 2012) As a writer, I create yearlong, but because of my position as an instructor of English composition, summer remains my season of “play,” three months when I treat writing like a full-time job. The … Continued