Review by Christine Stewart-Nuñez Before I opened Monica A. Hand’s DiVida to review it, I felt a particular responsibility; Alice James Books published this collection posthumously. Poets work hard to promote their work, and in this regard, DiVida seemed…
Review by Judy Swann With its polyvalent title, Paige Riehl’s Suspension is the perfect hierophant for an exploration of the bridges between the self and the world. Many of the poems are about an international adoption, itself an image of…
Review by Meghan O’Neill Jendi Reiter’s debut short story collection, An Incomplete List of My Wishes, is a model of tension. The push and pull of one’s own sexuality, family relationships or friends and enemies, but most poignantly the tension…
Review by Lisa M. Hase-Jackson The poetry of Athena Kildegaard’s fifth book, Course, ranges from sparse to ample, vivid to subtle, and somber to lightly humorous. Leaning heavily toward the narrative, the collection’s apparent aim, to lead the reader…
Review by Mindy Kronenberg I had become acquainted with L.B. Williams’ work for an earlier review in Mom Egg with her chapbook The Eighth Phrase, and learned how she deftly entwined place, rite of passage, angst, and ecstasy to create…
Review by Ros Howell “They are used to us being afraid of them. Don’t be afraid” (45). Maria Alyokhina was one of three members of the Russian feminist protest punk-rock collective Pussy Riot who were arrested in 2012…
Not Your Mother’s Midwife Review by Judy Swann This skillful translation and the well-written, consciousness-expanding essays and appendices in which it is nestled, are a landmark contribution to the scholarship of early modern times. In a certain sense, Louise Bourgeois…
Review by Deborah Hauser Dirt and Honey, Raquel Vasquez Gilliland’s debut poetry collection, is a celebration of women as agents of creation in Mexican culture that challenges the patriarchy and assert the power of women to conceive, create, and run…
Review by Christine Stewart-Nuñez An intense love transcends most mother-daughter relationships no matter how fraught, tangled, and dynamic they may be. Jill Hoffman’s latest book, The Gates of Pearl, chronicles this intensity with heart-breaking veracity. In her preface, Hoffman—a poet,…
Review by Christine Thomas Alderman “I’ve pretended a lot of things the past sixteen years, but I can’t pretend to feel that” (11). With those words, a woman who has just almost lost her husband to sudden illness, knows she…