Reviews
The Machinery of Grace: Cento Poems by Patrice Boyer Claeys
Review by Cammy Thomas Patrice Boyer Claeys grew up in Pennsylvania, graduating from the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Manchester, U.K. Her first book of poems, Lovely Daughter of the Shattering was followed a year later by The Machinery of Grace in…
Inside Out by Marjorie Maddox
Inside Out: Poems on Writing And Reading Poems by Marjorie Maddox Review by Tasslyn Magnusson How’s your COVID-19 writing going? Mine has been less than productive. Between Zoom meetings, elections, navigating online therapy and kid stuff, my mind feels as if…
One Less River by Terry Blackhawk
Review by Michelle Wilbert One Less River by Terry Blackhawk—founding director (1995-2015) of Detroit’s InsideOut Literary Arts Project—is a quixotic voyage over and around water and the creaturely life that lives in, and from, the ponds, lakes and oceans…
Counting by Sevens: Poems by Ann E. Wallace
Review by Laura Dennis In recent months, my life has been crisscrossed by all sorts of wounds, from minor injuries that refuse to heal to the global fractures caused by inequality, racism, and most recently, coronavirus. Not that these…
Somatic by Ann Keniston
Review by Sandra Anfang Ann Keniston is the author of two previously published poetry collections, The Caution of Human Gestures (David Robert Books, 2005), and the chapbook, November Wasps: Elegies (Finishing Line Press, 2013). She is the co-editor of…
The Threshold of Broken Waters by Emily Bilman
Review by Mindy Kronenberg I first became familiar with Emily Bilman’s poetry while working on an international project on Ekphrasis, poetic interpretations of visual and aural artistic works. We were both poets with work posted/published in conjunction with the…
Cosmic Pockets by Joann Renee Boswell
Review by Barbara Ellen Sorensen In her debut book, Cosmic Pockets, Joann Renee Boswell’s poetry is kinetic and visceral. Interspersing poetry with original photography, her words seem to lift off the page and the reader is immediately suctioned into…
Escape of Light by Deborah Kahan Kolb
Review by Sarah W. Bartlett Escape of Light is Deborah Kahan Kolb’s second chapbook of poetry. She is the recipient of several awards, for both her poetry and her essays. Her work has appeared in numerous print and online…
Grieving: Dispatches from a Wounded Country by Cristina Rivera Garza
Grieving: Dispatches from a Wounded Country by Cristina Rivera Garza, translated by Sarah Booker Review by Lara Lillibridge Cristina Rivera Garza is an award-winning writer, poet, translator, and critic. She is the recipient of the Roger Caillois and Anna Seghers…
Alice in Ruby Slippers by Carol Lynn Stevenson Grellas
Review by Tasslyn Magnusson I’m a fan of poetic forms. Haiku. Sonnet. Pantoum. The elusive sestina. I think there is something magical that happens when a poet jumps into a scaffolding. The scaffolding lifts us, readers and author, to…
Roundabout: Poems by Amy M. Clark
Review by Jamie Wendt Award-winning writer Amy M. Clark centers the poems in her new stunning collection, Roundabout, on both the turbulence and the joys of motherhood. Roundabout is rooted in the ways that memory and childhood impact the…
Blood Memory by Gail Newman
Review by Sandra Anfang Gail Newman’s new poetry collection, Blood Memory, is an emotionally challenging and essential reading experience. It chronicles the ongoing effects of the Holocaust on the author and her family across generations. By turns arresting, chilling,…