Reviews
Letdown by Sonia Greenfield
Review by Jennifer Martelli In her prose poem #59, Sonia Greenfield asks What is it about a sick boy that renders him gorgeous? . . . . Is it how I can gather all of your heat to me and…
to cleave by Barbara Rockman
Review by Kimberly Bowcutt To cleave: A contranym, “cleave” is metamorphosis and movement, blessed beginnings and violent ends. It is complicated. Barbara Rockman’s newest collection of poetry to cleave is a contemplative exploration of how love is sustained in…
Author’s Note – Ellen Meeropol on Her Sister’s Tattoo
When They Take the Children by Ellen Meeropol We are outraged at the recent separation of migrant children from their families, but family separation is not new. It has been used for centuries as a political tool to frighten,…
Author’s Note – Jayne Martin on Tender Cuts
Jayne Martin on writing Tender Cuts “Tender Cuts” is a collection of 38 flash fiction stories, all but two under 300 words, the shortest at just 48. “What is Flash Fiction?” you may be asking. The Meriam Webster dictionary…
The End of Aphrodite by Laurette Folk
Review by Carole Mertz Themes of family, marriage, motherhood, forgiveness, and the recklessness of adolescence shape The End of Aphrodite, Laurette Folk’s second novel. It maintains its focus on four females: Etta, Samantha, Mira, and Joan. Men, in this novel,…
Forgiveness by Chelsea Bunn
Review by Mindy Kronenberg What is it about the pressures of forgiveness that plagues and propels us? We live our lives in pursuit of knowledge, happiness, and love, and despite any accolades and earnest gestures toward fortifying our own…
Travelers by by Laura Bernstein-Machlay
Review by Barbara Lawhorn In Laura Bernstein-Machlay’s gorgeous debut collection of essays, Travelers, readers journey with an extraordinarily honest author who inquires deeply into place, past, the people who inform us, and how these glimmering threads knot within our…
Caught in the Myth by Alison Stone
Review by Cammy Thomas Alison Stone has written three chapbooks, and six full-length collections of poetry, including Masterplan, a collaboration with Erik Greinke, and They Sing At Midnight, winner of the 2003 Many Mountains Moving award. Widely published, she…
A Common Name for Everything by Sarah Wolfson
Review by Laura Dennis Back in graduate school, I discovered prose poet Francis Ponge, who famously said, “Another way of approaching the thing is to consider it unnamed, unnamable.” I was fascinated by his way of looking at the…
Echoed in My Bones by Lisa A. Sturm
Review by Emily Webber Lisa A. Sturm’s debut novel, Echoed in My Bones, does not avoid the hard and complicated aspects of adoption, the foster care system, and dealing with past trauma. However, Sturm also manages to pull a thread…
The Book of Kells by Barbara Crooker
Review by Tasslyn Magnusson The Book of Kells, by Barbara Crooker, opens with the evocative line, “Night opens its woven basket,” (3) from the poem “Samhain.” This was unexpected and delightful. Unexpected as when the “Introduction” describes the Book…
Dressing the Wounds by Rebecca Hart Olander
Review by Jennifer Martelli In her poem, “Hurricane Necklace,” Rebecca Hart Olander writes Remember how you made those block cities, and my boyfriend knocked them down for you with a strand of Mardi Gras beads, shiny purple…