Reviews
28,065 Nights by Katie Manning
Review by Sarah W. Bartlett , Katie Manning’s website bio starts with “Upon first seeing a rhinoceros at the zoo at age 2, I said to my mom, ‘I want to be one of those when I grow up!’ I…
Dove, Coyote by Laura Page
Review by Julia Lisella Laura Page is a visual artist as well as a poet, and that sensibility of the visual comes through in this collection, not so much through the imagery Page chooses, but through this poet’s faith…
Motherland by Sally Thomas
Review by Carole Mertz Motherland moves me more than any poetry I’ve read in recent months. Through Sally Thomas’s lines we experience Life as God’s sacred offering to us, and ordinary living, a kind of sacred offering in…
The Bitter Kind: A Flash Novelette by Tara Lynn Masih and James Claffey
Review by Laura Dennis At its best, flash fiction is a powerful alchemy that combines the best of poetry and narrative. It is also a perfect genre for the present time, when uncertainty and fear have robbed so many…
Rise Wildly by Tina Kelley
Review by Lisa C. Taylor What initially struck me about Rise Wildly by Tina Kelley was the imaginative titles of her poems. Titling poems is an art form, and Tina Kelley does it well. Who wouldn’t want to read a…
Leave It Raw by Shakira Croce
Review by Barbara Ellen Sorensen In Shakira Croce’s debut poetry chapbook, Leave It Raw, there is an awareness of the inevitable cyclical journey of life. Though the poems are organized in a linear manner, unfolding from youth to motherhood, there…
Forget Russia by L. Bordetsky-Williams
Review by Lara Lillibridge Forget Russia is a novel told in two perspectives, that of Anna, a twenty-two-year-old American student, and her grandmother, Sarah, who is living in Russia right before the Russian revolution. Anna’s story is told in…
Madonna, Complex by Jen Stewart Fueston
Review by Sherre Vernon Jen Stewart Fueston is the author of two chapbooks, Latch (2019) and Visitations (2015), and of the full-length collection considered here: Madonna, Complex (2020). Her poetry has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and the…
Where the Eye Wants Coast by Linda Opyr
Review by Mindy Kronenberg In Where The Eye Wants Coast, her eighth collection of poetry, Linda Opyr presents poems that are quietly but powerfully wrought, a collection of transformative moments summoned by life’s seasonal gifts and losses. Published as…
Keeping Planes in the Air by Lori Desrosiers
Review by Lisa C. Taylor Lori Desrosiers’ third full-length poetry collection, Keeping Planes in the Air builds a narrative about the ways in which family history plays out in the most mundane of moments. The poet grapples with power…
The Conquered Sits at the Bus Stop, Waiting by Veronica Montes
Review by Carla Panciera Veronica Montes’s The Conquered Sits at the Bus Stop, Waiting, winner of Black Lawrence Press’s Spring 2019 Black River Chapbook Competition, includes eight pieces of flash fiction. Her first collection, Benedita Takes Wings and Other…
A Place Remote by Gwen Goodkin
Review by Lisa C. Taylor A Place Remote by Gwen Goodkin is a debut short story collection populated by unique characters that embody small town America. Life’s tragedies are on display in these stories, as random acts determine the…