Reviews
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…
Birth of a Daughter: Poems by Samantha Kolber
Review by Janet McCann As a crone poet whose childbearing years are decades past and mostly forgotten, I found this collection brought everything back graphically. The physical and metaphysical elements of childbirth became real again—hyper-real. The poems evoke strong…
Mama Phife Represents by Cheryl Boyce-Taylor
Review by Nadia Wynter In Mama Phife Represents, Cheryl Boyce-Taylor, an island woman from Trinidad, a mother, wife, friend, poet, an artist, gives the world a peek inside her grieving heart after the death of her beloved son, Malik…
Feeding Hour by Jessica Gigot
Reviewed by Suzanne Edison Jessica Gigot is a farmer, poet, teacher, and musician. She is the author of Flood Patterns, (Antrim House Books, 2015), and her writing appears in such publications as Orion, Taproot and Poetry Northwest. She teaches…
Death, Desire, and Other Destinations by Tara Isabel Zambrano
Reviewed by Emily Webber Tara Isabel Zambrano’s short story collection Death, Desire, and Other Destinations delivers on what it promises in the title. Zambrano highlights our desire for human connection and our yearning for the things we cannot have…
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…