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…
Review by Barbara Ellen Sorensen In Connie Post’s Prime Meridian, I lost count of how many times she used the words “falling” and “broken.” In the poet’s world everything is tenuous. Everything is breaking or about to break, is…
Review by Barbara Ellen Sorensen The past, present and future are melded tightly in Rebecca Pelky’s debut book of poetry, Horizon of the Dog Woman. These poems sing of a traditional Native American philosophy of life. This philosophy encompasses…
Review by Barbara Ellen Sorensen In Haitian poet M.J. Fievre’s latest book, “Happy, Okay?” readers are catapulted on a journey through the psyche of a woman navigating mental illness. Though these poems punctuate anxiety and depression, they are also abundant…
Review by Barbara Ellen Sorensen A definitive theme in Margo Taft Stever’s new volume of poetry, Cracked Piano, is the mercurial role of mothers. That motherhood is both a terrifying and transcendent time in many women’s lives is not…
Reviewed by Barbara Ellen Sorensen Visits and Other Passages by Carol Smallwood is a collection of poems, short essays, observations and vignettes that take the reader on an intellectual, yet deeply personal odyssey. A reader of this volume quickly realizes…
Review by Barbara Ellen Sorensen For many people, the study of poetry is intimidating. Reading and writing poems reminds some of the onerous task they had to surmount in order to graduate from middle school. Thank goodness for clear-eyed…
Review by Barbara Ellen Sorensen In her new book, What Does Not Return, Tami Haaland’s poetry informs the reader that we are all intimately and inextricably tied to the natural world. The recognition of this interdependence is tightly woven…
Review by Barbara Ellen Sorensen The final poem in Margaret Rozga’s book of poems Pestiferous Questions titled “Why Jessie?” warns, “History is a timeline / Those who do not know history / leave it lying underfoot / We trip on…
Review by Barbara Ellen Sorensen In Les Fauves, Barbara Crooker gracefully achieves the daunting task of creating ekphrastic poetry that transcends the purely visual. Compact explorations of meditative beauty, the poems highlight Crooker’s remarkable craftsmanship and skill. She is adept…