Author: Heavy Feather
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“our more or less common ground”: Michael Collins Reads Sherod Santos’ The Burning World
Sherod Santos’ tenth collection, The Burning World, is an extended meditation on conflicts ranging from martial to internal, involving everything from globalism and technology to classical literature. Various metaphors and devices reincorporate and complicate throughout the sequence, allowing us to see into the psychological subtleties at their roots. “Having Already Invented the Greeks,” opens on…
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“Bruce Lee Does the Cha Cha with My Grandmother in the Seventh Level of the Underworld,” a Haunted Passages poem by Vincent Antonio Rendoni
Often, I think of a young Lee Jun-Fan—just a student at the University of Washington—in the days before he met his wife, entering his prime. I see him swinging his elbows, pushing out hipswith Abuela, also new, out of place& foreign to Seattle at the time. Together, they move up and downthe smoke-filled parlor above…
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New Poetry for Flavor Town USA: “Coordinates: Kool-Aid Arctic Grapes” by Avery Gregurich
A slight delicacy: supermarket green grapes covered with Kool-Aid powder, frozen solid, a real “Welcome to Wisconsin” moment where otherwise broke down supper clubs mark the towns, or where they once were. Flavor is preference, but Strawberry Kiwi is best. I had them in Madison the week they’d just culled seventy-two geese and donated their…
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Fiction Review: Al Kratz Reads Benjamin Drevlow’s Testament The Book of Rusty
Benjamin Drevlow’s The Book of Rusty is unlike any other. It’s 390 pages of raw Rusty, a young man’s “mem-wah” about his coming-of-age struggles. Rusty is the outsider looking in, dealing with the loss of his older brother to suicide. Subtitled Another Testament of Benjamin Drevlow, it’s one hell of an intense testimony. Rusty is…
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The Future Has Fiction: “The Park Bench That Appeared on the Beach, and All That Followed” by Luke McCarthy
A History in Seven Parts “Is this a sign?” someone asked. “Obviously” replied another. I. Gray and stone-like in appearance, the bench sat on the beach directly in front of the shoreline. When it was first discovered, onlookers attempted to move it, but no matter how hard they tried, the bench simply would not budge. It…
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Hybrid Review: Connor Fisher Reads Dennis James Sweeney’s You’re the Woods Too
You’re the Woods Too is Dennis James Sweeney’s first full-length collection, published in 2023 by Essay Press. This hybrid collection of poems, diary entries, and prose presents Sweeney’s concerns with the experience and creation of art in solitary, natural spaces. Furthering its hybridity, the collection is loosely framed as a stage play that the authorial…
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New Poetry for Haunted Passages: “Night Terrors” by Mike Bagwell
The trick is to return from somewhereyou haven’t been. This time,I am climbing the buildingon top of the building. I’m ready now. Or, my reflection is.When the night gets sharp enough,it is feminine. It whittles itselfinto underwater caverns. The recipe calls for mirror shardsand a full jar of honey to make it easier.It won’t be…
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“All About Eve”: Jesi Bender Reads Carolyn Oliver’s Poetry Chapbook Mirror Factory
“I’ll writhe wild-eyedfor your city full of spies drink their desire and spitit out in a flood.” Carolyn Oliver’s Mirror Factory is a chapbook of persona poems that focus on archetypal female figures, including: Catherine of Aragon, Emily Dickinson, Iphigenia, and the ultimate Abrahamic feminine symbol, the OG if you will, Eve. The title comes…
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“Cheers to the Weirdos! Part Deux”: Jesi Bender Presents a Heavy Feather Favorites List for 2023
It’s almost 2024, another year, and I’m still a sucker for a year-end list. I love seeing what people enjoyed, adding to my TBR, and discovering new titles and authors. However, I also suffer from a very particular, what-some-have-deemed-“weird” taste. Given this affliction, I wanted to create an occasional list of suggestions from authors who…
Heavy Feather Review 