Category: Reviews & Criticism

Review: edward j rathke on Black God, a novel by Ben Spivey

Flowing in the Gossamer Fold was my introduction to Ben Spivey and it has that rare quality of growing in me even long after I read it. It was an interesting book, hypnotically surreal and powerful, but missing something. I enjoyed it greatly but it seemed to fall short of the heights it hinted at,…
Sky Saw, a new novel by Blake Butler, reviewed by Sheldon Lee Sompton

In Blake Butler’s lyrically imagined new novel, Sky Saw, due out in December from Tyrant Books, you’ll find the his name spelled Blk Btlr on the cover and on each page. Yes. It’s like that. I toyed with the idea of writing this review without vowels. But I was concerned some might have a problem…
Book Review by Thom James: On Slow Slidings, a novel by M. Kitchell

I’ve seen M. Kitchell’s name before, but I’ve never read any of his work until his was in a project that I was also featured in; though it was a series of photographs, so technically I still hadn’t read any of his work until I read Slow Slidings. Truthfully, I felt awful for not having read his…
Review: Louise Henrich on This Isn’t Who We Are, a fiction chapbook by Barry Graham

“And so it begins, like this, waiting too long for a lazy train out of West Toledo.” Forget that this review is published in November. It is truly October. The beautiful grime of This Isn’t Who We Are will get under your nails and other places you cannot easily access. When I was young, my friend’s…
“Who is ‘You?’ – Identification and Importance of the Addressee in Poetry,” a craft essay by Jillian M. Phillips

The poet’s choice of point of view is just as important as the imagery, diction, or meter. By choosing a speaking direction for their poem, they choose the way the poem will be read. Choosing first person often means that the reader will read the speaker, “I”, as the poet; this can limit their interpretation,…
Review: Nathan Floom on Other Kinds, short stories by Dylan Nice

The way seasons transition, so too do Dylan Nice’s stories in Other Kinds. Nice’s stories inhabit that sort of isolation very few people understand outside of the Midwest, a place of all seasons. Born in and of the Midwest, Nice’s stories and characters push toward the necessity and immediacy of moments, moments that arguably articulate…
Review: Melancholia, by Kristina Marie Darling

Kristina Marie Darling has created a true gem of a poetry collection with Melancholia (An Essay). Reminiscent of Anne Carson’s use of language and interpretation in Decreation and Natasha Trethewey’s narrative arc in Bellocq’s Ophelia, Darling utilizes language and imagery to create a flowing story told through poetry. Darling is incredibly adept at painting pictures…
Review by Nathan Moore: Bodies Made of Smoke, a novella by J. Bradley

Sometimes I wonder about all the TV I’ve missed. Whether from sleep, chemically-induced miasma, or just lack of electricity, I have missed a lot of TV. I missed the Highlander TV series that ran during the nineties. Reading J. Bradley’s Bodies Made of Smoke makes me wish I had seen some of it. The book’s five…
Review: A Hotel Lobby at the Edge of the World, by Adam Clay

The poems in Adam Clay’s A Hotel Lobby at the Edge of the World listen for clarity in the constant noise, the constant static, of time. Like someone who refuses to press the scan button on a stereo, the poems turn the dial one click at a time so as not to miss one clear…