Category: Reviews & Criticism

“Less Pom-Pom, More Circumstance”: William Henderson Reviews Dare Me by Megan Abbott

Cheerleading and friendship, in sixteen-year-old Addy Hanlon’s world—brilliantly created by Edgar Award-winning Megan Abbott in the just-out Dare Me—vie for Most Competitive Sport in the weeks leading up to the big game, where a scout may just help the varsity cheerleading squad get a shot at regionals. What you’ve heard about cheerleaders, and what you’ve…
Review: Jason Carnahan on God’s Autobio, stories by Rolli

If God’s Autobio, by Rolli, is to be described as any singular thing, it is easily a thesis on voice. A tremendous list of characters inhabits the stories, from the pompous banal to the British Almighty, each an immediate identity which is less introduced and more splashed upon the page in a gleeful display of certainty. Characters…
“Curating,” an essay about the love poem by J. Bradley

Curating Inevitably, love fails, through break ups, divorce, or death. For most, this is incredibly hard to swallow, except for the poet who continues to write love poems. The concern from some potential partners is that they will become fodder, research, like instead of fucking them behind the stacks in some unused part of the…
Review: Matthew C. Mackey on Hotel Utopia, prose poetry by Robert Miltner

I started the trip early in the morning. I was on my way to Chicago to see an old friend of mine. I hadn’t seen her since she left last August. I’m accustomed to travel and the solitude, but not quite the emptiness of time that rests between activities. So, when the Megabus lurched forward,…
Alissa Nutting Looks Back on 2011

Looking back on 2011, here are some things I particularly enjoyed during the year: Poetry Heart First Into the Forest, Stacy Gnall (Alice James Books) Wrenching yet beautiful, at times even sweet in the most glorious, painful sense. Imagine watching, in hi-def slow motion, a future race of twelve foot tall albino supermodels engaged in…
Review: Cruelty, by Jonathan Podoga

Cruelty, by Jonathan Podoga, is no exception to the Splitleaves Press‘ aesthetic of making beautiful books. It’s a twenty-four page chapbook, printed on heavy paper. The cover and back are flecked and a pleasure to rub. It’s bound by thin string that reminds me of fishing wire. The cover contains a minimalist black and white photograph of a bed.…