Category: Reviews & Criticism

Poetry Chapbook Review: Jess Chua Reads Root Rot by Rhienna Renée Guedry

Root Rot, Rhienna Renée Guedry’s debut chapbook, piqued my curiosity for several reasons. For as long as I remember, I’ve loved nature and the environment. I also enjoy examining the darker side of life and the psyche, and how we cope when processing experiences like loss and grief. Furthermore, the poems were written on or…
Poetry Review: Jeffrey Kahrs Reads Amelia Rosselli’s Epic The Dragonfly

By any measure The Dragonfly is an extraordinary work of a young poet stretching the language between meaning and the paradoxical, and in turn engaging in an often-Manichean battle to define the ethical and moral. Sailing into the wind of the era of existentialism, the tacking and lurching of Amelia Rosselli’s poems reflects her singular…
Nonfiction Review: Eric Aldrich Reads Marcia Aldrich’s Essay Collection Edge

I’m reading Marcia Aldrich’s essay collection, Edge, when I get a text from a friend who is worried that he’s found bones belonging to a deer he knows. Edge is largely, though not exclusively, a book about deer, and I receive my friend’s message at the same moment I’m reading an essay in which Aldrich…
“linguist body still writing thoughts”: Edward J. Matthews Reads Official Report on the Intransitionalist Chronotopologies of Kenji Siratori: Appendix 8.2.3

To state that Official Report on the Intransitionalist Chronotopologies of Kenji Siratori: Appendix 8.2.3 is a compelling conceptual collaboration between Japanese glitch-cyberpunk author Kenji Siratori, the Canadian electro-acoustic duo Wormwood based in London, Ontario, and a coterie of academics, writers, artists, philosophers, and other members of The Ministry of Transrational Research into Anastrophic Manifolds, is…
Poetry Review: evelyn bauer Reads The Sky Broke More by Garth Graeper

The Sky Broke More turns ecopoetics to horror, a reminder that nature is incredibly vast and mysterious, and we are soft, small, and vulnerable in the face of it. A prescient topic, as the climate catastrophe kicks around in the back of my head, readjusting my relationship to nature with every natural disaster, every strange…
Fiction Review: Nicole Yurcaba Reads New Millennium Boyz by Alex Kazemi

In the United States, 1999 was a year riddled with huge headlines. Bill Clinton’s impeachment trials began. Yugoslav security forces killed Albanians in Racak, Kosovo. Fatboy Slim’s “Praise You” released, becoming the artist’s third UK #1 hit; and music began its irrevocable relationship with the internet. On April 20, 1999, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold,…
Fiction Review: Elizabeth Shick Reads Jody Hobbs Hesler’s What Makes You Think You’re Supposed to Feel Better

Jody Hobbs Hesler’s debut story collection, What Makes You Think You’re Supposed to Feel Better, explores the everyday hardships of American life with a tenderness and understanding that leaves open the possibility of hope. The characters that populate the 17 stories in this collection come from all walks of life: husbands and wives. Parents and…
Fiction Review: Dave Fitzgerald Reads K Hank Jost’s MadStone

There are a lot of different ways of being poor, and I have tried out several. I don’t want to oversell it. I’ve never lived on the street or anything. I’ve always had a safety net—parents who love me, and wouldn’t let me fall off the map without a fight—but there were definitely years when…
Fiction Review: Mary Lynn Reed on Ashley Cowger’s On the Plus Side

Life is a delicate balancing act. For every decision that must be faced, there are pros and cons to be weighed. Is that boyfriend in L.A. worth giving up a paid internship for? How much does the tally tip when you factor in his flea-ridden dog? Is buying yourself expensive bracelets for your birthday worse…