Category: Reviews & Criticism

“On Unholy Melodies”: Bunkong Tuon Remembers the Poet Ted Jonathan

Goddammit, Ted. You’re gone. And you left us with an unfinished manuscript. NYQ editor Raymond Hammond and poet Tony Gloeggler put together a fine collection in your memory, Unholy Melodies: New and Collected, which includes your three previously published books and the final manuscript, the titular Unholy Melodies. They did an honorable job. NYQ Books…
The Scarecrow Alibis, poems by Denver Butson, reviewed by Yolanda Pena Wright

In his fifth book, The Scarecrow Alibis, Denver Butson articulates the strangeness of being human in a manner befitting one of the best contemporary poets today—from the perspective of a scarecrow. The work contained in this book might be the poetic anthem of multiple generations whose longings transcend time and space. It’s possessed, with haunting…
“Abandoned Cities in Need of Light”: Kara Dorris Reviews Psych Murders by Stephanie Heit

Stephanie Heit’s Psych Murders starts with a warning and a promise that draws us in and acts as comfort as well as trigger notice. In “Admission Threshold,” Heit holds the door open into psychiatric treatment, allows us to stand in the doorway, the “safest and strongest part of a structure,” as we take a cautious…
“Twilight Zone Episodic Diagnoses”: Jonah Meyer Reviews Sommer Browning’s Poetry Collection Good Actors

Tell me which Twilight Zone episode you remember best, and I can tell you whether or not you’ll enjoy Sommer Browning’s 2022 poetry book, Good Actors. Pardon the spoiler alert, but the answer is a resounding “yes.” Browning’s introductory, one-sentence page “opens to reveal” for us an entryway, much like the open-curtain beginning of a…
Surface Tension, readable visual poetry by Derek Beaulieu, reviewed by Andrew Brenza

In Derek Beaulieu’s words, Surface Tension is “[a]t its core … a series of delicate, balanced poems, each symmetrical, palindromic, and made by hand using Letraset.” As such, it feels like familiar ground for the famed visual poet. But, as one proceeds through the book, that familiarity quickly fades. Through a process of manipulating base…
Fugue and Strike, a new poetry collection by Joe Hall, reviewed by Zach Savich

Let our meditation on Joe Hall’s terrific new collection of poetry, Fugue and Strike, begin with a brief survey of fecal refuse in nature poetry. Here’s Tommy Pico: Crappy water Shoots thru purgatory creek On its way to the Colorado River And here’s Trevino L. Brings Plenty, resplendent: You mean, if you see this world…
If This Should Reach You in Time, poems by Justin Marks, reviewed by Jeanne Griggs

If This Should Reach You in Time, by Justin Marks, is a collection of poems related by feelings of isolation and by the perception of failure in the systems we depend on, natural and political. If the news about school shootings, fake news, and migrant families has made you feel unsettled, these are poems for…
“Guns on the Roof”: Peter Valente Reviews The Survivalists, a novel by Kashana Cauley

They torture all the women and children Then they’ve put the men to the gun Because across the human frontier Freedom’s always on the run —from “Guns on the Roof” by The Clash Kashana Cauley’s novel The Survivalists deals with questions of race, class, and the problems of late capitalism in a story that revolves…
Dr. No, a satirical spy novel by Percival Everett, reviewed by Adam Camiolo

Dr. No, the satirical spy novel by Percival Everett, is uncommonly funny, ridiculously smart, and has a serious score to settle. It is, in short, quite good. The book follows the misadventures of Professor Wala Kitu, a theoretical mathematician whose name is Tagalog and Swahili respectively for Nothing Nothing. Wala specializes in Nothing, an abstract…