Category: Reviews & Criticism
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As Breaks the Wave Upon the Sea, a short story collection by Robert Wallace, reviewed by Maria Judnick
For thirteen summers, I rose early every morning for swim practice. I relished watching the sun rise as I did my laps, listening to the last early birdsong as the neighborhood stirred awake, pacing myself by the slow, steady wake of the swimmer in front of me as my mind wandered, pondering the big questions…
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“Finding Fruits in My Palms”: A Review of Katie Farris’ A Net to Catch My Body in Its Weaving by Tiffany Troy
Katie Farris’ chapbook, A Net to Catch My Body in Its Weaving, is more than a chapbook of haunting; it returns us to that distinctly humanist “point of wonder” of what separates human beings from animals. The Oedipean riddle by the Sphinx and Pico della Mirandola’s famous speech all point to humans as the two-legged…
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“Response as Strategy”: A Review of Claudia Rankine’s Just Us by Ben Lewellyn-Taylor
Around the time that Donald Trump became a serious presidential candidate, many Americans in the U.S. took an active interest in the prospect of conversation. Some believed in talking to white people about not voting for him, while others believed in not talking to white people already determined to vote for him. Each position seemed…
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An Insomniac’s Slumber Party with Marilyn Monroe, a poetry collection by Heidi Seaborn, Reviewed by Deborah Bacharach
An Insomniac’s Slumber Party with Marilyn Monroe, I could pick this book up for the title alone: funny and terrifying for the juxtaposition of insomniac and slumber, enticing for being set in a space where girls share their secrets, and thrilling for the chance to do so with the icon Marilyn Monroe. In Seaborn’s second…
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“Print Is Not Dead”: Peter Valente on A Poetics of the Press: Interviews with Poets, Printers, & Publishers
A Poetics of the Press: Interviews with Poets, Printers, & Publishers contains sixteen interviews Kyle Schlesinger did with publishers from the United States, England, Germany, and Australia. Most of the interviews were conducted in person and later transcribed, while the rest were done using the computer. The first of these interviews was with Steve Clay,…
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Ire Land (a Faery Tale), a mixed-genre fantasy by Elisabeth Sheffield, reviewed by Noreen Hernandez
Elisabeth Sheffield uses exquisite language and control over a palimpsest of mixed genres in Ire Land (a Faery Tale). She vacuum-seals a layered plot into a fantasy world of comfortable relationships within a morality-play type story that hints at, then rejects any expected outcome for the main character, Sandra Dorn. Sheffield builds a world where…
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“A Storytelling Masterclass”: Gillian Perry on Nana Nkweti’s Walking on Cowrie Shells (Graywolf Press)
Nana Nkweti is unafraid. Unafraid to interlace myth and reality. Unafraid to embrace the polyphony of voices that tell her stories. Unafraid to breathe life into characters of differing ages, careers, and moral compasses. Nkweti’s debut collection, Walking on Cowrie Shells, captures the experiences of the fearless—water goddesses, teenage graphic novelists, Akata sisters, immigrants, all…
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Andrew Farkas Reviews Adam Tipps Weinstein’s The Airship: Incantations (FC2)
In Thomas Pynchon’s V., some of the characters, Benny Profane in particular, engage in “yo-yoing,” an activity that involves going back and forth between two places for no real reason. A casual contest starts up wherein the competitors see who can yo-yo the farthest, normally won by those who fall asleep on the subway. In…
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Outré, a “Hörnblowér” novel by D. Harlan Wilson, reviewed by Evan St. Jones
Intro. The world building in D. Harlan Wilson’s Outré slaps you in the face during its introduction and never shows mercy. Thrusted first upon us is a long cast list featuring fictional actors as well as figures recognizable historically and pop culturally. From there, we’re thrown down a rabbit hole into a dystopian landscape operated…
Heavy Feather Review 