Category: Reviews & Criticism

Trimming England, a satirical almanac of terror by M.J. Nicholls, reviewed by Nora E. Webb

Trimming England, M.J. Nicholls’ latest work of satire, is a brilliant piece of character work. Not so much plot-based, the novel centers around one idea: “In 2021, British Prime Minister Frank Oakface elected to rid each English county of its most irritating citizen.” Those voted out by their community members receive sentences of varying lengths…
“An Examination of My Mother’s Life through the Poetry of Nehassaiu deGannes”: Music for Exile Reviewed by Byron Armstrong

Read aloud, Nehassaiu deGannes’ new book of poetry, Music for Exile, might sound like my grandmother crooning lullabies to the grandchild his mother left behind in Jamaica, or the tears his mother shed over long-distance phone calls, always ending with the same gut-wrenching question. “When are you coming home?” My mother’s name is Gloria, which…
Edward M. Cohen’s Before Stonewall, an Awst Press novel selected by T Kira Madden, reviewed by Stephanie Bohland

A life in the closet, a life before Stonewall, was an act of performativity—a daily exercise in trying to simultaneously resist, and exist within, heteronormative expectations. Edward M. Cohen’s Before Stonewall is a collection of vignettes from a world before the gay liberation movement and the fourteen stories within his book, all brought together through…
The Reincarnations by Nathan Elias, a story collection from Montag Press, reviewed by Pedro Ponce

The elevator pitch version of this review might read something like “Twin Peaks meets Raymond Carver.” In his debut story collection, Nathan Elias reveals the strangeness just beneath the surface of milieus often associated with gritty realism: hotels, hospital rooms, “a bar in Seminole Heights called Hole in the Wall.” These nondescript locales are the…
I Will Not Name It Except to Say by Lee Sharkey: A Poetry Review by Robert Dunsdon

Young poets, hotheads newly converted and ablaze with ideas, crane their necks and clear their throats, eager for their song to be heard above all, while others further advanced polish their craft and are keen to cultivate an identity. They each have an insistent urge to tell of a discovery, a mystery, a moment of…
And Then the Gray Heaven, a novel by RE Katz, reviewed by Lillian Barfield

And Then the Gray Heaven by RE Katz centers around Jules, a queer young adult who has emerged from foster systems and displaced homes, and chronicles their journey as they deal with the quick and unexpected death of their partner, B. While B’s family disapproves of the relationship, Jules finds their own way of dealing…
A Review of Alice Kaltman’s Dawg Towne by Alexandra Pennington

Alice Kaltman’s novel Dawg Towne features interchangeable narrative perspectives among six members of the tiny suburban Towne who each offer a different glimpse into the rich and complex connections made between man and canine. The central conflict of the novel features a young dognapper; she believes she is a social justice warrior who is saving…
Queenzenglish.mp3, a poetry | philosophy | performativity anthology edited by Kyoo Lee, reviewed by Ben Tripp

Most publishers now are more risk-averse than ever. And this while also, globally, we are led to believe that English still reigns somehow more or less undisputed as the one language that; as Kyoo Lee writes, “everyone comes to inhabit … [everyone] gets enmeshed Englishly, how, when, and where does it grow?” The answers presented…
A Thousand Curves, a Red Mountain Editor’s Choice Award-winning poetry collection by Paul Nemser, reviewed by Noreen Hernandez

Paul Nemser’s childhood connection to poetry began in Portland, Oregon, where he passed the time reading poems in the storage room of his family’s tool store. From there, he went on to receive a BA from Harvard College, an MFA from Columbia University School of the Arts, and a JD from Boston University School of…