Category: Reviews & Criticism

Pine, a poetry collection by Julia Koets, reviewed by Carolyn Oliver

Pine, winner of the Michael Waters Poetry Prize, is the second book of poems by Julia Koets (author of Hold Like Owls and The Rib Joint: A Memoir in Essays). Grounded in the woods, fields, and shores of the South, these poems chart the love between women, by custom and necessity long kept secret. Pine…
The Prince of Mournful Thoughts, a story collection by Caroline Kim, reviewed by Philip Clapper

The stories in Caroline Kim’s collection The Prince of Mournful Thoughts all relate in some way to Korea, Koreans, or the Korean diaspora. Each story has a unique viewpoint character. The wide range of stories are often quite personal, the principal conflicts primarily having to do with familiar or other personal relationships. The pieces are…
“Reacting to Crisis”: Tania Pabón Acosta on Margaret Emma Brandl’s Tuscaloosa (Or, In April, Harpies)

Margaret Emma Brandl’s new novella, Tuscaloosa (Or, In April, Harpies) (released this July as an eBook), tracks two sisters on their search for each other during the aftermath of a tornado that has ripped through Tuscaloosa. The book operates on two levels, both personified in sisters Kennedy and Esther. Not only do we witness the…
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…
“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…
“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…
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…
“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,…
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…