Category: Reviews & Criticism

“Cults, Monsters, and Strange Rites” for Haunted Passages: On The Void and the Cosmic by Sean Oscar

Previously, I discussed a film described by some as ‘Lovecraftian’. I rejected this designation, observing that ‘for a text to be truly Lovecraftian, it requires more than cults and monsters and strange religious practices—it requires existential dread’. Here, I shall discuss a film that does meet this designation, and I shall explain why. But, further…
“The Roadmap to Escape the Inferno”: Jason Teal Reviews Candice Wuehle’s Poetry Collection BOUND

Too often presses aspire to publishing on the basis of reaching an audience and having an impact on letters—and everyone tries to sell books the same way—all while passing the claim that subverting our expectations and experiences comes second, or postmortem, to artmaking. Too often this quality of art goes unremarked on more deeply than…
Space Academy 123, an ensemble graphic novel by Mickey Zacchilli, reviewed by Trey Brown

Space Academy 123 is an abundant story full of likeable characters, simple-but-expressive imagery, and unique storytelling. And this is a comic in which author Mickey Zacchilli (*great name) seems to be having a ton of fun. At first glance the comic appears very chaotic because a lot of action is going on and we meet…
The Fire Lit & Nearing, J.G McClure’s debut poetry collection, reviewed by Daniel Casey

Ruminating on alternate paths, detailed speculation on choices not made, and a darkly comic melancholy characterize J.G. McClure’s debut poetry collection The Fire Lit & Nearing. The tone of these poems when they are most successful is casual crafting surreal responses to the mundane facts of living. From the opening poem ‘Odyssey II’ imagining an…
Sara Burant on Richard Greenfield’s latest poetry collection, Subterranean

Subterranean, Richard Greenfield’s latest collection, is a starkly beautiful and haunting book. Situated mostly in the desert Southwest, these poems inhabit a psychic space called grief, a borderland that hems us in and defines our edges, the negative space that shapes our lives. The grief is personal, addressing a father’s death. And it is public,…
After the Death of Shostakovich Père, a memoir by Maya Sonenberg, reviewed by Barton Smock

“I wish you could hear the bells” We are many and we sit in a circle. I light a match for us to pass around. Inquiry is distraction’s lover. Our fathers have died, or will. We have read Maya Sonenberg’s After the Death of Shostakovich Père, a dark music of spiritual interruptions, a predictive diary,…
Wintering, a hybrid poetry collection by Megan Snyder-Camp, reviewed by Dan Alter

More poets seem drawn each year to some version of the genre called “hybrid,” and Wintering by Megan Snyder-Camp is an exemplary book of this kind. The genre involves, usually, a blend of verse and prose, with lyric, documentary and other modes set side by side. Often these extend to a book-length work constructed around…
Téa Franco Reviews Maureen Aitken’s fiction collection The Patron Saint of Lost Girls

In Maureen Aitken’s collection The Patron Saint of Lost Girls, linked stories sure to compel and move, Mary grows up in Detroit, where poverty, addiction, and death are all parts of her daily life. A story of triumph over violence, poverty, sexism, and more, Mary displays resilience throughout her childhood and young adulthood against the…
You Could Stop It Here, Stacy Austin Egan’s debut fiction chapbook, reviewed by Kim Loomis-Bennett

Stacy Austin Egan’s prose chapbook, You Could Stop It Here, is an encounter with a memory snag that just won’t smooth out: youthful regrets, missed chances, and ultimately transformative ordeals that wake us in the middle of the night—rumination from an adult perspective. Like encountering someone you used to love in an unexpected time and…