Tag: Black Ocean

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…
The Book of Joshua, poetry by Zachary Schomburg, reviewed by Bill Neumire

In Stephen Crane’s poem “In the Desert” an inexplicably naked, bestial creature squats in the desert eating its own heart “‘[b]ecause it is bitter, / [a]nd because it is [his] heart.’” The essence of Zachary Schomburg’s latest book, The Book of Joshua, calls to mind Crane’s poem with its surprising, absurd, captivating logic and dreamscape.…
CJ Opperthauser on The Self Unstable, essay/literature by Elisa Gabbert

I’ve come to believe the best kind of book is the kind of book you don’t quite know how to categorize. Such is the case with Elisa Gabbert’s newest release, The Self Unstable, which is labeled with that enticingly vague “Essay/Literature” on its back cover but which, without friction, could be called a book of…
Whittling a New Face in the Dark, poetry by DJ Dolack, reviewed by Jordan Sanderson

“People quot(e) / when their empathy is down,” observes the speaker of “What They Want Me to Tell You.” Never resorting to “quotes” or platitudes, Whittling a New Face in the Dark exhibits a brutal empathy. The speakers of these poems stand just inside the thresholds of dark rooms and address us in measured statements…
The Next Monsters, a poetry collection by Julie Doxsee, reviewed by David Peak

Doxsee’s poems are shattered mirrors; they are fractured, jagged. If you stare at them long enough, you’ll uncover patterns in the chaos, hints of a larger image that was perhaps banished to a new and frightening dimension when the mirror was broken—like the big moment at the end of Prince of Darkness that leaves you…
Swamp Isthmus, poetry by Joshua Marie Wilkinson, reviewed by Ally Harris

Illuminated by “lampmatch,” Swamp Ithsmus is poems of the inevitability of fleeting encounters in a foggy suburban landscape. Though assuredly more subtle than the way I’ve articulated it, all the women in Ithsmus have already stood from the bed by the time I discern their silhouette, and it is in that space between two people…
David Peak Reviews The Devotional Poems by Joe Hall

In his 1961 film Through a Glass Darkly, Ingmar Bergman famously portrayed a god in the form of a spider. The woman to whom the god appears, a young schizophrenic named Karin, initially reacts to the sight of the spider with horror—and then revulsion. After being administered a sedative, she calms and says, “I was…
The Moon’s Jaw, poetry by Rauan Klassnik, reviewed by Jeremy Behreandt

I’m trying to figure out what they call the synopsis wherein each big event is separated by a dash at the beginning of a novel’s chapters. You know what I’m talking about? Like in Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian: Childhood in Tennessee – Runs away – New Orleans – Fights – Is shot – To Galveston…
Dark Matter, poetry by Aase Berg, reviewed by Jeremy Behreandt

One contracts and soon succumbs to Dark Matter more than one begins to read it; no matter how this review begins, a cursory tracing of infection patterns would be more suitable. Recurrent throughout this latest translation of Aase Berg’s poetry is the image of the black shell, which might be a cracking, hatching chaosmic egg,…