Why Fit In When You Can Stand Out?: Talking with Jason Mott
Jason Mott discusses his new novel, HELL OF A BOOK.
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Posts by: Jeannine Hall Gailey
Angry Reminders: Lee Ann Roripaugh’s Tsunami vs. the Fukushima 50
Human beings like to make myths out of things we don’t understand.
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The Illusion of Wholeness: Sophie Collins’s Who is Mary Sue?
When reading this book, expect your notions of speaker—and even what a book of poetry is—to be challenged.
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Blending Out: Oceanic by Aimee Nezhukumatathil
Despite its title, Oceanic is much more than a love letter to the ocean.
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Both Insider and Outsider: Victoria Chang’s Barbie Chang
Barbie Chang is an intelligent, lively portrayal of the pressures on contemporary women (especially mothers), and a breathlessly entertaining read.
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Playing with Genre: Beth Ann Fennelly’s Heating & Cooling
Whether you read it as poetry or memoir, this collection will invite you into the delicate balance between the challenging, sometimes squalid, human condition and the beauty and sadness of the transcendent.
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Marie Howe Is Magic: Reading Magdalene
Howe’s Magdalene is ambitious in its reach and strangely timely, as American society has swung to the right and, in the process, against the tide of equality for women.
...moreBanana Palace by Dana Levin
Jeannine Hall Gailey reviews Dana Levin’s Banana Palace today in Rumpus Poetry.
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The Halo by C. Dale Young
Jeannine Hall Gailey reviews C. Dale Young’s The Halo today in Rumpus Poetry.
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The Amazing Disappearing Woman Writer
To refuse to disappear at mid-life—I am forty-two as of the writing of this essay—is perhaps the best rebellion a woman poet can make to the literary world and to the world at large.
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The Yellow Door by Amy Uyematsu
Jeannine Hall Gailey reviews Amy Uyematsu’s The Yellow Door today in Rumpus Poetry.
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Oracle by Cate Marvin
Jeannine Hall Gailey reviews Cate Marvin’s Oracle today in Rumpus Poetry.
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The New Testament by Jericho Brown
Jeannine Hall Gailey reviews Jericho Brown’s The New Testament today in Rumpus Poetry.
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If the Tabloids Are True What Are You? by Matthea Harvey
Jeannine Hall Gailey reviews Matthea Harvey’s If the Tabloids Are True Who Are You? today in Rumpus Poetry.
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The Pedestrians by Rachel Zucker
Jeannine Hall Gailey reviews Rachel Zucker’s the pedestrians today in Rumpus Poetry.
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Special Powers and Abilities by Raymond McDaniel
Jeannine Hall Gailey reviews Raymond McDaniel’s Special Powers and Abilities today in Rumpus Poetry.
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Search For a Velvet-Lined Cape by Marjorie Manwaring
Jeannine Hall Gailey reviews Marjorie Manwaring’s Search for a Velvet-Lined Cape today in Rumpus Poetry.
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“The 6.5 Habits of Moderately Successful Poets,” by Jeffrey Skinner
You might be forgiven if, like a kid looking through the newspaper for comic strips, you return to this book only to enjoy the humorous lists, tables, and other extras that punctuate the text. Like “The Periodic Table of Poetic Elements” and its listing for “Glückium – the thinnest, sharpest element…” or the “Top Ten […]
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“Roleplay” by Juliana Gray
In Juliana Gray’s Roleplay, though the book has its share of formal verse – triolets, sonnets, etc – don’t be surprised if you run into a zombie or two. Roleplay contains, besides a zombie love poem, a series of poems based on Hitchcock films, an imagined dating profile by an aging Nancy Drew, and a […]
...morePlume, by Kathleen Flenniken
Newly appointed Washington State Poet Laureate, Kathleen Flenniken, recently released a second book called Plume, part of the Pacific Northwest Poetry Series of University of Washington Press. I will admit, as a reviewer I was fascinated by the idea of the book before I even read it, because Flenniken, like me, studied science before poetry; […]
...moreA Busted Advent Calendar
The Weary World Rejoices has its unadorned moments of grief, punctuated by moments of energetic wit and intelligent levity.
...moreA Mark of the Naive
Woodnote is a layered history, both natural and personal, that is ultimately about how we identify and describe what we encounter in the world, and how we identify ourselves inside that world.
...moreEven More Taboo Than Love
C. Dale Young uses this third book to address injustices, the divisions caused by pain, prejudice, and a fractured spirit.
...moreYou May Say Fist, You May Say Teeth
The unsentimental and honest display of Levin’s attitudes towards loss – her own losses as well the ways that others grieve their lost loved ones – is both moving and strangely distancing, as if by holding her emotions to the cold light of language itself the writer might obliterate them.
...moreTwo Threads
Mary Ruefle’s Selected Poems is best appreciated not for its message or its drama, but for its expert way at guiding a reader through the writer’s lively imagination.
...moreTime Loops, Child Molesters, and Sparkly Tube Tops
McGlynn’s book follows an almost fairy-tale-type logic – the unknowing past-self of the narrator plays the part of the last wife of Bluebeard, searching out the hidden rooms, with the watching future-self unable to keep her from finding the closet of severed women’s body parts.
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