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I would be in trouble if I had to choose a favorite Dean Young poem. I remember when I stood in a bookstore reading Elegy on Toy Piano, before I knew or cared anything about contemporary poetry, and I remember hating it. I remember being angry when I read the first poem, “Thrown as if […]
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I am not impressed with writers who refuse to use punctuation or capitalization; that gimmick has been famously used already, so now it comes across as lazy and unoriginal. Also, I have no patience for unspecific second person singular or plural. Without a clear antecedent, “you” in poetry feels confrontational, like the poet is addressing […]
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Parker’s voice is so singular and strong that I don’t question it, even when it relies on wit, and in return, Parker rewards me for following him when I least expect it.
...moreIn the opening poem of Christopher Howell’s Gaze, “Home Stretch,” he concludes with, “Receive me. Here are my silver / wings, in accordance with custom. Inside of them / leaves have been falling all these years.” And as readers, we do receive him, trusting Howell’s confident voice. Howell’s voice works very subtly. After the first […]
...moreThe emotional theme of the volume, the nostalgia and death that is announced in the book’s title and reaffirmed in almost every poem to some extent, is what I know I will carry with me for a long time.
...moreIn three very different but equally gorgeous sections, Griffith guides us through every poetic form from sonnet to villanelle, all while examining the idea of what it means to be in one place instead of all others, what it means not to know your own momentum and position at the same time, to never see […]
...moreDarling writes with incredible crispness, but the world she describes remains cold, stark, upper-class, and difficult to relate to.
...moreThis collection is not kind or nice, but the brutality of his honesty, the blunt force of his handling of subject matter, and most importantly, his emotional transparency, make this strong collection incredibly effective and worth reading and rereading.
...moreIt feels strange to claim that “Hardware Store on a Town Without Men” is the last poem I loved, since I have loved it for some time now. A fairer term would be to call it The Last Poem I Loved Continuously. Of the ideas she tackles in the poem, the most obvious and perceptive […]
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