Reviews
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A Book with Wings: Bird Book by Sidney Wade
There is an acceptance of the strangeness of things in these poems, even a generosity big enough to invite the oracle in for dinner.
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They’re No Soldiers: Ryan McIlvain’s The Radicals
The Radicals is the coming-of-age novel at its darkest: all the lessons are learned too late, if at all.
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The Depths We Don’t Have Words For: Sally Bliumis-Dunn’s Echolocation
[R]eading these poems feels like looking down into deep water, being able to see only so far and no farther.
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To Choose Music: Aja Gabel’s The Ensemble
The Ensemble offers its readers the chance to breathe the rarefied air of an elite pursuit.
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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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A Myth of Her Own Making: The Pisces by Melissa Broder
Broder opens up a fantastical vein to offer a glimpse at how we might find each other again.
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Faith and Identity: Fireworks in the Graveyard by Joy Ladin
To “ameliorate” the desire for death or the sense of self-annihilation, Ladin finds in religion a way of reconciliation, not only within herself, but also with her community and society at large.
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Concealed Histories: Elaine Castillo’s America Is Not the Heart
America is Not the Heart offers Filipinx-Americans the gratification of being seen, and a way of seeing.
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Nesting Dolls: Julie Carr’s Objects from a Borrowed Confession
Would you say poetry, for you, is the vessel which houses all other forms? I would say it is for me.
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A Heart-Centered Engagement: Heads of the Colored People by Nafissa Thompson-Spires
Thompson-Spires illustrate[s] the psychic traps set when myths take precedence over lived experience, when “the monstrous head deforms the face.”
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Going Higher: Unearthings by Wendy Chen
Chen’s sense of history is reason enough to appreciate her poetry, but equally thrilling is her language.
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Paying It Forward: Meaghan O’Connell’s And Now We Have Everything
[O’Connell’s] baby, once born, is not the answer to any question, but rather the genesis of a thousand new ones.