“The Children” by Paula Bohince
The plosive thrills and quietly mournful tenor of the finely-wrought poems Paula Bohince’s The Children (her second full-length collection) reward enormously upon first encounter, and only more so upon subsequent…
Poetry
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“The Fact of the Matter” by Sally Keith
In The Fact of the Matter, moments are artifacts to be labeled and sorted. The poems are not an attempt to make sense – of time, of history, and of…
The Last Poem I Loved: “Sleeping Lioness” by Larry Levis
As a fiction writer, and as a reader, I gravitate toward stories from the perspective of a specific, imperfect and alert, outward-and-inward-looking consciousness, a transparent eyeball with legs and, at…
David Biespiel’s Poetry Wire: Portland!
Portland Goes Wild for Mathew Dickman and the Objectivist Tradition Now: I can’t tell you whether or not two days ago I was in a brief e-mail back and forth…
“The Crossed Out Swastika” by Cyrus Cassells
Cyrus Cassells’ fifth collection of poems, The Crossed-Out Swastika, treads the familiar yet treacherous and muddy ground of World War II. For a less skilful poet, such hostile territory may…
David Biespiel’s Poetry Wire: First Monday in October
Bob Hicok Says Believe Me: Over at The Believer, Bob Hicok fields a few questions (excerpts only at this point per interviewer Matthew Sherling) about his writing process. Hicok’s takes…
You and Three Others Are Approaching a Lake by Anna Moschovakis
Because approaching a lake is a strange thing, especially in the opening pages. Small detours abound.
David Biespiel’s Poetry Wire: If You Ain’t Got Your Poetics, Man, You’re Sunk
I’m glad to see Joshua Weiner wrestle so diligently and forthrightly with Charles Bernstein’s Attack of the Difficult Poems over on The Los Angeles Review. His review deserves attention, and…
“In Time’s Rift” by Ernst Meister
In Heidegger’s essay ‘The Nature of Language’ he poses the question “When does language speak itself as language?” He answers: “Curiously enough, when we cannot find the right word for…
The Last Poem I Loved: “Y” by Andrew Grace
I always make my students read Andrew Grace’s “Y,” and they always hate it at first. Because undergrads are undergrads and are hung over approximately one hundred percent of Monday…
Thunderbird by Dorothea Lasky
Thunderbird is one of the more traditional collections I’ve come across recently, both in tone and in form. Lasky doesn’t experiment heavily with form, preferring to stick to free verse…
David Biespiel’s Poetry Wire: Naming Names
Michael Lista nails it with his review of The Open Door: One Hundred Years of Poetry Magazine, the anthology celebrating 100 years of Poetry, edited by Don Share and Chistian…