Barbara Berman
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The Unforgiving Cinderblock
Dunn doesn’t do dazzle, though he duly honors those whose large, obsessive stars have burned brightly.
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The Crash Scene of Species Extinction
Everything Roberson writes has an encyclopedic backscope, condensed into impeccable art.
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New Rituals for Curbside Healing
The poems in Signs And Wonders have a moral and structural grace that is sometimes fueled by political anger or collective sorrow.
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A Smidge of Confusion, A Glow of Fear
Vogelsang is sometimes so restless its hard not to wonder how and when he sleeps, and he makes the reader confront the question of whether sleep, or any kind of ease, is a valid way to spend time.
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I Remember a Black Fog
Cedar Sigo avoids the usual pitfalls when exploring queer identity, minority identity and a political perspective thinking progressives can work with. He isn’t trite. He is never overwrought, and he brings a kinetic ardor to every line.
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Two Books from Helen Vendler
Long time Rumpus Reviewer Barbara Berman examines the two latest offerings from critic Helen Vendler, one on Emily Dickinson and the other on the last books from five of the 20th century’s finest poetic voices.
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Soften the Razor’s Edge, the Reign of Terror
Many poems, and many more lines, couplets and quatrains in Opal Sunset are superb, making their lesser companions wan imitations of what Clive James can really do when his interior editor and his varied gifts unite.
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Where I Live
Maxine Kumin’s poems about the specifics of life on the farm with family, and relationships to fish, fowl, horse and vegetable matter, not to mention lovely liquids and unappealing solids, are consistently satisfying and sometimes deliciously entertaining.
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It Begins to Look Like Courtesy
Carl Phillips is a masterful maker of sweet visual dances that are never cloying.
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Nothing Can Outlast Its Loss
[Nick Laird’s] steps are sure, his undermusic and undercurrents consistently strong. On Purpose is a slim volume that contains multitudes.
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Like Mercury Over a Wall of Garnets
A particular joy of this book is the apprehension of current—biological, electric and historical, and in other forms—that distinguishes the most rigorously thrumming beats from their sallow imitators.
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A Gloriously Difficult World
Foreign aspects sometimes have a familiar whiff, and not just to Simic fans who have seen proof of his admission that Serbian poetry has affected his own. They have a familiar whiff because a number of poets in this collection…