poetry review
-
Holding On and Letting Go: Rebecca Aronson’s Anchor
Gravity is what tethers us to the earth and to those we love, but it is also what we are constantly trying to escape. Anchor is about both these states—the holding on and the letting go—and the tension between them.
-
The Sense of Words: Reverse Engineer by Kate Colby
. . . language is duplicitous. To be broken is perhaps to be part of a process (or a metaphor for life), where to bend (and survive) also leads to being broken. In this context, the word “broken” in “Reverse…
-
Not One Thing, But Many: A Review of Cynthia Cruz’s Hotel Oblivion
How would that candy taste in my mouth? How would that blue chiffon offset my dark hair and plain features? How would the world look to me through the eyes of this woman and this one and this one? What…
-
Calibrations: On Niina Pollari’s Path of Totality
Throughout the collection New York City reflects a unique landscape of loss, a space as full of grief as it is of everyday life, scientific facts, memory, motherhood, healing, love, and hope.
-
Teaching the Ineffable: Learning to Pray by Yahia Lababidi
. . . in the end, the poem is its own witness to something indefinable with which the poet is engaged. Whatever the poet thinks it is, the poem itself is the vehicle, the container, describing itself and gesturing beyond…
-
“Yes” as Signature and Grounding: Hannah Emerson’s The Kissing of Kissing
In this experience of oneness . . . Emerson invites comparisons to mystic poets. And like them, Emerson breaks from her singular experience to take on some of life’s biggest questions: What does it mean to be human? Why do…
-
Metaphor by Any Means Necessary: Destiny O. Birdsong’s Negotiations
Metaphor can make life more bearable, meaningful, or simply comprehensible.
-
Under the Influence of Jane Wong: A Recipe-Qua-Review of How to Not Be Afraid of Everything
Combine multiple ingredients in a single stanza-bowl.
-
Our Recognizable, Difficult, Earthly Kingdom: Such Color by Tracy K. Smith
Composition here becomes a process of discernment rather than pure creation.
-
Startling Juxtapositions: Pilot Impostor by James Hannaham
Hannaham reserves his most vivifying language for planes and crashes.
-
Holding Together What’s Left: The Blues of Heaven by Barbara Ras
You want to, but do you? Do you dare hope?
-
Writing from the Bottom: Active Reception by Noah Ross
Active Reception writes into the place where language fails.