Each lookalike has his own particular story which is partly informed by location and partly by circumstance. The pieces appear quite distinct but they begin to overlap as the book progresses, forming a coherent whole that twists back on itself in uncomfortable ways. The end result is an overarcing pattern that creates a bigger story, linked not just by the missing character of Putin but also by the way the characters, their settings, and the story’s time progression intersect.
Category: Book Reviews
Book Reviews
A review of The Under Hum by Simone Muench & Jackie K. White
The poems found within this volume are seamlessly assembled, so much so that the reader cannot detect where Muench and White’s writing both begins and ends. Their style is intermeshed one unto the other, as well as with the inclusion of other writers’ borrowed lines. The outside writers’ lines are italicized for attribution sake, but their syntax and style mirror Muench and White’s dual voices.
A review of Kyivsky Waltz: A Love Story By KS Lack
To accompany Lack on the journey of Kyivsky Waltz is to follow the arcs of two inseparable love stories, to fathom the depths of her passion for another human being and for Ukraine as it existed before the calamities of the present and as it still exists, outside time, in the mind and soul of a gifted poet.
A review of Juice by Tim Winton
There has been much made of Juice being a departure for Winton and there’s no denying that this is a different setting to most of his work: the small towns of present day Western Australia. This is set in the ravaged future, but the writing is classic Winton. The location does seem to still be WA, with a rich, if tortured, setting with human relationships at its core. These are mostly familial: a boy and his mother, a child and her carer, two parents and a young child – all recognisable and all rich with the complexities of those relations under the duress of environmental disaster.
A review of Legato Without a Lisp by Sanjeev Sethi
Legato without a Lisp is an orchestration that ties together various life notes that do not fragment our wholeness or create stoppage points between us and those we interact with. The melody created here has a rippling effect that captures and offers, without lecture or dogma, experience-earned wisdom about how to live with one another in the world at large.
A review of Shechinah at the Art Institute by Irwin Keller
It’s hard to pigeonhole Rabbi Irwin Keller’s collection into a genre, but I’ll call these poems and meditations Creative Non-Fiction, the convenient label of “CNF.” He takes an incident and expands it, rabbinic-style, into a parable, a moral lesson, a life lesson. They are mini-essays. They are sermons.
A review of The Zombie Family Takes a Selfie by Ed McManis
Many of the poems are metapoetic, exploring both the nature of what the poem is doing and can do, while deftly moving through mythology, Biblical texts, dreams and fantasies, while always grounding the people and settings in a casual domesticity. This may seem like a contradiction, but McManis manages the balance and shifts perfectly
A review of Informed by Alison Stone
Alison Stone’s poetry is a sheer delight to read, not just for the cleverness and elegance of her verses or for the insights to which we can all relate, the regret that we all recognize often comes with the territory of memory, but for the infectious positivity her poems ultimately exude.
A review of The Infant Vine by Isabella G. Mead
Nature accompanies themes of motherhood, memories and imagination. Mead has an incredible control of the language and knowledge about plants and animals which is infused in poetry meticulously created.
A Review of Finally Autistic: Finding My Autism Diagnosis as a Middle-Aged Female by Theresa Werba
Werba’s personal reflections and anecdotes are firmly rooted in data: an autism assessment, school report cards that highlight her “unsatisfactory” levels of self-control, and even developmental reports from when she was in preschool (all reproduced in full within these pages). Her blending of subjective reflections with objective data points make this a unique work.