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An Impossibility of Crows by Kirsten Kaschock soaks fully in the chill waters of death and loss, the palimpsest of memories overwriting what we once knew. It’s rare that an adult can retain, not merely memories of, but the actual feeling of being a child. Orwell, writing about Dickens, spoke to the difficulty for novelists in doing so.
The Side Effects is a chapbook like no other. In “side effects to talking” the speaker’s “voice loses its balance.” But the poet never does. Time and again he goes to the edge but not over, in these visceral poems written by a poet with things to say, who says them
A Single Witness is based on a true story in which a man is convicted of raping his daughter and sentenced to hard labor. But it’s not quite as simple as that in the novel. Anna Maria hardly comes out of it as a “winner.” Christine Balint develops the story from the scant historical record. There are no winners; there may not even be any “justice.”
Goldman-Sherman is a poet uniquely able to identify with the oppressed, knowing what it is to be controlled, fed lies while vulnerable, and used at the pleasure of another. If family can hurt family, it is because Abraham’s sons continue to live and die. Philadelphia can only survive and bear a courageous witness, sharing in ways the reader won’t easily forget.
Gran Partita is a postcard from a rare place, a musician cum poet’s work, or rather a series of them. It ranges around the world as well as within the mind of a creative.It is an eclectic collection that bucks strict theming, opting instead to name its sections after classical movement forms that have a rough correlation, but allow for expressive musicality.
So, why start the collection with outer space? With a childhood self looking up to the night sky in awe? For me, the undercurrent of this book is an older narrator looking back at a young self who is perplexed by an unknown or hidden world. This makes for a relatable sensation: the older self understanding something the younger self didn’t grasp. Maybe that’s why beginning with the moons is so beautiful.
Central to the work is the instability of what we see, how identity is shaped not only by what is visible, but by what is obscured or misinterpreted. The title’s allusion to partial vision comes through Evie’s growing self-recognition, rendered in language that is both delicate and exacting. Hathorn avoids overt dramatisation, instead trusting the cumulative power of small moments: a shift in tone, an image or character that recurs with altered meaning, from happiness in all of its forms, dreams, time, marriage and divorce, care and los
Drummy’s debut collection, Perdido, takes the reader through physical and emotional landscapes, revealing the bittersweet beauty of our real and metaphorical deserts. The backdrop of human loss sits behind the comforts that remain: the places we’ve been, the memories we hold, our loving relationships, and hope’s constancy glimmering at the edges.
Inquisitive and morbid, this body of work breathes new life into the corpse of Anna Morandi Manzolini, a woman largely forgotten by the march of time. Militello preserves Morandi Manzolini’s cadaver with the utmost precision, refusing to let the world forget her and all women alike who have persisted in the face of systemic gender injustice.
Getting drunk on Shirley Brewer’s words, binging on her rich imagery and drinking in her joyous perspective are truly the bacchanalian treats offered by Goddess of Swizzle.