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A review of Jehovah Jukebox by Joan Jobe Smith

By the time they became acquainted, Smith had quit dancing to pursue poetry. Bukowski would call her late at night and howl at her tales of being a go-go girl for seven years (“the bad luck time for / breaking a mirror, minimum sentence for a felony / conviction”). Bukowski, in his cheap L.A. apartment forty miles away “listened intently to my go-go girl tales.” Finally, one night, Bukowski told her: “You gotta write about all that madness, kid. So I did.” Jehovah Jukebox was conceived and born.

A review of City Nature by Martha Retallick

The best moments come from the struggle against solitude; with Retallick, it’s the trials-and-errors of learning to “think like water” with her co-op in a drought-filled era, of upcycling a gifted chandelier into a vine climbing gym and a sun-shaking pendant collage. Not the “much more” of products, but the “much more” of the lived-in; we are nature too. The struggle against solitude is the discovery of home, and it glints like pendants.

New Giveaway!

We have a copy of Bird Ornaments by Angel Dionne to give away!

To win, sign up for our Free Newsletter on the right-hand side of the site and enter via the newsletter. Winner will be chosen by the end of April from subscribers who enter via the newsletter. Good luck!

A review of Age Like a Yogi by Victoria Moran

Passionate about her subjects, her inspired writing makes for inspiring and effortless reading. In her radio shows, podcasts, and videos about other subjects, you get the feeling that she’s speaking directly to you. Similarly, her conversational writing style can make you feel like she’s writing directly to you.

A Review of Little Book of Versace by Laia Farran Graves

Donatella has left behind a 28-year legacy steeped in high-octane glamour, audacious sensuality, and cultural dominance. It’s fitting, then, that Laia Farran Graves’s Little Book of Versace serves as a compact yet striking celebration of the brand’s evolution—from its origins under Gianni Versace to its current stature as a global fashion powerhouse shaped under Donatella’s reign.

New giveaway!

We have a copy of The Dragon’s Many Claws by Graham Stull to give away!

To win, sign up for our Free Newsletter on the right-hand side of the site and enter via the newsletter. Winner will be chosen by the end of April from subscribers who enter via the newsletter. Good luck!

A review of Barefoot Poetess by Paris Rosemont

Words play across the pages, often moving in non-linear ways and encouraging different breath patterns in the reader. Play is joyful but it can also be a euphemism for abuse, as well as a kind of theatre that reclaims power to the disenfranchised. Some of the poems, most notably the title poem, have a purple quality: the language is elevated and even Shakespearean at times, but against this backdrop of play, the richness works, giving the work a performative and even, at times, fun quality.

A review of That Galloping Horse By Petra White

But, as I began to read more conventionally, from the beginning, turning page after page, pausing to reflect — to make a coffee, to gaze out of the window at the clouds lazily assembling themselves and then dissipating — I came to realise that this lightsome, low-risk morsel was an anomaly.  The cumulative effect of this collection is more chilling. There is an ominous accretion of menace, of lurking dread.

A review of The Nothing by Lauren Davis

Set against the misty isolation of the Pacific Northwest, these stories hum with a quiet unease, exploring themes of solitude, loss, and the strange ways reality can shift when you least expect it. The characters find themselves in unsettling situations where the ordinary turns uncanny, and the familiar feels just out of reach. Davis resists easy categorization, blending elements of the fantastic with grounded, emotional storytelling.