Sarah Sarai is full of good humor, earned wisdom and sound advice, not just for her nephew and niece but for all of us. But as she wittily cautions at the start of “A Vegas Vegan,” “I never promised you a statistician.” Nor a rose garden either! But you’ll enjoy her poetry nonetheless, no matter how perplexed you remain.
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A review of Tickets to the Fall of Icarus by James Gering
The variety of topics covered in Tickets to the Fall of Icarus is gripping and varied, including such things as family issues, love, political comments and sprinkles of humour. All the places mentioned are well described with vivid images. In some of the poems the many impacts of the Corona Virus on our lives are explored and readers will recognise themselves in the characters.
The Hero’s Folly: a Review of Shadow Dance by Martin Ott
The oft-mentioned shadows are less a motif than a thick overlay; they are attached to every chapter title and peppered liberally throughout the prose. Their frequent appearance constitutes not so much a choreographed “dance” than a densely-packed rave where the music is a single chorus on a thumping loop.
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A review of Prétend by Arielle Burgdorf
I love this book. It is located at the crossroads (if not terminus) of cultural appropriation, mistranslation, gender and identity fluidity. Carrère’s fake identity novel, the brilliantly glib aspersions of Nightwood — all this and more are revivified in Arielle Burgdorf’s masterful take on identity in an increasingly amorphous world.
A review of Father Verses Sons: A Correspondence in Poems by Herbert Gold
The family obviously draws on a wealth of literary references, there are e. e. cummings inspired parenthesis that litter the pages as well as nods to Shakespeare (I sleep, I dream) and Keats (ode to a cam girl). Spending time with the other denizens of the Cafe Trieste during the 80s surely rubbed off on him. But Herbert wears his influences on his sleeve, not for him the stream of consciousness of Ginsberg or the surrealness of Kerouac, instead we get the Sysyphean verses.
A review of The Dinner Party by Colleen Keating
In The Dinner Party Keating brings to light what for centuries has been ignored: the power and strength of women. Keating resuscitates the experience of women in this book. Her poetry traces the lives of women who demonstrated their influence, broke barriers, gave their lives for others, were oppressed or defied patriarchy.
A review of Red Milk by Sjón
Though I can understand, and perhaps even entertain, Sjón’s intentions regarding his latest work, I think that both the writing style and characterization seem a bit too simplistic, falling flat in the end and leaving the reader feeling that this could be much more intriguing if the Icelandic wordsmith followed his traditional recipe, creating sentences that urge you to read them aloud in order to bask in their brilliance.
Invasion Without Malice: A Review of Lanternfly August by Robin Gow
These poems are rich in nature-language like thorax, legs, forest, ribs, and peach pits. So it’s fitting that this book reminds me of a tree with roots ensnared in the earth. Yet, there is also an edge of brisk oddity that brings to mind the uppermost branches of a tree, swung wildly about by a strong wind. Examples of this oddity include, what kind of metal sleep you take? and I used to want to be a dinner plate so badly.
Life’s Battle Sites: On Xochitl-Julisa Bermejo’s Incantations: Love Poems for Battle Sites
The San Gabriel Mission is just one of the many battle sites that make up Bermejo’s new poetry collection Incantation: Love Poems for Battle Sites, exploring the internal and external concerns about the current state of fear and chaos in America and how past unresolved fear and chaos can still haunt us.