Within the spare and taut words, the compact lines that the author fashions in her poetry are found grief, love, intimacy, spirituality, death, yet an emotional distance and mystery (lots of it). In fact, it is mystery that has kept this reviewer off-balance throughout the book, as in the lines: “Wind from nowhere / It did not get up / from its snoring carriage / or offer me a bottled / sense of the near future.” Her lines are simple, their meaning complex.
Author:
A review of The Breath by Cindy Savett
Savett’s incantations are strident and introduce recurrent images (clay, sparrow, dirt, twin). They function stylistically like the choral strophe and antistrophe of Ancient Greek tragedies, repeating phrases in a histrionic voice. As such, they deepen the tone of devastation and misfortune.
An interview with Gary Slaughter
The author of WWII POWs in America and Abroad talks about why he wrote his book, the often-overlooked perspectives of the 6 million people held in prison camps in the U.S. and around the world between 1939 and 1945, about what life was like for an imprisoned officer, about growing up in Owosso during WWII, classic movies, collaborating with his wife, and lots more.
New giveaway!
We have a copy of WW II POWs in America and Abroad: Astounding Facts about the Imprisonment of Military and Civilians During the War by Gary Slaughter 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 December from subscribers who enter via the newsletter. Good luck!
Sumptuous Scrupulousness: A review of Hesitancies by Sanjeev Sethi
In “seclusiveness” he treats his bones of mundane aches and fills them “with the calm of calcium.” It is this myriad understanding of human hesitancies with all its aftermaths that are grappled by Sethi in a highly intellectual manner in this magnificent collection of poems that makes this book a treasure for the connoisseurs of poetry. A reader of this volume, if he or she makes the effort to go into the interstices of Sethi’s poetry, will experience time-capsules of life and do so in a more profound way that he or she has ever imagined.
A review of The Asparagus Wars by Carol Major
Compelled by a strong identification with Major’s experience of marriage and motherhood and a familiarity with the power structures that discriminated against her – remembering the marginalisation I’d faced as a single woman raising a child on my own – I came to the gradual understanding that my interaction with her work was almost wholly personal. My instinctive response to The Asparagus Wars, Major’s powerful recounts of gendered inequality, made it undesirable that I interact with the book in any other way.
A review of Knives on a Table by Peter Mladinic
This collection is a plethora of mixed emotions….Those of love, loss, living, and dying. Mladinic is a brilliant composer of the written word, of describing a feeling, an incident, a thought, and with the finesse of a fine master who cares deeply for his subjects. Add a bit of sensuality and desire, the frailty of the human mind and of human behavior, and the cruelty of death, and one has a window into the world of Mladinic’s psyche and his free verse poetry.
Great new giveaway
We have a copy of The Adventurer’s Glossary by Joshua Glenn and Mark Kingwell 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 December from subscribers who enter via the newsletter. Good luck!
Unlocking the Door of Consciousness: A Conversation with Clifford Garstang about his newest novel, Oliver’s Travels
The author of Oliver’s Travels talks about his new book and his unique narrative style(s) and voices, his characters and their complex journeys, the books themes, his new work-in-progress, the joy of travel, and lots more.
A review of April on Paris Street by Anna Dowdall
April on Paris Street has several areas of interest: the charms of Paris and Montreal; the varied work of a private investigator; the dark, dangerous world in which we live, and above all, the importance of staying connected to our families, whether they be blood relatives or “intentional families” of friends.