Like the best anthologies, Admissions is a fluid collection where the different genres, explorations and styles of creativity inform one another, creating a montage that is inherently collective. This ‘radical empathy’ that Stavinger talks about is present throughout the book, as the different forms of pain and struggle sit together in solidarity like a supportive scaffold so that in the reading the separation between the different experiences becomes diminished and there is a sense that every perspective fits and is important.
Category: Book Reviews
Book Reviews
A review of The Return by Aaron Paul Lazar
The book is fast paced, drawing you in from the first chapter, and progressing with exciting turns in a way that the book is always pleasurable and satisfying, and even the worst antagonists are treated with empathy. It’s hard not to like Gus, who is always ready to lend a helping hand or a basket of fresh picked zucchinis and corn. Lazar is a master craftsman and pays careful attention to language, plot, pacing and character so that all of the elements tie together neatly and seamlessly, description charged with rich nostalgia
States that Matter, a review of The Best of Tupelo Quarterly edited by Kristina Marie Darling
As a poet, my ultimate aim is to connect to my reader, so that I may get close to causing a moment of understanding, a resonance, a tapping-into of the unsayable. As a human, I feel nourished when art is not only allowed to break the mould, but it is celebrated for doing so. The rules of the universe only help us understand a fraction of what is happening to us.
A review of Passages by Jenni Nixon
These are certainly not poems overflowing with sentimentality. Nixon has total control of her words, and is measured and diligent in creating and intelligent and elegant narrative in poetry form, whether she writes about helping a neighbour, the compulsory acquisition of hundreds of homes for the construction of tunnels or other environmental concerns.
A review of Text Messages from the Universe by Richard James Allen
This is philosophy at its best, to exist or not, or as Shakespeare put it “to be or not to be”. Allan makes you think, consider, and reflect, and he does it in a very clever way utilising poetic devices and intelligent lines. The poet’s voice is very convincing, whether he uses sophisticated language or everyday language, his unique style draws the reader into the narration.
A review of Beauty in the Beast by Emily-Jane Hills Orford
In the original folktale, when the young woman learns to love the beast, she is surprised by his transformation. In Orford’s novel, Priya is manipulated by a male being for whom she felt an attraction, so her happy ending is not the conventional one. Instead, it arises naturally from Orford’s novel and is suitable for the 21st century.
A review of Isle of Dogs by Jon Frankel
Isle of Dogs is full of densely plotted, exciting political intrigue and violence. But Frankel is at best when writing about the intimacies of daily life which persevere in this new world–a meal made with food grown at a garden, a woman’s relief at putting a baby to a full breast, a man picking up his child before going to work.
Matadors Are Metaphors, a Review of When Correlation is Causation by Heikki Huotari
It would be limiting to call these prose poems or even language poems; they eschew labels. Better to think of them as ventures in language, in reality, in the probable, and the possible. To achieve a pattern, the poet uses a number of devices. “To the horseless carriage I say get a horse.”
A Review of A Career in Books by Kate Gavino
A review of Lilies on the Deathbed of Étaín and other poems by Oisin Breen
But it’s serious, deadly serious. Written with care, and with love for language. At first sight, there seems to be something infernally unruly about Oisín Breen’s poetry, until you spot the fact that the structure is there, recognisable but bloody oneiric, lulling you into a false sense of security and then ripping itself up and changing.