Between and around the book’s hard science, the author wraps accessible and warmly told human narratives such as the tale of the dying man who on his last sea trip first realized whales communicated with each other. Thus, The Sounds of Life is filled with a certain kind of wild, brilliant charm that makes it very readable for the scientific and the nonscientific minded alike.
A review of Dancing with the Muse in Old Age by Priscilla Long
This compact 204-page handbook exhorts elders to manifest their creative passions, regardless of their past experience in creativity. The book is an invitation and a call to action. “Old age is a prime time to flourish in creative productivity,” Long says. “It is also a time to begin creative work.”
A conversation between Cynthia Good and Stelios Mormoris
Authors of two new poetry collections get together to interview one another about their work. Cynthia Good, author of What We Do with Our Hands, and Stelios Mormoris, author of The Oculus take a deeper look at what compels a person to write a poem.
“A poem is an object made of words”: A conversation with Flemish poet, novelist, and art critic, Willem M. Roggeman
In re-reading the interview now, it is clear that Gary Snyder was just an entry point for me to have a conversation with a true renaissance man of poetry. I’m reminded of the Pakistani proverb that says when you share the first cup of tea, you are a stranger. With the second cup, you are a friend, and with the third cup, you become family. Mr. Roggeman and I sipped coffee during our conversation, and it was clear that we quickly moved through the three cups from strangers to friends.
A review of Hello Nothingness by Eric Stiefel
The contradictory images reflect themes throughout Stiefel’s verse, which oscillates between nihilism and contentment – or at least resignation and a sensual appreciation of the ephemera of the world. As he writes in the opening poem, “Lest”: “I devour everything I can, the mind defaced, a tattered gown, strawberry leaf, a statue, half-submerged.”
A review of thresholds by Philip Radmall
This ability to make us, as readers, ‘opener and unfamiliar’ is one the poet exploits deftly, peeling away any preconceptions we may have until we, too, see and feel his world anew. In part, this is down to his style. A novelist as well as a poet, Radmall’s poetry has many prose-like traits, in particular a freedom from rhyme or metre, heavily enjambed lines, and the hovering arc of a narrative.
A review of Tide Should Be Able to Rise Despite Its Moon by Jessica Bell
A Tide Should be Able to Rise Despite Its Moon is Bell’s first book of poetry in over ten years, but regardless of where her extensive creative practice takes her, her work has always reflected a poetic sensibility, so it feels almost like this is her centrepoint.
A review of The Unintended Consequences of the Shattering by Linda Adair
Adair is not afraid to bring up difficult issues such as the cruelty of online chats, sacrificed ecosystems and the greed and entitlement of First World multinationals. The poet is also very skilled in narration, and tells stories with a voice that is poetic beautiful and deliberate.
How Light Comes Up Off the Lake: a review of Old Snow, White Sun by Caroline Goodwin
Not at all self conscious, these poems are quite deliberate, the made thing. Each has its note of authority, as in the first poem’s first image, “the common loon made a thumbprint on the lake.” Part elegy, part journal, part memoir, part love song, part accusation, part celebration, all in the voice a person with something to say, a poet with the ability to make a word—loon, cattails, meadow—all her own.
Grief and How It Shapes Identity: An Interview with Rachel Harper on The Other Mother
After reading and reviewing The Other Mother, I was given the fortunate opportunity to connect with Rachel through her agent, Anjali Singh (Pandeliterary). Due to busy schedules, we decided email was the best way to have a conversation about the novel, what inspired its story, and how it connects to her personal grief and challenges.