St Vincent Welch’s poetry is characterised by originality, sincerity and engagement. Some of the poems have nostalgic overtones, while others leave room for complex reader interpretation and simultaneous meanings.
An interview with What Matters Most’s Courtney Walsh
The author of What Matters Most talks about her new book and its inspiration, her characters, writing about Nantucket, on writing about secrets, and lots more.
A review of They Called Us Girls by Kathleen Courtenay Stone
All in all, They Called Us Girls is a fascinating, inspiring, and well-written collection of biographies of seven exceptional women, bios told with personality and insight which bring these women and their triumphs to life. A grand celebration of women, released during March’s Women’s History Month, this is a book for men and women both to relish.
At night the humid chorus swells: A Conversation with Jacques Rancourt about his Newest Collection, Brocken Spectre
A review of House of Sticks by Ly Tran
Ly Tran’s House of Sticks beautifully captures what it means to be an immigrant in America: the struggle to adapt to your new world’s norms, the desperate desire to succeed there, and the love and heartache that your old life still haunts you with. The juxtaposition of holding onto her old identity while embracing her American one with her belief that escaping everything that is connected to Vietnam is the only way to succeed in the U.S. draws the reader in with the perpetual tension in her mind and heart, which Tran eventually evolves into the understanding that “[her father] was trying to save [their] lives” rather than ruin them.
A review of The Tramp in British Literature, 1850-1950, by Luke Lewin Davies
Having published a book on fifteen (American, British and Irish) tramp writers, although devoting an entire chapter to each, after reading Davies’ book I was left feeling that I had only scratched the surface of this fascinating and under researched phenomena (Davies identifies thirty-three British tramp memoirists alone). I will have to read this book more than once to fully appreciate its scope and content, including the countless delightful anecdotes from the subject’s of Davies curiosity.
A review of Letters from the Periphery by Alex Skovron
Often the poems have a dream-like quality, the familiar taking on a surreal, Twin Peaks like inversion as it creates these strange portraits, as in “Apokryphon” – “A leering urchin passes, walking with a broom. Curtains/part, discreet.” Skovron’s detail is painterly—the drape of clothing, the angle of the head, light falling in such a way that there is almost a magical aspect to the characters. They are slightly outside of the scene, being watched while watching.
A review of Local By Anna Couani
Couani, in her entertaining narrative poetry, sees, reflects, describes, ponders and imagines. Vivid images, poignant lines, and a sense of balance moves the reader from place to place. The poet gives a voice to images. It impressed me how she is able to bring the personal into the poetry without sentimentality.
A review of If You’re Happy by Fiona Robertson
This short story collection by doctor/ writer Fiona Robertson, lures us into intimate scenarios where joy and its adversary– fear– are coterminous. From a lovelorn housewife caught in a literal storm and a lonely man in a housing estate, Robertson’s characters drip in pathos and multidimensionality within the tight confines of each story, leaving readers saying a reticent farewell, wondering after the characters, ambivalent about their predicaments.
Writing From a Very Dark Place: A Conversation with Katerina Canyon
Recently, I received a review copy of Surviving Home, by Katerina Canyon. I knew of Katerina from a weekly virtual poetry reading series that she runs, called “Canyon Poets.” She is a self-made poet, community activist, and poetry agitator. Surviving Home is a series of narrated poems describing surviving an abusive childhood, being raised in an abusive home, and sometimes being homeless. I found that I couldn’t review the book in good faith; although I felt compassion for her story, its overwhelming darkness felt too dense for me to penetrate.