Every poem is a journey, every journey a poem. M by Dale Kushner is a stunning collection of poems depicting life’s journey in three stages. The roads of sorrow and suffering, the paths of transformation toward spiritual joy and desire, and the longing to know and feel all that is holy are contained in Kushner’s work.
A review of City Scattered by Tyler Mills
Tyler Mills’ new poetry chapbook City Scattered is in four voices, like a poetic radio play set in Berlin in 1930 when radio was booming. Mills weaves four voices/characters in an emulation of an old-style radio drama that invites the reader to explore the lives of women at this time in the context of a society dangling on the edge of totalitarianism and a world on fire. Each of the four steady voices throughout the book have poems that enrich the story we are invited into.
A review of Acanthus by Claire Potter
Claire Potter’s Acanthus both draws on mythology and subsumes the intimate and personal into its broader terrain. Potter’s work is consistently compelling, utilising the reservoir of cultural knowledge abundant in mythological stories and heroes.
A review of Angle of Flickering Light by Gina Troisi
Angle of Flickering Light tells an honest story. It’s the story of a life in progress, marked at its beginning by a series of small, devastating acts—a parent who should protect and cherish instead abuses.
A Review of The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman
Some genuine laugh-out-loud moments poke fun at the British, perhaps unintentionally. There’s a wonderful mini-plot around llamas which draws a chuckle, whilst the actual detectives in the story are bumbling but not unbelievable.
A review of One April After the War by C S Boarman
Throughout the novel, the author’s exhaustive knowledge of the era’s politics, technology, social mores, and the geography of Kentucky and Ohio, come into play, with the result that the reader is totally immersed in the historic setting.
A review of Daisy & Woolf by Michelle Cahill
Daisy & Woolf is a rich, complex book that blurs binaries and boundaries, provoking big questions around art, parenting, love, privilege, colonisation, and creativity.The narrative flows quickly, driven by its dual protagonists, with the book unfolding its denser meaning later, in the shared collaborative space between reader and writer.
An interview with Brian Lebeau author of A Disturbing Nature
The author of A Disturbing Nature talks about his new book, his motivation for writing, the book’s inspiration, on writing about heavy subjects, key themes and narratives, his next book, and lots more.
A review of Friday Book by John Barth
Essays can often have a certain unapproachable quality. However, when you read Barth, you can’t expect a constant stream of seriousness, or at least seriousness in the most acceptable times. Even before the barrage of essays comes forth to dazzle us, under the heading “The Title of This Book,” he already starts with some unserious seriousness when reflecting on the various sorts of titles floating around in the literary world—while refraining from actually speaking of his title much at all.
On the Spirituality of Keisha-Gaye Anderson’s A Spell For Living
Spirituality is at the core of Anderson’s work. In it, she talks about God, the self, and the universe in one breath. These, and more, are attributes that shine light on spirituality but do not define it in totality. Anderson’s poetry leads to this point, that of knowing yet not knowing while searching for meaning.