Tag: poetry

Bulging Blooms, a review of Telling You Everything by Cindy Hochman

To read Telling You Everything is to come away refreshed and revitalized from Hochman’s,  original way of looking at the world and seeking her place in it. This is what poetry is, this is what it can be.  It comes out of a life fully lived. In Brooklyn. Where Hochman continuously learns something new from an old situation.

A Review of We Are Changed to Deer at the Broken Place by Kelly Weber

My copy of this book is filled with quickly scratched notes, annotation symbols only I understand, question marks, small open hearts, underlined sentences, circled words, messy smudges, angry creases. I struggled. I read and re-read. I wondered. I questioned. I chased. I stretched. At times I thought I might break, as well.

A review of Frank Dark by Stephen Massimilla

The book is replete with experiences of mental and physical crises, death and ghosts.  Many themes resonate with the cover exploring sight/vision, the eye, the sea, the shore, and harbors.  Imagery of light/lightning, the moon, lamps, clock, and swans recur throughout the book. The poems also display a sort of PTSD in the aftermath of near death experiences that he explores and shares with the reader.

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 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.

A review of Sea Skins by Sophia Wilson

Wilson works every word with the precision of a linguist, drawing out the sounds of words, “The tick-tock knock of one hundred clocks” or “three shells cantering takka tak takka tak”. Alliteration, rhythm, rhyme, parataxis – the poems employ a range of techniques that make them aurally beautiful

A review of Oh My Rapture by Gemma White

Hidden amongst all the coarseness and slang words there is gentleness and poignancy, as you read page by page you can feel it. There is a voice impregnated in the words of the poems that are like two forces, forces that propel and repel each other.