There is a tension between old and new that remains a keynote throughout the book. Learning to accept the duality of her nationality, Eva reclaims her old self and her old name and transforms it into a unique hybrid. Ask No Questions is a book that explores serious topics. The trauma and sadness of the refugee experience is rarely covered through the viewpoint of a child, and Eva teases out that perspective with poetic delicacy, tracing the way in which this perception changes through time.
Tag: poetry
A review of The Music of Eternity by Ketaki Datta
The overarching theme of time, timelessness, the connection between the past, present, and future binds the poems, even as the poet covers a range of ideas and emotions, displaying a unique vision. Datta ponders over the human condition, drawing on everyday happenings to soar into philosophical and sometimes mystical musings.
A review of Chimera by Brad Buchanan
Chimera takes us through an account of multiple procedures and setbacks, presented alternately as invasions, imprisonments, and more bluntly, as betrayal by bodily function. His tone is uncomfortably straightforward, as though he is candidly refusing the reader’s sympathy even as he lays out the visceral details:
A review of Ore Choir: The Lava on Iceland by Katy Didden
Didden’s poetry is thick, like the hot, oozing lava that permeates the land – the “postvolcanic landscape.” We are further drawn in by the history, the tributaries of ancient Icelandic poetry, “its craters of dove-gray ashes matted with snow, / attracts artists who siege eddas in the rills.” These powerful lines draw out the significance of Icelandic poetry in our time.
A review of Earshot by Sam Morley
Sam Morley is a brilliant storyteller, the stories in the poems are written in a language that is dynamic and stylistic as well as entertaining. The work evokes emotions, coupled with strong tension, but not in a heavy way.
A review of The Night Divers by Melanie McCabe
As you move through the poetry in this collection, it may seem as if the writer is resolved to experience her pain in its most primordial form, without barrier, defense, or comfort. Such sentiments break the surface in “Martyr”: “I permit myself neither opiate nor anodyne. I poke my finger straight into the socket—press my tongue hard to the ice-slick chain link.” The atonement of a survivor is operative here, but there is more.
A review of V8 by PS Cottier and Sandra Renew
A book about cars, motorbikes, etc? How strange I said to myself and wondered what poems about vehicles would look like. With what enthusiasm would I be reviewing it if I have no attachment or love for any form of transport? I knew that both poets were excellent writers and award winners so that gave me hope. Anxiously, I opened the book and started to read…and was mesmerised from the first few poems.
A review of Witches, Woman and Words by Beatriz Copello
Throughout this collection the poet argues strongly for the rights of women while foregrounding their innate strengths. She reflects on the way the social order, including the church has conspired to oppress the feminine but also finds solace in the natural world, which is seen as women’s true habitat where ‘Mother Earth embraces each and every one’.
A review of Torohill by Donna Reis
In her new book of poems, Torohill, Reis revisits her past in a very human way that is intensely reflective, sometimes brutally stark, and often quite humorous. If comedy is just the other face of tragedy, then our catharsis lies within the synthesis of both. Reis knows this instinctively and expertly weaves both through her poems. It renders them remarkably touching but not in a saccharin or intentional manner. She allows feelings to vacillate and often startle and surprise us organically and authentically.
A review of Nothing But Light by Barbara Schwartz and Krista J.H. Leahy
Nothing But Light teems with characters such as Eve and Gaia, Judy Chicago and Hilma Klint woven into this tapestry of feminine wholeness, a wholeness that embraces rather than excludes. I love the power and playfulness of these poems that center the physical within the context of spiritual questing.