Tag: poetry

A review of Zero at the Bone by Christian Wiman

Poetry gives suffering form, and giving suffering form is an antidote to despair.  Yet content matters, too.  For Wiman, much confessionalism is “an idolatry of suffering…an outrage that no person (or group) has suffered as we have, or simply a solipsistic withdrawal that leaves us maniacally describing every detail of our cells.

A review of The Homesick Mortician by Peter Mladinic

There is an urgency to this breaking down of line structure, often bridged by run-on thoughts strung together by comma fasteners. It is a compelling style, one that makes the collection very readable at a quick clip. In some cases, as with the first poem, structure reasserts itself at the end with a strong strike upon the bell of reality: “They brought him home.”

A review of The Djin Hunters by Nadia Niaz

Nature makes her presence felt in many pages, particularly birds. There is a beautiful poem titled “A Time of Birds” in which we read about the hoopoe with its black-tipped orange crest bobbing against misted grass.

Boxed in to Today: A review of Apartmentalized by Dan Flore II

Paradoxically, the poet is at home and not at home, as alienated from himself as he is from his apartment and the complex of apartments in these poems. As a sequence they have a structure of irony.  The poet’s self-conflict is expressed in his descriptions of neighbors and people who work at the complex.

A review of Shore Lines by Andrew Taylor

In all of Taylor’s poems the imagery is rich and detailed. Some of the poems take reflective turns, with themes of nostalgia and memory, often juxtaposing the strength of nature with human vulnerability and the persistence of memory.