Rebecca Aronson’s Anchor provides consistent reminders of what it means to be part of a family, to be human, to be embodied. This collection of poems brings together the themes of death and grief, anxiety, and identity like materials forming a nest—each is delicately intertwined with the other so that, at each line, readers can […]

For the past few years, I’ve watched my father’s steady decline as he’s suffered from an incurable disease: Alzheimer’s. Each month, each week, each day, words are erased from his brain. It’s terrifying to watch someone you love lose their grasp of language. At the same time, the space in which someone lives with Alzheimer’s—that […]

In her intimate collection fretwork, Michele Glazer creates an expansive elegy that views loss from multiple vantage points. By not dividing fretwork into sections, Glazer builds a moving narrative focused on the loss of her mother and father. Yet fretwork is as much about Glazer finding her own place within the mourning of her parents. […]

Questions From Outer Space is about coming to terms with humanity’s destructive choices and orienting ourselves to life as a result. Diane Thiel’s poems lament our destruction of planet Earth and caution against how technology separates us from one another—yet the book ultimately presents a message of hope. These poems offer the possibility of solace […]

                                   The provost taught me truth was thin as paper—the little circles she punched in it remain, and still I hold this punctured story to the light. We all have our minor (or major) academia horror stories. I won’t […]

Nancy Reddy’s Pocket Universe is a tender and expansive poetry collection on new motherhood. Following Reddy’s National Poetry Series-winning Double Jinx (Milkweed Editions, 2015), both collections delve into cultural depictions of womanhood and expectations of femininity, from the broadest tropes to the most intimate moments between two people. Take for instance the probing ending to […]

Tucked between descriptions of the close combat occurring throughout major Ukrainian cities and the very real possibility of Russian nuclear engagement, the word “irredenta” might have appeared in your reading of the ongoing Russo-Ukrainian war, and it might have been a word you glossed over in favor of trying to assess how this conflict will […]

While reading this wonderfully expansive anthology, I was reminded of what prolific feminist writer bell hooks said in Remembered Rapture: The Writer at Work: “No woman¹ has ever written enough.” This truth demands that we make space for the essential writing of mothers, too. Motherhood is an experience central to all our lives, and The […]