Pattie McCarthy’s experimental poetry collection Wifthing blends traditional sonnet forms, medieval female experiences, and contemporary feminist issues. The collection divides into a triptych: a series of twenty-five poems titled “margerykempething” followed by a series of twenty-five poems titled “qweyne wifthing,” and the final series of thirty poems titled “goodwifthing.” One section carefully threads into another, […]
I have avoided writing this essay. This essay was really supposed to be strictly a review, written and published a year ago. In the world of publishing, reviews are timely and scheduled around commercial purposes. But nothing about life since the publication of Maps of Injury has been timely or felt purposeful. So this review-cum-essay […]
According to the Victoria State Government (as in Victoria, Australia), “An object floats when the weight force on the object is balanced by the upward push of the water on the object.” Which is to say: we’re able to float in water because whatever force that is weighing us down is not stronger than the […]
In a note on the poem “Drunkard’s Path” in her debut poetry collection, Even Shorn, Isabel Duarte-Gray suggests that “Quilt patterns frequently assume sinister titles, perhaps because they allow women to see the patterns of their lives sub specie aeternitatis.” The quilting of a beautiful, sinister pattern in the hands of women seems part of […]
One could call it Middle America, the Heartland, Jesusland, or any number of other monikers ranging from pejorative to complimentary. Caki Wilkinson lands on the politicized “flyover” country, which she uses as the backdrop and central character of her third collection, The Survival Expo. Wilkinson, a Tennessee native, writes about her home with a fluid […]
On Seeing a Phasma Gigas Photo by Michael Eisen 1 In adamant clarity, in an acrylic cube, the one called phasma or ghost, difficult to see on its native bark, compels and says I am, repels and says I am. Which camouflage is which? Stunned by extravagant repugnance, by alien symmetry, I study its mottled […]
Blood Flower Photo by kanegen Sometimes my gentle father texts me warnings or jokes, or waterbird photos from his walk around the lake in central Florida. Once, my father texted me what to do if an elephant charges me: watch its ears. If they are pinned back, apparently you have seconds before it attacks. Just […]
Provisions Photo by Pedro The courier asked if I was back but he knows I refuse to harvest. I only collect, marred by yellow wages and groves and writing waves of mercy, heat, or radio. I tend, in fact, to catch fractions to avoid storms of light, my fault lines. The courier relies on moths […]
Sanjeev Sethi is a mature and conscious poet—rare qualities among writers of contemporary Indian-English poetry. By mature, I refer to poets who know how to use syntax, metaphors, and imagery; how to transform ideas into well-blended verses. By conscious, I mean a person who is sure about what is being written, about the purpose of […]
Arthur McMaster’s The Whole Picture Show offers a breathtakingly beautiful portrait of everyday life. As the title suggests, the collection is cinematic in nature; it moves, frame by frame, from stories about friendship to narratives of family, travel, and the arts. The speaker is at once a teacher, a son, a friend, a husband, a […]