I likened this collection, after an initial reading, to a canvas by Kandinsky, where broad strokes of vivid color and delicate, lyrical passages are very often underscored by an unease, a kind of muted protest. It’s a combination which proves immediately effective, and which generates real admiration for a poet confident in her art—a poet […]
Physical Geography as Modified by Human Action by Jordan Dunn (2022) Partly Press The leaves in Fort Collins, following the season’s first snow, are far past peak color and mostly fallen, dry-brown, on the ground. It puts one in a pensive mood, walking the dog each morning, and three books—some finished a few days ago, another […]
Form and voice unite the lyrical menagerie of Chariot, Timothy Donnelly’s fourth collection of poetry. Each page offers newness, creating a self-contained experience, a capsule of insight or subversion; a poem in Chariot might reflect on the lived world versus portrayal on social media, or build from the scent of marigolds, a concept from philosophy, […]
Forgive me the spoiler, but L. J. Sysko’s debut poetry collection The Daughter of Man ends with the most comprehensive set of notes I have ever seen. These five pages of notes, so exhaustive they almost form a poem unto themselves, cover everything from an unlisted quote by Andy Warhol to S. E. Hinton’s novel […]
Photo by Louise Pilgaard on Unsplash Understand I can no longer consider the alternatives. I’ve run in every direction at once and found myself out of breath, but not out of harm’s way. I know harm’s way, all her horses’ names. Pills and Noose and Knife and Love, always Love the last to leave […]
Photo by Ruslan Valeev on Unsplash I told the mortician to mix our ashes I wish to see you as a speck of sand maybe a fistful of waves gnashing until white stone all the lilies bursting from this rapture your opal lips shiver like two harp strings I pluck a symphony from the […]
Photo by Torbjørn Helgesen on Unsplash For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow . . . —Gerard Manley Hopkins The place under the awning where it hasn’t rained. The seat belts in the taxi all with puzzling or hidden buckles. The daffodils inside my shadow. The glass of melted ice. The spiderweb that […]
Photo by michael weir on Unsplash I look at my childhood & imagine what isn’t there archived blank pages partially erased artifacts we all live in a barter system trading our favorite worst memories I social you a tongue I appeal you a slanted pear orchard throat & we share it gladly I research […]
It seems it’s been taking me longer and longer to complete these reviews lately, and not for lack of interest or quality of the work but rather a reluctance to leave the work behind. I relish such time and space where the day is not accounted by such mean labor counts of the work clock […]
In her tenth book of poetry, Your Kingdom, Eleni Sikelianos offers an exploration of life’s evolution from stardust to small-celled organism to humankind, with its attendant extinguishing forces. For Sikelianos, the evolution of language complicates this narrative, as past meanings fail to fill the holes that humanity is insistently creating. As such, Your Kingdom attempts […]