Bestiary
Kelly’s sentimentality is distorted through trauma, but it is that distortion that draws us in
Burn Lyrics
Landry has approached the art of erasure in reverse, so that something of the timeless, meditative tone of Sappho remains, no doubt amplified by one’s foreknowledge going into the work, and yet they become poems wholly separate.
May Day
Marquette’s collection makes a compelling claim for the importance of honest and deeply personal expressions of experience.
Story in a White Diction
in spite of the garish death of his second wife / who fell from their lofted master suite onto a crystal decanter / and not, as local bloggers have suggested, the other way / around
Not Trash Day
Once at IHOP there was a woodstork / walking past the window and we watched the cook / out the back door give it kitchen scraps./ Was it being taken care of?
I’ve Been Trying to Feel Bad for Everyone
when my brother had another episode / and stabbed his wife, I said to my new lover,/ disorder, genetic, and he never yelled at me / again.
Spiritual Grave Year
Through humor and sincerity, stitched together with painfully lurid moments, Dan Magers provides “a vision of the future” that satisfies the needs of its audience: one that wants to sing along with poetry
The Field
The casual can seem lax: as praise, “casual” can sound like a euphemism for “underdressed,” “unformed,” or, “unannounced.” If you prefer announcement, form, and dress, you might wish to toss out all the poetry books celebrated for their tossed-off style: if a blurb mentions O’Hara, Notley, or Spicer, or praises the poet’s elevation of the […]
Wedding Pulls
Brimming with characters, the poems are not narrative but tightly sprung lyrics whose wording reveals by doubling meaning and by doubling back to correct or redirect what’s been declared.
Receipt
Her pacing is subdued and infectious, and it will get under your skin. These poems’ peculiar energy becomes most apparent when they are read aloud.