Posts Tagged ‘book review’
Review: Wind on the Heath: new and selected poems by Naomi Beth Wakan
Wind on the Heath: new and selected poems by Naomi Beth Wakan Shanti Arts Publishing, Brunswick, Maine 2020 Softcover, 219 pages, ISBN 978-1-951651-55-8 $18.95 USD www.shantiarts.com Plato said, ‘the unexamined life is not worth living’. The poems in Wind on the Heath are all about the examined life. Naomi Wakan, essayist, psychotherapist and poet…
Read MoreOne Poem – A Review of A Beautiful Stone: Poems and Ululations by Lynda Monahan and Rod Thompson
Reviewed by Louise Carson After reading A Beautiful Stone, and then the poem on the back cover – ‘Following the Way’ – four stanzas, eight lines – it occurred to me that I could have just read that one poem then written this review. I’m not being cruel or facetious. Let’s unpack the poem together.…
Read MoreReview of DREAM FRAGMENTS by Mirabel
Reviewed by Catherine Morrison DREAM FRAGMENTS is an incredible collection of poems that bring readers into her mind, experiencing the vibrant and intimate thoughts she experiences in her sleep. A reflection of self, of history, and future, Mirabel’s poems are extremely approachable, allowing readers to connect to a thought or theme as they turn every…
Read MoreMeditations on Steffler’s Forty-One Pages
Review of Forty-One Pages: On Poetry, Language and Wilderness by John Steffler Reviewed by Antony Di Nardo In his latest book, Forty-One Pages: On Poetry, Language and Wilderness, a collection of forty-one anecdotal essays and a handful of poems, John Steffler defies you to draw a dividing line between poetry and prose, language and…
Read MoreUnhappy, Women Write Poems: A review of Folding Laundry on Judgment Day by Miller Adams
Reviewed by Louise Carson This was a difficult book to read. Not because the poems are inaccessible, or boring, or ugly, but because they are so sad. It’s a book length elegy for a life, all lives – for life itself. It was exhausting to read. (Or did I bring exhaustion and self-recognition to the…
Read MoreReview of Devolution by Kim Goldberg
reviewed by Carole Mertz. Kim Goldberg writes surrealistic poetry that sometimes incorporates formal poetic forms. Many of the 60 poems in this collection use animals or anthropomorphic beings to convey their frequently apocalyptic messages. Shifts from the concrete to the abstract often startle the reader. You will not find cliches in this collection, and should…
Read MoreMusic, Art, Mortality – A Review of Sue Chenette’s Clavier, Paris, Alyssum
Reviewed by Louise Carson. I must have been feeling a bit rebellious the morning I picked up Sue Chenette’s recent collection Clavier, Paris, Alyssum, and, reading out of order (shocking!), began with the central section: Paris. Mainly because I saw it was the shortest of the book’s three sections, a mere thirteen pages. Good, I…
Read MoreIn the 4 a.m.: A Review of Arleen Paré’s Earle Street
Reviewed by Clayton Longstaff two women together alone in the luminous house When you look out your window, what do you see? Are there trees? (how many?) Birds? (ever-fretting pigeons, circling the feet of passing pedestrians? Or are they predatory where you live—a turkey-vulture, perhaps, solitary, perched on some naked branch, craning his…
Read MoreThat Sinking Feeling: in the broken boat with Daniela Elza
Reviewed by Louise Carson. It was with a sinking feeling in my gut that I started to read Daniela Elza’s the broken boat. Oh no. The end of a marriage. The loss of a husband, intimacy. The breaking of something that the poet had thought would last forever. My own thirty-five year old trauma began…
Read MoreOf Light: A Review of Jude Neale’s Impromptu
Reviewed by Cynthia Sharp First Published by The Miramichi Reader Jude Neale encouraged me to write with her through National Poetry Month and I caught the fever, her own original prompts the ones that flowed most easily. Like the collage of hearts and stars on the cover, Impromptu is an explosion of everyday love and being.…
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