Dazzle by Alison Stone
By Jennifer Martelli
Dazzle by Alison Stone Jacar Press, 2017, 89 pages, $16 In her ghazal, “Wind,” Alison Stone writes: City years. Hidden by concrete and glass, I lost starlight, became a stranger to wind. Family visit. Old hurts and hungers wake, the way guttered leaves stir in the wind. The president speaks but says nothing. Yuge.
By Libby Maxey
Sibylline by Marc Vincenz Ampersand Books, 2016, paperback, $12.95, 47 pgs. ISBN 9780986137068 The Sibylline Books of the ancient world were many things: legend, prophecy, political tool, guide to worship, syncretic node, divine relic, dangerous art. Long protected for their power, they were ultimately destroyed for the same reason. Marc Vincenz’s Sibylline is also
By Pablo Medina
City of Eternal Spring by Afaa Michael Weaver, University of Pittsburgh Press, 2014, 96pp/, $15.95 City of Eternal Spring confirms what I felt when I first started reading Afaa Michael Weaver’s poems about ten years ago. He is a master poet who is comfortable in his craft at the same time that he takes… Read more »
By Rebecca Hart Olander
I Carry My Mother by Lesléa Newman, Headmistress Press, 2015, 108 pp/, $10.00 Lesléa Newman’s latest book, I Carry My Mother takes as its subject the death of the author’s mother and the process of grieving this loss. In this unflinching, layered account, Newman opens a window on a human experience deeply her own… Read more »
By Alison Stone
Otherwise Unseeable by Betsy Sholl, The University of Wisconsin Press, 2014, 78pp/, $16.95 Betsy Sholl’s seventh book offers a world of contradictions, the friction of disparate and contradictory objects and experiences struggling to coexist. The first poem, “Genealogy,” begins, “One of her parents was a flame, the other a rope.” Odd juxtapositions continue with… Read more »
By Barbara Blatner
A Woman in Pieces Crossed a Sea by Denise Bergman, winner of the West End Press 2013 Patricia Clark Smith Poetry Prize, West End Press, 2014, 72pp/, $14.95 The subtle, fierce poems in Denise Bergman’s new collection, A Woman in Pieces Crossed a Sea, offer a biography of the Statue of Liberty, beginning with… Read more »
By Lisa J. Sullivan
Under Brushstrokes by Hedy Habra, Press 53, 2015, 91 pages, $14.95 From first glance at the gorgeous Chinese ink brush painting (created by the poet) on Under Brushstrokes’ velvety, matte cover, Hedy Habra captivates readers with her second poetry collection–a Finalist for both the 2016 International Poetry Book Award and the 2015 USA… Read more »
By Joyce Peseroff
ASK ANYONE by Ruth Lepson, Pressed Wafer, 2016, 68pp., $12.50 When Bob Dylan won the Nobel Prize, some questioned whether song lyrics qualified as literature. Some suggested that the committee was expanding the definition, first by anointing journalist Svetlana Alexievich in 2015 and then with Dylan in 2016. Others were reminded that the lyric poem… Read more »
By Rebecca Hart Olander
Dinner with Emerson by Wendy Mnookin, Tiger Bark Press, 2016, 108 pp/, $16.95 Wendy Mnookin’s fifth collection, Dinner with Emerson, is organized according to the four seasons. It begins with spring and runs through the year, followed by a fifth section, “Another Spring,” that features poems in a season that stretch beyond “Winter.”… Read more »
By Libby Maxey
Ordinary Magic by Alison Stone, NYQ Books, 2016, 109 pp., $14.95. Alison Stone is not the only contemporary poet inspired by the tarot (see Arcana: The Tarot Poetry Anthology, to which she is a contributor), but she may be the most dedicated. With Ordinary Magic, she has built a full-length poetry collection around the cards,… Read more »
By Richard Cambridge
The Dear Remote Nearness of You By Danielle Legros Georges Barrow Street Press (New York, 2016), 61 pages Winner of the Sheila Margaret Motton Book Prize, 2016, (New England Poetry Club) How to chart the landscape of desire? A pencil is a good start, a draft, a poem. But soon you’ll be dipping a… Read more »
By Kali Lightfoot
Decanting: Selected and New Poems 1967-2017 Stuart Friebert Lost Horse Press, 2017 198 pages. paperback: $21.00 It isn’t often that the pace of modern life allows one to read a book of poems straight through, much less a work of selected poems covering 50 years of a poet’s life, but there is distinct pleasure… Read more »
By Lee Hope
What made you decide to become an agent for short story writers and poets? Back in 2010, over coffee, my friend and writer Debra Turner shared that although she really wanted to get her stories published, she just hated the submission process. Since I was working as a personal assistant and organizer at the time,… Read more »
By Caitlin Krause
When I sat down with legendary film director Mike Leigh, I knew I wanted to focus on talking with him about empathy in storytelling. Actress Sally Hawkins (in her Golden Globe acceptance speech) called him “a fearless, compassionate, passionate human being,” and his films are a testament to such a depth of emotions, embodied in… Read more »
By Lee Hope
I’m delighted to be interviewing first novelist James Anderson about his national hit novel The Never-Open Desert Diner. A novel so replete with humor and compassion and originality that readers simply cannot stop reading it. Because of its literary quality and its popular impact, I predictably have some questions for James. Lee: The Never-Open… Read more »
By William Doreski
Intro to Jastrun: Mieczysław Jastrun was born as Mojsze Agatstein in 1903 in Korolowka, Austria-Hungary (now Ukraine) and died in 1983 in Warsaw, Poland. A lyric poet and essayist of Jewish origin, he survived the terrible years of the Nazi occupation in Poland. During his lifetime he published a dozen volumes of poetry, including A… Read more »
By Danielle Legros Georges
Ruth Lepson is poet-in-residence at the New England Conservatory of Music. She is the author of the poetry volumes I Went Looking for You (BlazeVOX, 2009), Morphology with photographer Rusty Crump (BlazeVOX, 2008), Dreaming in Color (Alice James Books, 1980), and editor of Poetry from Sojourner: A Feminist Anthology (University of Illinois Press, 2004). A… Read more »
By Danielle Legros Georges
Douglas Kearney is a poet, performer, librettist, and a faculty member at California Institute of the Arts MFA in Creative Writing. He is the author of three volumes of poetry, Patter (Red Hen Press, 2014), The Black Automaton (Fence Books, 2009), Fear, Some (Red Hen Press, 2006) and several chapbooks. He was interviewed by Danielle… Read more »
By Danielle Legros Georges
Martha Collins is a poet, translator, the editor-at-large for Field Magazine, and an editor at Oberlin College Press. She is the author of the poetry volumes, Day Unto Day (Milkweed, 2014), White Papers (Pitt Poetry Series, 2012), Blue Front (Graywolf, 2006), Some Things Words Can Do (Sheep Meadow, 1998), A History of a Small Life on a Windy Planet (University of Georgia, 1993), The Arrangement of Space (Gibbs Smith,… Read more »
By Melanie Brooks
Two years ago, I began writing a memoir about a hard family story. In 1985, my father, a physician, was infected with HIV as a result of a blood transfusion. He kept his illness secret from everyone outside our family until only months before his death ten years later. Writing about this part of my
Receive news, reviews, interviews, and more in your inbox! Plus be the first to hear about our latest issues, contests, and events.
Sibylline by Marc Vincenz
City of Eternal Spring by Afaa Michael Weaver
I Carry My Mother by Lesléa Newman
Otherwise Unseeable by Betsy Sholl
A Woman in Pieces Crossed a Sea by Denise Bergman
Review: Under Brushstrokes by Hedy Habra
Review: Ask Anyone by Ruth Lepson
Review: Dinner with Emerson by Wendy Mnookin
Review: Ordinary Magic by Alison Stone
Landscape of Desire A Review of The Dear Remote Nearness of You By Danielle Legros Georges
Review: Decanting: Selected and New Poems 1967-2017 by Stuart Friebert
Interview With Marleen Roggow, Agent For Short Stories & Poetry
A Conversation with Mike Leigh, Entertainer
Fighting for Light an Interview with James Anderson
Interview with Poet/Translators Dzvinia Orlowsky and Jeff Friedman
Interview with Ruth Lepson
Interview with Douglas Kearney
An Interview with Martha Collins
Organizing Chaos: A Candid Conversation with Joan Wickersham About Her Memoir, The Suicide Index: Putting My Father’s Death In Order
Connect with us!
Subscribe for FREE!
You have Successfully Subscribed!
Subscribe for FREE!
Receive news, reviews, interviews, and more in your inbox! Plus be the first to hear about our latest issues, contests, and literary events.
You have Successfully Subscribed!