Roberto Carlos Garcia’s black/Maybe, Reviewed by Brian Fanelli
Roberto Carlos Garcia black/Maybe Willow Books Reviewer: Brian Fanelli In an interview with Plátano Poetry Café from April 2018, Robert Carlos Garcia describes himself as Afro-Caribbean and Afro-Latinx, adding, “Who I am is at the center of everything I write…my identity is my major metaphor.” This statement is especially true when describing Garcia’s latest work, […]
Sheryl St. Germain’s The Small Door of Your Death, Reviewed by Lee Rossi
Sheryl St. Germain The Small Door of Your Death Autumn House Press Reviewer: Lee Rossi Sheryl St. Germain makes no secret of her secrets. She’s the kind of writer who opens all her closets and invites the skeletons to the dinner table. In 6 previous books of poetry and 2 memoirs she details her experience […]
Gail Wronsky’s Imperfect Pastorals, Reviewed by Cindy Hochman
Gail Wronsky Imperfect Pastorals What Books Press Reviewer: Cindy Hochman What did you think it would be this life all dining on violets and intravenous moonbeams? —“Selectively, using your fingernails” The good news is that although Gail Wronsky’s Imperfect Pastorals is heavily steeped in the major works of Roman poet Virgil, you need not be […]
Rachel Dacus’s Arabesque, Reviewed by Maria Rouphail
Rachel Dacus Arabesque FutureCycle Press Reviewer: Maria Rouphail Rachel Dacus’s Arabesque brings to mind the old maxim, ut pictura poesis (“as in painting, so in poetry”). Formulated by Horace as something of a touchstone for evaluating the arts, the analogy was invoked rather unsystematically in later Western art and poetry. It also came to suggest […]
Shao Wei – Let Me Praise My Shoes!
Let Me Praise My Shoes! —A Personal Displacement in Six Parts in the 20th Century * 1905 Grandfather Shao Kang Ning 邵康宁 was born in the small village Gao Liang Pu His name had his parents’ wishes: Kang is Health Ning is Peace His century had neither Grandfather was born in the rice field While […]
