Michael Kriesel’s Zen Amen, Reviewed by Erica Goss
Michael Kriesel Zen Amen Pebblebrook Press Reviewer: Erica Goss Told in a book-length series of abecedarians, Michael Kriesel’s Zen Amen is a dizzying romp through one man’s investigation of the occult. The abecedarian, a 26-line poetic form that begins with the first (or last) letter of the alphabet and is followed by the next (or […]
Nathan Leslie’s Hurry Up and Relax, Reviewed by Charles Rammelkamp
Nathan Leslie Hurry Up and Relax Washington Writers Publishing House Reviewer: Charles Rammelkamp Hugh, the protagonist narrator of “Huggers Not Muggers,” one of the almost two dozen stories in Nathan Leslie’s darkly humorous prizewinning new collection, observes of Lyn, one of his co-workers at Huge, the mega-store where they work, that she’s “like some kind […]
Irène Mathieu’s Grand Marronage , Reviewed by Vivian Wagner
Irène Mathieu Grand Marronage Switchback Books Reviewer: Vivian Wagner Irène Mathieu’s Grand Marronage is a collection of poems about escape, freedom, community, and intergenerational trauma. The term “grand marronage” refers to people who escaped the slavery of plantations and established their own communities outside of slave society. The book’s poems explore literal and figurative grand […]
Iain Twiddy – Winter Weight
Winter Weight Who might know, some snow-god, possibly, the weight of those Hokkaidō winters: I mean, you could calculate it, based on a mean six meters of snow, knowing the weight of one cubic meter, and the island’s surface area (just over a fifth of Japan’s total), then times it somehow by time, half my […]
Roy Bentley – Richly Robed Rhinoceroses Riding in Rickety Red Rickshaws
Richly Robed Rhinoceroses Riding in Rickety Red Rickshaws —Graeme Base, Animalia My mother had brothers murdered in Appalachia. Men that other men knew they had to shoot or fight all night long. I couldn’t keep straight who shot who. My mother told me, more than once, to get it right. And so I made a […]
