Patricia Smith – Oral Exam
Oral Exam He soft-circles his cave of mouth, pop prickle of beard there, threads you in, plays underside raw with tubed tongue, sucks febrile current from your slitted eye. A violence brusquely swaps toes and hairline, sapped muscle slant- rhymes my weather. Nervy knot, potentate of keen collapse, all and every is linked to your […]
Katerina Canyon’s Surviving Home, Reviewed by Jessica Drake-Thomas
Katerina Canyon Surviving Home Kelsay Books Reviewer: Jessica Drake-Thomas Katerina Canyon’s Surviving Home, explores familial relationships within black families, in particular the speaker’s toxic relationship with her father. “My father is a shark / with a hope chest / clenched between his teeth,” she writes in the title poem, “It holds my heart and brain […]
Karen Llagas – Gratitude Journal
Gratitude Journal I flinch a little as I reach for it, this practice we do each night in bed, our pillow talk these days, when sending ourselves off to sleep needs less effort than late night sex. Does this flinch expose how little regard I have for joy? Is this why I clasp our one- […]
Diane Frank’s While Listening to the Enigma Variations: New and Selected Poems, Reviewed by Brian Fanelli
Diane Frank While Listening to the Enigma Variations: New and Selected Poems Glass Lyre Press Reviewed by Brian Fanelli After the last few years of political tumult and after the year that was 2020, Diane Frank’s While Listening to the Enigma Variations: New and Selected Poems truly feels like a much-need respite, a booster shot […]
