Kathie Collins – Yadkin Valley
Yadkin Valley Shoulder-high clumps of spent grain bend low over the lush green that weaves itself through summer’s stiff leavings—every blade a child burst from its seed. How did they survive winter unbroken, only bowing their heads under the weight of the snow? A bluebird lights on feathered tassel, surveys woods and field for a […]
Ra Malika Imhotep’s gossypiin, Reviewed by Erica Goss
Ra Malika Imhotep gossypiin Red Hen Press Reviewer: Erica Goss In her new collection gossypiin, Ra Malika Imhotep filters her quest for truth through multiple entities. Ancestors float in and out of these poems, offering stories, guidance, and corrections to commonly held misconceptions regarding the lives and experiences of African-American women. Taking its title partially […]
Julia B. Levine – On the Vireo Nest Atop Your Wire Brush
On the Vireo Nest Atop Your Wire Brush When you find it between boxes on a shelf beside the house, woven with hair and shoelace and twigs, I am in the garden, watering lettuce we planted in August, green spears of romaine translucent in November’s side-lit sun. Wet, the soil smells like spring, like the […]
Charlotte Muse’s In Which I Forgive the River, Reviewed by Lee Rossi
Charlotte Muse In Which I Forgive the River Broadstone Books Reviewer: Lee Rossi Parable, fable, fairy tale: when a moralist wishes a lighter touch than your typical sermon or tirade, lighter even than allegory, she resorts to stealthier forms of persuasion, familiar to the child in each of us. Charlotte Muse is such a moralist, […]
Joseph Hutchison – Mindfulness
Mindfulness The young buck lies down under my window in the shade of the deck above, the knobs on his budding antlers furred like kiwifruit. Now and then a ray of sun slips down between the deck boards, makes the fuzzy antler tips shimmer like that quick-wittedness the buck will need when others of my […]
