Brett Evans’ & Christopher Shipman’s Keats Is Not the Problem, Reviewed by Cindy Hochman

Brett Evans and Christopher Shipman Keats Is Not the Problem Lavender Ink Reviewer: Cindy Hochman A poem should not mean But be. —Archibald MacLeish, “Ars Poetica” When poems come together in a seemingly disparate fusillade, it is incumbent upon the reader to wade through the maze to get to its core. This joyful and macabre […]

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Amy Barone’s We Became Summer, Reviewed by Francine Witte

Amy Barone We Became Summer New York Quarterly Books Reviewer: Francine Witte Let’s face it. When the title of a poetry collection is a perfect three-word poem itself, you know you’re in for a pretty good ride. Such is the case with Amy Barone’s first full-length collection We Became Summer. The title suggests so much, […]

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Joan Colby’s Her Heartsongs, Reviewed by Erica Goss

Joan Colby Her Heartsongs Presa Press Reviewer: Erica Goss The wild and the domestic live side-by-side in Joan Colby’s new collection, Her Heartsongs. The tension between the two realms gives these poems their energy and edge. These are stories of love and peril precariously balanced in a world where persistence wins over passivity. The first […]

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Mack Mani – The Ghost of Sigma Chi

The Ghost of Sigma Chi They say I was a Chi O girl or a 1950s haze-gone-wrong, an OD or a suicide and there was one sweetheart who swore up and down that I was her aunt, slaughtered by Ted Bundy in the summer of ’76. I polish off the empties and give the freshman […]

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Denise Dumars – Mars Must Remember

Mars Must Remember Ice cubes clink in the red warrior’s drink and he gazes fondly toward his iron planet, a scarred and winded desert of a land. You remind us that all politics are local politics, that peace depends upon a show of strength. Then why the desolate landscape? Is the face of Mars really […]

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