Arthur Kayzakian’s The Book of Redacted Paintings, Reviewed by Lee Rossi

The Book of Redacted Paintings Arthur Kayzakian Black Lawrence Press Reviewer: Lee Rossi In a recent interview in the New York Review of Books, poet and critic Ange Mlinko comments on the recent glut of “project” books (a genre I’ve come to call “term paper poetry”). She notes that publishers are striving “to make books […]

Cynthia Manick’s No Sweet Without Brine, Reviewed by Erica Goss

No Sweet Without Brine Cynthia Manick HarperCollins Reviewer: Erica Goss “I want us living, not just alive,” Cynthia Manick writes in “Dear Future Body (Keep Your Skin Thickk),” a poem from her latest collection, No Sweet Without Brine. Body image, family, and the constant pressure to conform to others’ expectations inform the book, as the […]

Richard Vargas’s Leaving a Tip at the Blue Moon Motel, Reviewed by Shawn Pavey

Leaving a Tip at the Blue Moon Motel Richard Vargas Casa Urraca Press Reviewer: Shawn Pavey Having followed the work of Richard Vargas since his first collection, 2005’s McLife, I’m not surprised to find that Leaving a Tip at the Blue Moon Motel is filled with poems that explore, in depth, that inescapable yet spirit […]

Emily Stoddard’s Divination with Human Heart Attached, Reviewed by Lee Rossi

Divination with Human Heart Attached Emily Stoddard Game Over Books Reviewer: Lee Rossi Drawing on the arcana of early Christianity (but also the Brothers Grimm, Teresa of Avila, C.G. Jung, and other explorers of the human depths), poet Emily Stoddard offers her readers not the story of her life, but the myths that underlie that […]

Beat Not Beat, Reviewed by Brian Fanelli

Beat Not Beat: An Anthology of California Poets Screwing on the Beat and Post-Beat Generation Edited by Rich Ferguson, S.A. Griffin, Alexis Rhone Fancher, Kim Shuck Moon Tide Press Reviewer: Brian Fanelli Beat Not Beat, edited by Rich Ferguson, S.A. Griffin, Alexis Rhone Fancher, and Kim Shuck, may be an anthology inspired by the Beat […]