Nathan Leslie’s The Invisible Hand, Reviewed by Charles Rammelkamp
The Invisible Hand Nathan Leslie Hamilton Stone Editions (Short Fiction) Reviewer: Charles Rammelkamp Nathan Leslie often arranges his short fiction collections around a theme. Madre features stories that deal with motherhood; Sibs is stories about brothers and sisters in various combinations and situations; Drivers involves cars, and Believers is stories about snake-handlers and other religious […]
Charles Rammelkamp’s The Field of Happiness, Reviewed by David E. Poston
Charles Rammelkamp The Field of Happiness Kelsay Books Reviewer: David E. Poston Charles Rammelkamp’s new collection, The Field of Happiness, brought to mind Ted Kooser. In a 1992 essay in Can Poetry Matter?, Dana Gioia characterizes Kooser as striking “the difficult balance between profundity and accessibility” and goes to great lengths to defend Kooser as […]
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 […]
Thaddeus Rutkowski’s Border Crossings, Reviewed by Charles Rammelkamp
Thaddeus Rutkowski Border Crossings Sensitive Skin Books Reviewer: Charles Rammelkamp Thaddeus Rutkowski writes about nature with an implicit reverence, a feeling of awe, that is almost Buddhist in perspective. Take the poem, “The Wild” from his new collection: Animal tracks in snow— footloose paw prints— go across my path, and vanish into the woods. Every […]