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 […]

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 […]

Linda Ravenswood’s The Stan Poems, Reviewed by Lee Rossi

The Stan Poems: Indictments & Amendments Linda Ravenswood Pedestrian Press Reviewer: Lee Rossi The title of Linda Ravenswood’s The Stan Poems invites the reader to speculate on its ultimate meaning. Besides referring to her common-law husband, the musician and producer Stan Hillas (Jones), it also suggests something about the nature of their relationship, a “stan” […]

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, […]

Barbara Hamby’s Holoholo, Reviewed by Lee Rossi

Barbara Hamby Holoholo University of Pittsburgh Press Reviewer: Lee Rossi How to describe a book as filled with delights as Barbara Hamby’s Holoholo. Ostensibly a book of odes, these are not just poems of praise; she urges her readers to construe the term “ode” in the widest possible sense: as a “poetic stance, a poetic […]