Sheryl St. Germain’s The Small Door of Your Death, Reviewed by Lee Rossi

Sheryl St. Germain The Small Door of Your Death Autumn House Press Reviewer: Lee Rossi Sheryl St. Germain makes no secret of her secrets. She’s the kind of writer who opens all her closets and invites the skeletons to the dinner table. In 6 previous books of poetry and 2 memoirs she details her experience […]

Barbara Hamby’s Bird Odyssey, Reviewed by Lee Rossi

Barbara Hamby Bird Odyssey University of Pittsburgh Press Reviewer: Lee Rossi Barbara Hamby may be contemporary poetry’s most personable tour guide. In Bird Odyssey, her sixth and latest volume of poetry, she takes us on three separate trips – through Russia, the Deep South, and Classical Greece – all of them informed by her promiscuous […]

Jenny Molberg’s Marvels of the Invisible, Reviewed by Lee Rossi

Jenny Molberg Marvels of the Invisible Tupelo Press Reviewer: Lee Rossi Finding an expanse of previously unexplored wilderness, the naturalist is keen to discover an unknown species. Likewise a critic, opening a first book, looks for signs of new life. Jenny Molberg’s Marvels of the Invisible provides many such clues, all hinting at some chameleon-like, […]

Mary Makofske’s World Enough, and Time, Reviewed by Lee Rossi

Mary Makofske World Enough, and Time Kelsay Books Reviewer: Lee Rossi A book of poems is like one of those fabulous creatures from a medieval bestiary—part lion, part snake, part bat—not all the parts convinced that they belong together. Mary Makofske’s World Enough, and Time is such a beast, confessional free-verse narratives conjoined with Metaphysical […]

Mischa Willett’s Phases, Reviewed by Lee Rossi

Mischa Willett Phases Cascade Books Reviewer: Lee Rossi The latest volume in the Poiema Poetry Series, which, as the series editor declares, “presents the work of gifted poets who take Christian faith seriously,” Mischa Willett’s Phases is less noteworthy for its declarations of religious belief than for the way it mimics poets for whom Christianity […]