Francesca Bell’s What Small Sound, Reviewed by Vivian Wagner
What Small Sound Francesca Bell Red Hen Press Reviewer: Vivian Wagner What Small Sound, a new poetry collection by Francesca Bell, is an exploration of life, death, and love, and of the myriad ways these essential elements of human existence intersect and define each other. The poems in this collection don’t offer any easy answers […]
Bonnie Wai-Lee Kwong’s The Quenching, Reviewed by Vivian Wagner
The Quenching Bonnie Wai-Lee Kwong Finishing Line Press Reviewer: Vivian Wagner The Quenching, by Bonnie Wai-Lee Kwong, is a study in translation between languages, cultures, and selves. Kwong opens the collection with an introduction meditating on this process: “Translational motion involves a body moving from one point in space to another. To carry across is […]
Farnaz Fatemi’s Sister Tongue, Reviewed by Vivian Wagner
Farnaz Fatemi Sister Tongue Kent State University Press Reviewer: Vivian Wagner Farnaz Fatemi’s Sister Tongue explores the experience of living between the cultures of Iran and the United States, and of trying to find a voice to describe that in-betweenness. The poems take root in various liminal spaces, tracking the poet’s journey through cross-cultural identity […]
Carolyn Oliver’s Inside the Storm I Want to Touch the Tremble, Reviewed by Vivian Wagner
Carolyn Oliver Inside the Storm I Want to Touch the Tremble The University of Utah Press Reviewer: Vivian Wagner The title of Carolyn Oliver’s Inside the Storm I Want to Touch the Tremble is a kind of riddle that gives a road map for the collection itself. This is a collection about traumatic storms, and […]
Vivian Faith Prescott’s Old Woman with Berries in Her Lap, Reviewed by Vivian Wagner
Vivian Faith Prescott Old Woman with Berries in Her Lap University of Alaska Press Reviewer: Vivian Wagner Vivian Faith Prescott’s Old Woman with Berries in Her Lap is a collection of poems about colonialism, survival, and the reclaiming of lost cultural identity. These poems explore the Sámi diaspora and one descendant’s desire to discover, re-narrate, […]
