May 5, 2017
On How The End Begins by Cynthia Cruz
New York, NY: Four Way Books, 2016. 74 pages. $16.00. Of all the images that constellate the dense personal mythology in How The End Begins, Cynthia Cruz’s new collection, perhaps […]
May 5, 2017
“Father Of No One”: Sun & Urn by Christopher Salerno
Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 2017. 80 pages. $19.95. Vengeance is Macbeth’s reaction to the curse of childlessness and the wrath of the parent brigade, but what pushes one […]
May 1, 2017
The Hidden History of Slavery
This review appears in the May/June 2017 issue of the Kenyon Review Homegoing. Yaa Gyasi. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2016. 305 pp. $26.95. The Slaves Cause: A History of […]
April 28, 2017
Tales of the Mizrahi
The Best Place on Earth. Ayelet Tsabari. New York, NY: Random House, 2016. 256 pages. $26.00. Currently, the media blitzes us with images of refugees fleeing war-wracked countries for the […]
April 28, 2017
On Cities At Dawn by Geoffrey Nutter
Seattle, WA: Wave Books, 2016. 120 pages. $18.00. Geoffrey Nutter’s poetry recalls the charm of a Wes Anderson film: so full of sculpted artifice that it manages to achieve authenticity. […]
April 27, 2017
April Micro-Reviews
This month’s group of micro-reviews focuses on poetry in translation. We in the English-reading world are unfortunate to have access to so little of the literature written in other languages, […]
April 27, 2017
April 2017 Micro-Reviews
This month’s group of micro-reviews focuses on poetry in translation. We in the English-reading world are unfortunate to have access to so little of the literature written in other languages, […]
April 21, 2017
“The Gut Meaning of Grace”: Tyehimba Jess’s Olio
Seattle, WA: Wave Books, 2016. 235 pages. $25.00. “You know—parable old. You know how you hear something new, but after you hear it, seems like you couldn’t have done without […]
April 21, 2017
Dispatches from an Ancient Forest: On The Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate, Discoveries from a Secret World by Peter Wohlleben
Vancouver, Canada: Greystone Books, 2016. 260 pages. $24.95. Forester-turned-bestseller isn’t a common author tagline in American letters, but career ranger Peter Wohlleben won popular readership in Germany with his 2015 […]
April 14, 2017
Keep Hammering: Benjamin Percy’s Advice to Writers
Thrill Me. Minneapolis, MN: Graywolf, 2016. 160 pages. $16.00. Benjamin Percy’s nonfiction is like his fiction: expertly balanced, extensively researched, and written in a vibrant, demanding style that can offer […]
April 14, 2017
The Limits of the Unexpected: The Transmigration of Bodies by Yuri Herrera
Translated by Lisa Dillman. Los Angeles, CA: And Other Stories, 2016. 101 pages. $13.95. If Yuri Herrera has his way, the world won’t go out with a whimper or bang […]
April 7, 2017
Paint It Plain as Dirt: On Everything We Always Knew Was True by James Galvin
Port Townsend, WA: Copper Canyon Press, 2016. 78 pages. $16.00. Perhaps more than any other living American poet, James Galvin understands the decline of the American West. The trajectory of […]