March 20, 2020
A “Cardiogram of Russian Life”: On Rock, Paper, Scissors, and Other Stories by Maxim Osipov
New York, NY: New York Review Books, 2019. 312 pages. $17.95. The Russian cardiologist Maxim Osipov joins Anton Chekhov and Mikhail Bulgakov as doctor-writers who composed exacting diagnoses of modern […]
March 13, 2020
Forms of Reckoning: A Review of LeAnne Howe’s Savage Conversations
Minneapolis, MN: Coffee House Press, 2019. 144 pages. $15.95. I first read LeAnne Howe’s extraordinary new book, Savage Conversations on unceded Dakhóta land in Minnesota, five miles from Fort Snelling […]
March 6, 2020
On Black Forest by Valérie Mréjen
Translated by Katie Shireen Assef. Los Angeles, CA: Phoneme Media/Deep Vellum Publishing, 2019. 80 pages. $16.00. “[T]here are few things that arouse in us greater distaste than to see a […]
March 6, 2020
On No Small Gift by Jennifer Franklin
New York, NY: Four Way Books, 2018. 88 pages. $15.95. Jennifer Franklin’s haunting and lyrical poetry collection No Small Gift begins in the negative. “(Not) A Love Story” tells us […]
February 28, 2020
On North American Stadiums by Grady Chambers
Minneapolis, MN: Milkweed Editions, 2018. 112 pages. $22.00. A book of landscape and memory, of travel and grit, North American Stadiums is more like the act of penance than anything […]
February 21, 2020
On Admission: A Review of Documents by Jan-Henry Gray
Rochester, NY: BOA Editions, 2019. 96 pages. $17.00. When one is undocumented or previously undocumented, the question of how and what to disclose becomes its own question of craft, and […]
February 21, 2020
All Times at the Same Time: On The Bottom of the Sky by Rodrigo Fresán
Translated by Will Vanderhyden. Rochester, NY: Open Letter Books, 2018. 290 pages. $15.95. Never one to shy away from his pop culture influences, Argentine writer Rodrigo Fresán opens his latest […]
February 14, 2020
On Dunya Mikhail’s The Beekeeper: Rescuing the Stolen Women of Iraq
Translated by Dunya Mikhail and Max Weiss. New York, NY: New Directions, 2018. 211 pages. $16.95. In his 2014 critique of Here, Bullet—written by the American veteran and poet Brian […]
February 7, 2020
Hearing the Silence: On The Sound of Listening by Philip Metres
Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 2018. 206 pages. $29.95. “In that dark room, nursing my head, poetry was my refuge, a way to return to myself, to remember […]
February 7, 2020
“Ominous of Good”: On Bill Carty’s Huge Cloudy
Portland, OR: Octopus Books, 2019. 112 pages. $16.95. At the 2018 AWP Conference in Tampa, Mary Ruefle delivered a talk on tone titled “Hell’s Bells.” There she reflects, “When I […]
January 31, 2020
“Girls Have Secrets, Men Have Honor”: A Review of Frail Sister by Karen Green
Hudson River Valley, NY: Siglio Press, 2018. 164 pages. $39.95. When a writer embraces the heterodoxy of merging image and text to tell a more complete version of their story, […]
January 24, 2020
“A Feverish Dream”: On João Gilberto Noll’s Lord
Translated by Edgar Garbelotto. San Francisco, CA: Two Lines Press, 2019. 164 pages. $12.95. Have you ever had that dream where you arrive at an auditorium and someone you don’t […]