New Ways to Howl: Calling a Wolf a Wolf by Kaveh Akbar
While reading Kaveh Akbar’s marvelous debut collection Calling a Wolf a Wolf, I was reminded of a quote from Dan Beachy-Quick’s essay...
Diagram of a Tongue: Silent Anatomies by Monica Ong
Silent Anatomies by Monica Ong is unlike any book of poetry I have ever encountered. It’s no wonder Joy Harjo selected it as the winner...
Imaginary Worlds: Our Lands Are Not So Different by Michael Bazzett
Michael Bazzett’s second collection, Our Lands Are Not So Different, defies classification, it exists in its own world; a world seen once...
Why I Blog about Poetry
When I first started this blog, I didn’t quite know what it would become. I looked for a formula, but there was none. I thought I might...
Nature’s Hem/Hymn: Ornament by Anna Lena Phillips Bell
An ornament is meant not only to adorn but to set off the beauty of the person it is placed on or the room it is placed within, but what...
The Ghosts Within Us: Kamilah Aisha Moon’s Starshine & Clay
It is difficult to write a review when words are failing you, when you feel like the only way to respond to a book is to write poems to...
Bridled Fauna: Like a Beast by Carly Joy Miller
In the chapbook, Like a Beast, Carly Joy Miller interrogates the ways in which the beast is tamed: bridled, harnessed, handled; the beast...
Grief is a Question: How to Prove a Theory by Nicole Tong
“Given / the practice to call things gone, / how shall I speak of the line, / which neatly remains?” This question is at the heart of...
Untamable and Unnamable: Orogeny by Irène Mathieu
The word “orogeny” comes to us via Ancient Greek words meaning— mountain and genesis, and refers to the geological process through which...
A Starling’s Song: Forest Primeval by Vievee Francis
“Something has snapped in two. Something has been lost / that won’t return in this life. I want to find the source.” It is not just the...