Review #38: ‘Directing Herbert White’ by James Franco
And I think about my feelings / In the most intimate way. / It’s like I’m talking to the people / In the theater, as if they’re all my friends
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Review #37: ‘Hard Love Province’ by Marilyn Chin
Is it in bad taste to critique well-meant eulogies/elegies rather than to allow the bereaved our indulgence?
Review #36: ‘And Short the Season’ by Maxine Kumin
What moves me most in this final testament is how she documents the daunting challenges women poets have faced in the past four hundred years from Duchess Margaret Cavendish (1645) to our current MFA scene.
Review #35: ‘The Ants’ by Sawako Nakayasu
“When I tell the story about the man who came up to me and opened up his bag and offered me one of a teeming million wiggling ants in his bag, the whole table goes silent and I am reminded all over again how hard it is to get along with the women in this country”
Review #34: ‘The Talking Day’ by Michael Klein
Michael Klein is equal parts flaneur and raconteur, his “verses” lyrically and loquaciously ambling along as he “traverses”…
Review #33: ‘Ask Me’ by William Stafford
Culled from the 20,000 poems that he wrote during his lifetime of which 4000 were published, this book collects his Greatest Hits.
‘Biting the Apple’ by Jeanie Greensfelder
He ghosts about the house,
reminding me to take out the trash,
to push the can for pickup,
to find the paper in the bushes,
and to start coffee.
He’d do it, but he’s gone on retreat.
We each practice losing the other.
Review #32: ‘The Black Dot’ by Kristin Prevallet
Favorites: Repeated readings of this text at random will open up new spaces inside your head.
Review #31: ‘Slow Motion German Adjectives’ by Donald Dunbar
For starters, this collection takes on Mary Oliver, Ronald Reagan, Peggy Noonan, Thom Yorke, Suicide Bombers and iPhone…
Review #30: ‘Ameriscopia’ by Edwin Torres
This dystopic collection examines what it means to give voice to America via a Puerto Rican vantage point, utilizing new forms and intense repetitions to dizzying effect from chanting and ranting to narratives broken into fractured paratactic lyrics.