Sep 19
Before Words, Into Light The Book of Immaculate Perception / Madrigals by Marc Zegans and Larry Beckett (Bamboo Dart Press) There is a lovely impossibility at the heart of The Book of Immaculate Perception / Madrigals: two poets attempt, using words, to recover a condition that exists before words. Marc Zegans and Larry Beckett approach …
Sep 12
The Profane Art of Staying Alive: The Book of the Dirty Poet from Roadside Press Early in The Book of the Dirty Poet, its pseudonymous speaker reduces the secret of life to two pieces of advice: get lucky, and appreciate things while they are good, because they will not remain that way. Then comes the …
Sep 05
For the Duration by Heather Flescher from Collapse Press Heather Flescher’s For the Duration is a collection that refuses distance. It is not content to be admired from afar as an exercise in craft alone; it insists on intimacy. Through a blend of narrative poetry, memoir, prose-poems, and personal reflection, Flescher creates a work that …
Aug 28
Mister Joe’s Pirates by Karl Koweski (Roadside Press) Karl Koweski’s Mister Joe’s Pirates is an unapologetically profane, funny, and unexpectedly heartfelt novel that finds surprising humanity in the fading industrial landscape of Northwest Indiana. At first glance, it appears to be a crude comedy about washed-up barflies coaching a hopeless Little League team. By the …
Aug 01
we’ll go as i think of you between lines and the poor sense of smell from a landscape with drunkards or hanged humans by Minerva Reynosa from El Martillo Press Minerva Reynosa’s we’ll go as i think of you between lines and the poor sense of smell from a landscape with drunkards or hanged humans …
Jul 16
{f}ragile Nests by Pella Felton from Roadside Press Pella Felton’s {f}ragile Nests is a poetry collection haunted by archives: the archives of memory, performance, gender, family, religion, friendship, loss, and the body itself. Throughout these poems, Felton returns repeatedly to a central question: what remains when the stories we inherit no longer contain us? The …
Jul 09
Todos Somos Sagrados /All Are Sacred by Rey M. Rodríguez from El Martillo Press Rey M. Rodríguez’s All Are Sacred is a bi-lingual poetry collection rooted in Boyle Heights, but its ambitions extend far beyond place. The poems function as acts of witness, memorial, and gratitude, chronicling the work of Proyecto Pastoral and the women …
Jul 02
Dope and Vodka and Cigarettes, and Not Shaving Her Legs by Dave Newman from Roadside Press Dave Newman’s Dope and Vodka and Cigarettes, and Not Shaving Her Legs is a devastating, funny, and deeply humane novel about addiction, poverty, family loyalty, and the complicated ways love survives inside dysfunction. Told through a series of short, …
Jun 25
Shake Hands with the Man in My Hand by Daryl Gussin from There’s Only Peace in Death Press Daryl Gussin’s Shake Hands with the Man in My Hand (There’s Only Peace in Death Press) is a collection that thrives on contradiction: sincerity and irony, intimacy and estrangement, humor and dread. The attached poems reveal a …
Jun 18
Dealer by Iván Salinas from There’s Only Peace in Death Press Dealer by Iván Salinas, published by There’s Only Peace in Death Press, reads less like a collection and more like a live wire — erratic, charged, and impossible to hold without feeling the current. What emerges across these poems is not just a poetics …
