Review of Hysterical Cake by Amy Baskin —“Let them eat cake!” — remark attributed to Marie Antoinette In a poem from Amy Baskin’s debut chapbook Hysterical Cake (Dancing Girl Press 2021), the speaker says, “I want to be a holy fool” (“Hidden Wholeness”). I think she has succeeded. While the poems in Hysterical Cake are thoughtful …
Cynthia Guardado explores the inherited past of her Salvadorian roots in Cenizas by Brian Dunlap For poet and professor Cynthia Guardado, family, El Salvador and her Salvadorian American identity plays huge roles in her life. It began before she was born in 1984, when her parents fled the country’s brutal civil war as undocumented refugees …
Review: Trumpets in the Sky by Jerry Garcia Trumpets in the Sky by Jerry Garcia comes back again and again to the wonder of the world when you are focused on the sky. In the preface, he tells us that he has always been fascinated by “things in the sky” (12), which was also the early …
Alexis Rhone Fancher and Cynthia Atkins’s Duets Duets by Alexis Rhone Fancher and Cynthia Atkins is the result of a friendship and collaboration between the two poets. Each of them responded to Fancher’s photography and the result is a collection that captures the anxiety and inward-turning that we, or at least I, have felt over …
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Anchor by Rebecca Aronson Rebecca Aronson’s third book of poetry, Anchor, is a gorgeous collection of ruminative observations born of her experiences with the final illnesses of her parents. Reflecting on her father’s loss of balance and her mother’s loss of memory, Aronson’s poems contemplate the inexorable pull of gravity that destabilizes her father physically, …
Aruni Wijesinghe’s 2 Revere Place Aruni Wijesinghe’s 2 Revere Place is a collection about the home where the poet spent her early childhood. Like any place wrapped in the memory of childhood, 2 Revere Place for her has a mixture of pain and joy. What we remember, of course, tends to be the very best …
Stronger than Fear: Poems of Empowerment, Compassion, and Social Justice, Carol Alexander & Stephen Massimilla, Eds. Review by John Brantingham One of the problems of evil is that it can and inevitably does shapeshift. We learn how to fight intolerance and ignorance in our youth, and it’s tempting to feel that we can move …
Review of Wherever I’m At: An Anthology of Chicago Poetry, Donald G. Evans and Robin Metz, eds. Wherever I’m At: An Anthology of Chicago Poetry is the brainchild of Robin Metz, who gathered work for years before cancer finally led him to join forces with and ultimately pass the project on to the poet …
Poetry Review: Nightmares & Miracles by Michelle Bitting Michelle Bitting’s Nightmares & Miracles goes straight into the center of things that matter, but that is not surprising. Bitting is a poet who never wastes our time. She helps us to understand what is magic and horrible in our world as the title of this collection suggests. …
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Poetry Review: A Burning Lake of Paper Suns by Ellen Webre I move as deer, as jackrabbit in hawkflight, A red-breasted bird, a bonfire of oak and holly. I harness the sky with a cinnamon broom. I sweep away the blighted root, the sorrow choke. I make a speech of suppertime, bring milk and …
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Little Told L.Á. Perspective It All Comes Down to This, a middle-grade novel by Karen English, begins with class privilege. “I saw [Mrs. Baylor hauling] herself heavily up the hill,” says 12-year-old Sophie, the narrator, looking out her den window. Sophie’s mother is interviewing housekeepers and this Black woman, Sophie can see, “resented that the …
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Poetry is an echo, asking a shadow to dance. —Carl Sandburg Poets are, if nothing else, fantasists. But, as Delmore Schwartz reminds us, in dreams begin responsibility. Good Harbor is, first, a book rooted in Home and Tenancy and Fatherhood. Decency is the subtext, or ethical behaviors we’d class as decent. In the poem “Lockdown”—about …
“Saudade”: Review of Through a Grainy Landscape by Millicent Borges Accardi by Angele Ellis Saudade is the most Portuguese word to make its way into the English language, so rich and nuanced that it is nearly untranslatable. Wikipedia takes this stab at definition: “…a deep emotional state of nostalgic or profound melancholic longing for something …
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Tips to Manage Your Time: The Ultimate Time Management Toolkit by Risa Williams Stressful deadlines, mindless distractions, and an ever-growing to-do list. As most of us settle into the “work from home” lifestyle post pandemic, our transition into the “new normal” can make us feel like we have too many mental “‘tabs open” all …
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Recently poet Susan Tepper got together with poet Gloria Mindock to talk about destruction, hearts, and Gloria’s new poetry collection Ash, which is based on true crime stories. Here’s what they said: Susan Tepper (ST): Yesterday, when I asked if you’d like to talk about your multi-prize-winning poetry collection Ash, the tragedy at the Highland Park …
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