I’m a sucker for a beautifully told tale, and Dan Curley’s “Remuria” delivers. This poem about his students and his friend and her devastating diagnosis, interwoven with Rome in all her beauty, kept pulling me back into its sad embrace. — Alexis Rhone Fancher *** Remuria The day you were diagnosed You came to …
Steamy. Provocative. Devastating. This sensual, highly visual poem drew me into its world of flowers and wolves and knives to the throat. “I am painting my body with vernaculars,” Ayinla writes. Gorgeous. And deadly. — Alexis Rhone Fancher *** Prelude to Omissions I have risen above noise level. I am painting my body with …
“Houseplant” is a wonderfully well-made poem. From the beginning, we are told that something odd, wonderful, and magical is happening, “I water my ficus with milk.” Every line that follows delivers what is promised in the first. As a reader, I cannot stop reading the poem because each turn and twist is enjoyable and fun. …
“Stuck in Traffic, I Witness” examines a small incident and meditates on its spiritual and humanistic significance. The poem’s power derives from the intimate conversation the speaker has with us readers: “Sometimes, I wonder if the universe intentionally breaks us till our bodies compete with dust before dispensing a rain of half-baked glee to whet …
I was surprised I chose “Hemingway’s Room” because I tend not to like poems about writing. Again, it was the language, clean and sharp throughout, but the section where the narrator heads out and reports what he sees, the images, is what won me over. — Tony Gloeggler *** Hemingway’s Room I think about …
I really dug the step by step precise writing, the repetition in the middle, the sure steady rhythm of “Eating Corn Soup under the Strawberry Moon.” I could taste and smell the poem. At the close, the poem left me with a sense of peace and power. — Tony Gloeggler *** Eating Corn Soup under …
Rosalie Sanara Petrouske: “Eating Corn Soup under the Strawberry Moon” Read More »
Often the search within a poem’s blood and flesh happens slowly. I encourage my students to find the volta of a poem, a twist, and change that takes us further into its, and our own interior. The third stanza of Cameron Morse’s “Night Clouds in the Black Hills” struck me, and would not let go. …
Cameron Morse: “Night Clouds in the Black Hills” Read More »
Kay Tipsord’s poem “The Affects of History” begins with the great concern of all art: “the problem of memory.” And like someone fashioning a breakable world, the poet delivers detail with a careful hand, effectively directing the eye distracted by the immensity of the universe to something so small, it is the only thing that …
I kept coming back to Scott Laudati’s remarkable poem, “the santa fe trail.” The imagery that peppered this meandering tale brought it wonderfully back into focus by the end. And it made me laugh! “do you know that there’s a/ whole country out there/ that doesn’t care about new york?/ i do now./i might know …
“C(h)ord,” by Carlos Gómez deals with the past haunting one’s moves through the present. He creates a powerful set of rich imagery that disturbs the ordinary, mundane ways we recall memory: “I try to make/friends with the silence. Hold its endless weight, tell myself/it is another kind of song.” I love the way Gomez lets …
“Dreamer” flattened me. Its deft use of language intrigued me, and its powerful ending straightened my spine while it opened my heart. This poem explores immigration from a daunting, devastating perspective. “She decides to redact nothing, not because I’ve taught her/ God is in the details, but because she knows/ there is nothing illegal about …
To read “Material World” by Anurak Saelaow is to re-live the first and greatest trauma of the human condition. And yet, “plot” or “about-ness” are besides the point. Here is a piece devoted to the molecular level of the senses, where each verb is a ripple in a whole universe, and every noun a mighty …
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