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The Souls of Black Folk: A Review
by DON HOLMES The Souls of Black Folk by W.E.B. Du Bois. Introduction by Vann R. Newkirk. Illustrations by Steve Prince. Restless Books, 2017, pp. 239 First published in 1903, The Souls of Black Folk...
View ArticleContemplating Nonexistence
by JEFFREY N. JOHNSON I wedge myself between a molded bench and syrup-splattered formica. The waitress caps her pen and grips the menu, says she ain’t serving until I move to another booth. She points...
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The End of Something: A Review
by KYLAN RICE The End of Something by Kate Greenstreet. Ahsahta Press, 2017. pp. 176. When she reads out loud, Kate Greenstreet’s poems sound like they’re being spoken during a smoke break outside a...
View ArticleAshland
by JOSHUA PRICHARD I met a woman out in Ashland once. I was there on shore leave, which we called it even though the shore’s never far away. I worked tow boats up and down the Ohio. Normally I’d take...
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The Refugees: A Review
by JOHN BECHTOLD The Refugees by Viet Thanh Nguyen. New York: Grove Press, 2017. pp. 207 Novelist and philosopher Iris Murdoch, describing what distinguishes good art from pedestrian work, wrote, “the...
View ArticleThis Mile
by JESSI LEWIS My father is planning on burning the brush pile. Pieces of childhood are gathered, braced with dead pines. I don’t know if I recognize this stretch of earth, this mile. Blueberry bushes...
View ArticleThe Brown Dirt and the Black Earth
by NICHOLAS LEPRE They searched for Francine every Thursday afternoon, after school, in the hidden spaces of the neighborhood. They were halfway to the reservoir, the September sun at their backs, the...
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Gatherest: A Review
by KYLAN RICE Gatherest by Sasha Steensen. Ahsahta Press, 2017. pp. 128 Sometimes I like to think of the poem as a child. The poet gives a kind of birth to a kind of offspring, a word. As it was in the...
View ArticleKnots For Girls
by KAREN HARRYMAN 1. An overhand knot is usually tied at one end of a long marriage. When pulled tight it can be used as a stopper to prevent unraveling or slipping through one another. This is the...
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Disappearances and Remembrances: A Review of Filip Springer’s History of a...
by KARAH MITCHELL Filip Springer, History of a Disappearance: The Story of a Forgotten Polish Town Originally published 2011. English translation by Sean Gaspar Bye, April 2017. Restless Books:...
View ArticleTelegraph Hill
by DANIEL HOLMES She told Thomas it started with the Golden Gate Bridge. Amy’s parents had taken her as a child: one of those cheesy trips to San Francisco where her dad labored to align their...
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The Education of a Young Poet: A Review
by TARAS V. MIKHAILIUK David Biespiel. The Education of a Young Poet. Counterpoint Press, October 2017, pp. 192. Part memoir, part imaginative recollection, David Biespiel’sEducation of a Young...
View ArticleFire Season
by CHRISTOPHER RING Dry lightning lit on a ridge five miles off just as Jules crouched down to urinate. By sheer luck she had squatted on the southwest corner of the tower. Nothing told her to look...
View ArticleObsession
by BRIAN CRONWALL So, I called your cellphone, left a message on your land-line, texted, emailed, faxed, sent a letter first class, left a note on your car, carved words on a park bench and a bamboo...
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New American Best Friend: A Review
by OLIVIA NEAL Olivia Gatwood. New American Best Friend. Button Poetry. March 2017. pp. 60. “when they call you a bitch, say thank you. / say thank you, very much.” This is the powerful final line of...
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The Gunners: A Review
by BEN MURPHY Rebecca Kauffman. The Gunners. Counterpoint Press, 2018, pp. 224. Mikey is going blind, but he is our window into the small realism of Rebecca Kauffman’s second novel, The Gunners...
View ArticleThe Lucky Ones
by DAVID JACOBS Have you heard about the lake in Tanzania that’s so alkaline it preserves the bodies of dead animals in a calcified state, fixing them in a lonely permanence? Or the rare autoimmune...
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Lit Up: A Review
by KYLAN RICE Lit Up by Chris Glomski. The Cultural Society, 2017, pp. 96. In his new book Lit Up (The Cultural Society, 2017), Chris Glomski shows what lyric poetry looks like in the neoliberal age....
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Tell Me How It Ends: An Essay in Forty Questions: A Review
by ANNEKE SCHWOB Valeria Luiselli. Tell Me How It Ends: An Essay in Forty Questions Coffee House Press, April 2017, pp. 136. Valeria Luiselli is a Mexican writer whose novels and essays are formally...
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Temporary People: A Review
by PAUL BLOM Deepak Unnikrishnan. Temporary People. Restless Books, 2017, pp. 227. A suitcase sprouts limbs and eventually turns into a man. A woman tapes shattered bodies back together. Laborers are...
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