Clik here to view.
Geography of Rebels Trilogy: A Review
by JOSHUA TAIT Maria Gabriela Llansol, Geography of Rebels Trilogy. Trans. from the Portuguese by Audrey Young (Deep Vellum, October 2018), pp. 345 “My vocation is to speak eternally,” wrote Maria...
View ArticleThe Tour Bus
by MARYELLEN BEVERIDGE The lobster boat idled against the floating dock, smelling of diesel fuel. Its engine sputtered above the quiescent brown-green water of the bay as a crewman, pulling a length of...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Passing: A Review
by DON HOLMES Nella Larsen, Passing. Introduction by Darryl Pinckney & Illustrations by Maggie Lily (Restless Books, 2018), pp. 174 It was 1928 when Nella Larsen burst onto the scene during the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Öræfi: The Wasteland: A Review
by KATHARINE COLDIRON Ófeigur Sigurðsson, Öræfi: The Wasteland (Deep Vellum Books, October 2018), pp. 352 Without atmospheric accumulation, glaciers would not exist. No matter how they begin,...
View ArticleClik here to view.
“The Anatomy of Missing:” A Review of Things to Make and Break
by JORDAN KLEVDAL May-Lan Tan, Things to Make and Break (Coffee House Press, October 2018), pp. 204 The arrival of the new year means that coffee shops, bars, and restaurants are filled with the same...
View ArticleAfter My Mother Died
by HEATHER SELLERS She slept in my bone body for three years. My missing her a lonely hush. My grief a gold thing I carried as a ring, immanent. And now I see her in various cars, in thin blue old...
View ArticlePapa’s Gifts
by SANDRA HEADEN At eight months, Lena’s belly was as big as four watermelons. Must be twins, all the women said. Miss Annabelle, the town midwife, was sure they’d be boys. Lena hoped for girls, with...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Ursula K. Le Guin: Conversations on Writing: A Review
by NICOLE BERLAND Ursula K. Le Guin and David Naimon, Ursula K. Le Guin: Conversations on Writing (Tin House, 2018), pp. 150 Rather than proposing solutions, Ursula K. Le Guin’s novels ask questions....
View ArticleYin
by PAULANN PETERSEN You’d think water’s female aspect would be a pond, a lake—deep, reflective, still, taking the sun and moon and clouds onto its slick-shimmered skin. Wrong. You would be dead wrong....
View ArticleClik here to view.
Bridled: A Review
by MARY SCOTT MANNING Amy Meng, Bridled (Pleiades Press, 2018), pp. 66 The flashbulb of an old-fashioned film camera throws light on the subject in the split second before the shutter opens, making the...
View ArticleTeacups
by DAN PINKERTON At the Missouri line they encountered a giant red fireworks barn sitting just off I-35 with elaborate signage made to look like lit roman candles. Even from a distance the place looked...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Revenge of the Translator: A Review
by KATHARINE COLDIRON Brice Matthieussent, Revenge of the Translator, translated by Emma Ramadan (Deep Vellum, October 2018), pp. 352 I truly do not know where to begin with Revenge of the Translator....
View ArticleClik here to view.
Savage Conversations: A Review
by KARAH MITCHELL LeAnne Howe, Savage Conversations (Coffee House Press, February 2019), pp. 104 LeAnne Howe’s Savage Conversations is devastating. In this experimental book that hovers between drama...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Poetry’s Barbarism: A Review of Ilya Kaminsky’s Deaf Republic
by JESSICA Q. STARK credit: Graywolf Press Ilya Kaminsky, Deaf Republic (Graywolf Press, 2019), pp. 96 An infamous and oft-misquoted line from the philosopher Theodor Adorno reads, “To write poetry...
View ArticleColors, Earrings, Beautiful Things
by PHILLIP JONES Teresa’s father is keeping company with the santo he is carving, San Juan Nepomuceno, martyred for not sharing a queen’s confession, now the patron of secrets and silence. A gentle man...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Fox and Dr. Shimamura: A Review
by CAOIMHE A. HARLOCK credit: New Directions Christine Wunnicke, The Fox and Dr. Shimamura (New Directions, 2019), pp. 160 Christine Wunnicke’s The Fox and Dr. Shimamura (2019, New Directions) is a...
View ArticleHalf-Blind Dog
by AMY HENRY There isn’t much to say, I tell folks when they ask about the events of last June. How it was that Eva Lewis, my caretaker at the Sheridan House Adult Care Center, and Jordan Reed, her...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Chekhov: Stories for Our Time: A Review
by TARAS V. MIKHAILIUK credit: Restless Books Anton Chekhov, Chekhov: Stories for Our Time. Translated from the Russian by Constance Garnett, Ilan Stavans, and Alexander Gurvets (Restless Books, 2018),...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Why They Can’t Write and The Writer’s Practice: A Review of John Warner’s...
by RACHEL GEVLIN credit: Johns Hopkins University Press credit: Penguin John Warner, Why They Can’t Write: Killing the Five-Paragraph Essay and Other Necessities (Johns Hopkins University Press,...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Inhabited Symbols: A Review of The English Boat by Donald Revell
by JESSICA DREXEL credit: Alice James Donald Revell, The English Boat (Alice James, 2018), pp. 100 “Straight path along the dusky path homewards Ordinariness spent no otherwise Labor and bafflement...
View Article