Father’s Keeper: Imagine Us, The Swarm by Muriel Leung
Muriel Leung, Imagine Us, The Swarm (Nightboat Books, 2021). When bees swarm, it is as a function of reproduction. The hive has become too crowded, so the workers…
Leaning Against the Muscle of That Throat: The Dream Women Called by Lori Wilson
The Dream Women Called by Lori Wilson (Autumn House Press, 2021). Lori Wilson’s second poetry collection, The Dream Women Called, focuses on a woman’s experience—girlhood expectations, love and…
Magic, Wisdom, and History: Libertie by Kaitlyn Greenidge
Libertie by Kaitlyn Greenidge (Algonquin Books, 2021) The powerful bond between mother and daughter in Kaitlyn Greenidge’s novel Libertie is established in the book’s first line: “I saw my…
Negotiation With Life: Minus One by Doris Iarovici
Minus One by Doris Iarovici (The University of Wisconsin Press, 2020). Moments of regret permeate the stories in Doris Iarovici’s new book, Minus One, a collection of studies…
Context and Culture: Breathing Technique by Marija Knežević
Breathing Technique by Marija Knežević (Zephyr Press, 2021). In a selection of excerpts from “The River’s Name,” the standout poem of Breathing Technique (Zephyr Press, 2021), Serbian writer…
For the Living and the Dead: Funeral Diva by Pamela Sneed
Funeral Diva by Pamela Sneed (City Lights Books, 2020). In an interview on the Ezra Klein Show, the two-term American poet laureate Tracy K. Smith describes poetry as…
On Coming of Age: An Incomplete List of Names by Michael Torres
An Incomplete List of Names by Michael Torres (Beacon Press, 2020). Michael Torres’s powerful debut, An Incomplete List of Names, opens with an act of loyalty—the kind that…
Shared Solitudes: The Mother House by Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin and Still Life by Ciaran Carson
The Mother House by Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin (Wake Forest University Press, 2020). Still Life by Ciaran Carson (Wake Forest University Press, 2020). Since the Covid-19 pandemic has fundamentally…
Kontemporary Amerikan Love Song: Kontemporary Amerikan Poetry: Poems by John Murillo
Kontemporary Amerikan Poetry: Poems by John Murillo (Four-Way Books, 2020). Kontemporary Amerikan Poetry: Poems, John Murillo’s second collection, is constructed in the vein of a craft-book, and nearly…
The Haunting Absence of Wayétu Moore: The Dragons, the Giant, the Women: A Memoir by Wayétu Moore
The Dragons, the Giant, the Women: A Memoir by Wayétu Moore (Graywolf Press, 2020). The pages of the immensely talented Wayétu Moore’s memoir The Dragons, the Giant, the…
Living for the Very Last Time: Requiem with an Amulet in Its Beak
Requiem with an Amulet in Its Beak by Elizabeth Knapp (Washington Writers’ Publishing House, 2019). In her second poetry collection, Requiem with an Amulet in Its Beak, Elizabeth…
Mind as Aperture: Be with Me Always by Randon Billings Noble
Be with Me Always by Randon Billings Noble (University of Nebraska Press, 2019). “But then I met J, and my heart emptied its pockets,” writes Randon Billings Noble…