Reviews
Kennebec Journal loves Ellen Meeropol's House Arrest
Kennebec Journal says that "Meeropol deftly combines her medical experience with solid writing talent to produce a suspenseful yet warm and sensitive story that explores right and wrong, the unequal balance between rigid law and common sense, and the decisions people make when faced with tough life choices."
For the full review, click here.
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Escape Pod reviews Fade to Black
In a recent review, Escape Pod had this to say about Fade to Black by Josh Pryor-
"If you like science, CSI, stories that take place in Antarctica, or lots-of-people-crammed-into-a-small-space-slowly-going-mad, then you'll enjoy Fade to Black."
For the full review, click here.
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Bin Laden's Bald Spot: An excellent review from NewPages
Cheryl Wright-Watkins for NewPages had this to say about Brian Doyle's Bin Laden's Bald Spot:
"[Bin Laden's Bald Spot] would be a wonderful introduction to a reader unfamiliar with Doyle's work. For Doyle devotees like me, the stories reaffirm his status as one of the finest storytellers and word wizards of our time, perhaps of all time."
For the full review, please click here
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Rigoberto Gonzalez says "Bravo" to Lillian-Yvonne Bertram
Rigoberto Gonzalez gives praise for Lillian-Yvonne Bertram's But a Storm is Blowing From Paradise in the latest Harriett blog, saying:
"But a Storm is Blowing from Paradise is a rich book with plenty of channels coming through loud and clear. There’s plenty of thinking (and imagining) happening on the page. Bravo, Bertram."
to see the full review, link here
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The Courier-Journal gives praise to Lynnell Edwards' Covet
The Courier-Journal's Kathleen Driskell had this to say about Lynnell Edwards' Covet:
"A reader of poetry is in good hands with Edwards' work. Her language allows accessible entry into her poems about subject matters that are significant and heart-felt, and her rhythms and structures are meaningful. "Covet: Poems" is a beautifully accomplished collection."
To see full review, please link here
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Martin Ott reviews and connects to O'Donnell's Steam Laundry
In a recent Writeliving's Blog post, author Martin Ott talks about his connection to fellow Alaskan Nicole Stellon O'Donnell, and her new collection of poetry, Steam Laundry.
"[Steam Laundry is] a complex and dramatic story with poetic sensibilities There is plenty of drama for fiction lovers, painstaking accuracy for history buffs and wonderful lines throughout in the letters."
To see the full review, click here.
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Books in Brief reviews Michael Quadland's Offspring
Veteran David Willson has just reviewed Offspring on "Books in Brief," an online feature that complements “Books in Review,” which runs in The VVA Veteran, the national magazine of Vietnam Veterans of America. Here is what he had to say about the book -
"Michael Quadland's Offspring is a brilliant literary novel, with a gorgeous cover…. [Hank Preston] is a Vietnam veteran unlike most we find in recent novels."
To see the full review, click here.
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Cult. Bomb raves about Brendan Constantine's Calamity Joe!
Cult. Bomb author Danielle Mitchell recently blogged this about Calamity Joe, Brendan Constantine's newest collection of poems from Red Hen Press:
"Here there is wonder, earth, humor, rancid, lameness, shimmer, loss, and dirty. Every page, every poem. Wow."
To see the full review, click here.
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Room Service gets a great review on Shelf Awareness
Shelf Awareness' Tom Lavoie has this to say about Ron Carlson's Room Service: "The poems and prose pieces in Room Service are thoughtful, witty, sad and hopeful--rarely angry or mad. They reveal Ron Carlson as a humble writer you can enjoy over and over. Discover: Short prose and poems from a 'master of idiosyncrasy' who entertains, educates and surprises at every turn."
For the full review, visit Shelf Awareness here.
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American Book Review compares The Luckless Age to the work of John Berryman!
In the November/December 2011 Issue of American Book Review, Mike Krutel states -
"The Luckless Age is comparable to the poetry of John Berryman... Despite the dip-into-loss that begins this collection, what makes Kistulentz's poems so memorable is that they are endearing. They are packed with emotion, and, though from an age that may already be distant to some, there is nothing to distract from the great sense of love that pours out from behind these words."
The full text of the review is reproduced below.
"Dream Song Luck" by Mike Krutel
American Book Review November/December 2011, Volume 33, Number 1
When I was born, I received a framed piece of paper. It detailed the time into which I had been born: The Cosby Show was #1, "Made in the USA" campaigns were popular, a gallon of gasoline was about 88¢, and New York Giants fans were stranded by a snowstorm far from Pasadena and their beloved soon-to-be champions of pig-skinned Americana. This was the century as it had come to be and as it is recalled in The Luckless Age, Steve Kistulentz's first collection of poems.
These poems come ripping out of the underground. Take the opening lines from the collection's title poem: "Here is my century as it actually was. // Complete with so many reasons not to tell what happened, morning in America again, shining city on a hill / end of the Reagan era (sic semper tyrannis) and I was just twenty, doomed." Kistulentz isn't trying to deceive anybody who has come to hear about the plight of the Luckless Age. But this period in time is itself full of deceptions. On one hand, the Reagan Era has lulled American culture into a sense of prosperity as the Cold War comes tumbling down. But into whose laps are the walls crumbling? "I was just twenty, doomed / to live in a shadowed minor landscape of glassined marble, where a confetti of love letters to Jodie Foster / floated down from the tinted windows of the lone-gunman's favorite Hilton."
Ticker-tape parade of confetti and bullets. The absurdity of Eddie Murphy in the recording studio for "Party All the Time" with Rick James behind the controls. Van Halen, hair, bourbon, heroin fix, and we are about to crash. Perhaps, if Reagan had simply ordered the wall to fall into the laps of the generation coming-to during this time, it might have been easier (better?) for the youth to bear. I think it's fair to compare the lived-in landscape of The Luckless Age to that of John Berryman's "Dream Song 8": "The weather was fine. They took away his teeth." Reader, be careful where you look up while taking in Kistulentz's reportage.
The Luckless Age is divided into three sections. In the first, we are brought into this world right alongside Kistulentz's narrator who is stepping into a time in which the stamps of identity begin to dissolve, when social disposability has a new, looming influence. Despondency takes control and we are quickly buckled in, and Kistulentz seems all too aware of what he is trying to prepare us for. Take, for instance, the exact order of the six poems that constitute the first section. "The Luckless Age" is actually split into two titled sections: "World's Forgotten Twentieth Century Boy" and "Places that are Gone." We are being told that the "I," the narrator, is a socially neglected identity, and we are shown that the world familiar to the narrator is dissolving before his eyes. What's to be done in light of this? Kistulentz holes his narrator up in the not-so pleasant sounding "Hotel Amsterdam" in New York, followed by an attempt to escape through heroin in "Fixing," followed by the amassed collection of disparity at a punk show in "Wild Gift," and a drink is served in "The Bourbon Myths." Kistulentz ends this section with "Luckless Age (Slight Return)" in which his narrator tells us, "I was moving into a new season of no, / no drinking or children, no God or Peace." Like the intro to Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody," Kistulentz's narrator has us know that there is no escape from this reality, and with that we are headlong into the Luckless Age.
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The Luckless Age is comparable to
the poetry of John Berryman.
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The second and longest section in the book is a chronicle of music and personas from the time. At times, reading these poems feels like falling through a series of trap doors, only to get up, walk a few feet, and fall a little more, while at the same time, on each level of your descent, someone is trying to communicate something to you, something very important.
One of Kistulentz's great lyrical successes in this collection is his use of persona, be it "The Evel Kinevel Fuck Poem," in which he beautifully states "I am a messenger / of end times, jumping over carcasses, flying over civilization's marrow bones," or in the collection's closing poems that deal, in part, with the recuperation of loss at the end of a long journey and which are dedicated to some of the memorable faces of classic television (Alan Hale, Jr.; Dick York; and McLean Stevenson).
Despite the dip-into-loss that begins this collection, what makes Kistulentz's poems so memorable is that they are endearing. They are packed with emotion, and, though from an age that may already be distant to some, there is nothing to distract from the great sense of love that pours out from behind these words. No, we don't really end up on top. This is not a collection that will satisfy those interested in vindication. Kistulentz is coming straight out of Atari's Paperboy with some news for you. Sure his narrator(s) have hit some sewer grates and been chased by a tornado or two. Here, here! Read all about it!
Mike Krutel is a student in the Northeast Ohio MFA program. He is a poetry editor for Barn Owl Review.
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Arthur J. Kubick praises Blase Bonpane's Imagine No Religion!
In a recent Catholic Books Review article, Arthur J. Kubick had this to say about Imagine No Religion: The Autobiography of Blase Bonpane -
"This fascinating autobiography takes the reader on a tour through the peace and justice struggles of the past sixty years: Central America, Cuba, Vietnam, Chiapas, Iraq, Cesar Chavez and the United Farm Workers, civil rights, nuclear weapons, the Sandanistas, liberation theology. All in one way or another have been central to this twentieth century life well-lived."
To read the full review, click here.
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Phati'tude Literary Magazine loves Suck on the Marrow by Camille Dungy!
“Dungy captures the human heart and soul in her characters while illustrating the rawness of their suffering with gracefully blatant and rebellious passion.”
- Phati'tude Literary Magazine
The full text of the review is reproduced below.
EMPATHY IS SOMETIMES DIFFICULT to evoke in people unless you have a very keen sense of painting the imagery and emotion with words. Camille Dungy does this well in her collection Suck on the Marrow, and the images all refer to fighting and strength, especially in adversity and in the face of slavery. The human need for knowledge, love, understanding everything is there; even though there was such separation and exclusion during this time in history, Dungy captures the human heart and soul in her characters while illustrating the rawness of their suffering with gracefully blatant and rebellious passion.
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Strong Verse reviews Annie Finch's Among the Goddesses.
In Strong Verse, G.M. Palmer says this about Among the Goddesses- "Like any poet of worth, Finch produces beautiful lines, by themselves worth the price of admission.”
For the full review, click here.
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Rave reviews for Rachel Flynn's Tongue in the Valparaiso Poetry Review.
In the recent Valparaiso Poetry Review, Paul David Adkins had this to say about Tongue-
"Within this hard-fought, inspiring collection, Flynn masterfully couples the lyric and narrative to create a vivid, unforgettable poetic experience.”
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Los Angeles Review of Books loves Brian Doyle's Bin Laden's Bald Spot!
Lee Polevoi of the Los Angeles Review of Books says that, "Bin Laden's Bald Spot encompasses worlds of absurdity and quotidian reality in the voices of ordinary citizens. Underneath the surface is a tenderness and attachment to life that makes the best of these stories really and truly sing."
To see full review, click here.
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