Read Donna Hemans’ essay on Ploughshares!
Date: January 4, 2021
The operator-assisted collect call comes on a July morning in 1987. It’s still early, before 9 a.m., and except for the telephone ringing, the house is quiet, my younger sister […]
Date: January 4, 2021
The operator-assisted collect call comes on a July morning in 1987. It’s still early, before 9 a.m., and except for the telephone ringing, the house is quiet, my younger sister […]
Date: January 4, 2021
Each month, Beyond The Page: A WGBH Book Club features a notable author, who takes part in a live Q&A with a WGBH personality to discuss the intricacies of that month’s novel. […]
Date: January 4, 2021
In these disunited states, containing within them many sovereign nations, we are in what Biodun Jeyifo called “arrested decolonization.” And yet, as Mukoma Wa Ngugi wrote, “The work of decolonization […]
Date: January 4, 2021
RIFT ZONE BY TESS TAYLOR Taylor released two books this year: a Dorothea Lange documentary project, and this collection of original poems that mine personal, California, American history, and changes […]
Date: January 1, 2021
Pasadena, CA: Red Hen Press, 2020. First Edition. Softcover. “There are perfectly good explanations/ for the simultaneous risks we juggle./ There are shipyards of baubles/ and harbors that have dried up/ and martinis made up […]
Date: December 18, 2020
Enjoy a virtual conversation with widely traveled poet and performer, Keith Flynn, on December 18th at 7PM! We will be discussing his newest collection of poetry, The Skin of Meaning. Catch the […]
Date: December 16, 2020
An old post from 2019, featuring Elizabeth Bradfield’s TOWARD ANTARTICA. Though she writes in a completely different style than Oliver, Elizabeth Bradfield’s Toward Antarctica (Boreal Books, 2019) also belongs in the hands […]
Date: December 16, 2020
Generally, I don’t care about the new year. The clock ticking from December 31st to January 1st doesn’t mean much, other than time moving as it always does, bringing all […]
Date: December 14, 2020
S2 E14 – Tracy Daugherty “In our Season 2 finale (probably), we welcome our friend Tracy Daugherty, the author of many books of nonfiction and fiction, to discuss his recent […]
Date: December 14, 2020
My list of the best Latinx poetry published this year includes After Ruben (Red Hen Press), a stunning collection of poems by Francisco Aragon, inspired by another of Latin America’s greatest poets […]
Date: March 21, 2023
The expansive and formally inventive second collection from Flame (Ordinary Cruelty) considers the cornerstones of romance—doubt, surrender, grief, resolution—through poems about hunger, exploration, and forbidden fruit.
Date: March 15, 2023
John Proctor is about to turn seventy when he decides to buy a small farmhouse on the outskirts of the now mostly desolate mill town where he had grown up. […]
Date: March 15, 2023
“Pacific Light may be a summing up, but it is also a new beginning, a book that marvels at the world while confronting loss through the lens of joy. Though […]
Date: March 6, 2023
In Pacific Light, David Mason returns to a familiar theme: his conflicting desires to go places and to stay put. This master of the narrative poem, and a well-established voice in American […]
Date: February 15, 2023
Stay tuned for the review March 1!
Date: February 13, 2023
“At that moment we saw walking toward us a trio of bearded men in black robes mumbling to themselves what I inferred was the liturgy of The White Whale.” As […]
Date: January 31, 2023
The end of the world is not for the faint of heart, and neither is Thea Prieto’s bold and beautiful novella about four humans pushed to the limits of climate […]
Date: January 24, 2023
In his gripping new poetry collection Plainchant, Eamon Grennan weaves a revelatory narrative, rich with precise detail, layered symbolism, and evocative imagery. Plainchant is a powerful compilation of personal reflections. […]
Date: January 24, 2023
Edward Said, writing about Beethoven’s late style, defined late style as that time wherein the artist freed from the expected cultural and historical restraints of form and content unleashes a […]
Date: January 24, 2023
Thiel’s third full-length poetry collection, and her twelfth book, arrives bristling with navigable strangeness and open-ended questions. The 67 sometimes otherworldly poems here weave through biology, parenting, the pandemic, world […]