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: September 24, 2009
Erinn Batykefer’s award-winning debut collection given a 4 1/2 star review on Library Thing: “The mark of excellent poetry is that it leads you to places you could never find […]
Date: September 9, 2009
Ching-In Chen’s debut collection of poems is a sprawling and ambitious work …. I found myself admiring the book for being so satisfyingly messy, for allowing itself to sprawl and […]
Date: July 4, 2009
A lot of the most exciting prose published in the last couple years is enlivened by the introduction of non-English elements. The Times Book Review made note of the way […]
Date: June 22, 2009
6 + 1: Interview with Timothy Green I introduce a new feature, the "6 + 1" interview. I ask my guests six questions, and they get to ask me one […]
Date: June 22, 2009
Memory provides the raw material for the stories we tell about ourselves. Or maybe memories are fictions themselves, vague impressions of feelings combined with fleeting shards of images woven together […]
Date: June 22, 2009
Language can be an intriguing subject, and author Orlando White explores the language we speak every day, English. "Bone Light" is his discussion through verse of the subject, exploring the […]
Date: June 17, 2009
The stories in Greg Sanders's debut collection are difficult to categorize. They owe a debt to Franz Kafka and fabulists like Jorge Luis Borges but seem just as strongly to […]
Date: June 3, 2009
AMERICAN BOOK REVIEW, Vol. 30, No. 4, May/June 2009"Author of the prize-winning novel The Marriage of Anna Maye Potts (2001), editor of several literary anthologies and numerous essays and stories […]
Date: June 2, 2009
DeWitt Henry, mon sembable, mon frere, was two years behind me at Amherst, but way ahead of me in life. While the rest of us were yearning for graduate school, […]
Date: May 18, 2009
The work of the poet is one of reassessment: it's a continual look at the intricacies and minutiae of a world outfitted with a voluminous gadgetry of words. Poems, at […]