MER Bookshelf – March 2026
Date: March 19, 2026
In this rich new collection, Molly Fisk braids together the ordinary tasks of love and work in 1875, a century we’ve almost forgotten but whose human concerns are universal and […]
Date: March 19, 2026
In this rich new collection, Molly Fisk braids together the ordinary tasks of love and work in 1875, a century we’ve almost forgotten but whose human concerns are universal and […]
Date: March 17, 2026
Tucson storyteller Molly McCloy loves telling stories about hard things. She’s done it on stage and in print. Her memoir, “Nine Grudges: The Spiteful Origins of the Happiest Dyke on […]
Date: March 17, 2026
Maurya Simon’s The Blue Bridge, her twelfth volume of poems, will appear in 2026 (Etruscan Press). Her earlier volume, The Wilderness: New and Selected Poems, received the 2019 Independent Booksellers […]
Date: March 12, 2026
During Hurricane Irma in 2017, a 90-foot oak tree split and fell into the middle of Amy Pence’s cottage in the old fishing village of Pine Lake, Georgia. A beam […]
Date: March 11, 2026
It’s finally warming up here in Washington, DC, and earlier this month was the first instance I was able to comfortably sit on our roof and read. With a coffee […]
Date: March 3, 2026
April Ossmann discusses poetry collection, WE with Derate the Hate podcast.
Date: March 3, 2026
Yellow is a slow-bloom speculative novel and quietly cosmic. It’s a book about how long childhood wonders and wounds can linger, how the universe keeps whispering even when we stop […]
Date: March 3, 2026
Molly McCloy discusses her upcoming memoir, NINE GRUDGES: THE SPITEFUL ORIGINS OF THE HAPPIEST DYKE ON EARTH with Hannah Harlee.
Date: March 3, 2026
It’s 1973: summer of the Watergate hearings and Skylab’s launch into space when 12-year-old Z discovers an unclassified slime mold growing in her Louisiana backyard. Something compels her deep coherence […]
Date: February 24, 2026
This satirical literary thriller has shades of Joan Didion and Bret Easton Ellis. A 19-year-old NYU dropout returns home to Brentwood to laze about and enjoy popping prescription pills. But […]
Date: March 16, 2020
Tablet Magazine features an except from Anne Edelstein’s memoir, LIFESAVING FOR BEGINNERS! In the excerpt, Edelstein recollects the moment her mother, an experienced swimmer, drowned while on vacation at the […]
Date: March 16, 2020
Allegheny, Monongahela Erinn Batykefer. Red Hen (CDC, dist.), $16.95 (88p) ISBN 978-1-59709-134-3 Close to the bone, Erinn Batykefer’s poems — sharp-edged as O’Keeffe’s paintings, skeletons visible and harrowing — are […]
Date: March 16, 2020
Archeology of Desire Miriam Sagan. Red Hen (CDC, dist.), $8.95 (56p) ISBN 1-888996-32-3 Newly published poetry, which is the focus of this week’s column, rarely receives the level of attention […]
Date: March 16, 2020
Alphabet of Love Bart Edelman. Red Hen (CDC, dist.), $9.95 (72p) ISBN 1-888996-09-9 For some months, I have been intending to post a brief review of poet Bart Edelman’s book, […]
Date: March 16, 2020
“This meditative, grace-filled gem is moving and soul-enriching.” — Kathleen Gerard, blogger at Reading Between the Lines
Date: March 16, 2020
Lizzy Baldwin, creator of My Little Book Blog, praises Louise Wareham Leonard’s writing style, calling it “beautiful and languid.” Baldwin loved how 52 Men was able to give so much story in […]
Date: March 16, 2020
“Frankness and love are brought together with Brown’s brilliant combination of the sacred and vernacular. . . . Brown alternates the poems’ shapes on the page, giving us the sense […]
Date: March 16, 2020
Barbaric Mercies Gaylord Brewer. Red Hen (CDC, dist.), $12.95 (88p) ISBN 1-888996-67-6 Gaylord Brewer’s Barbaric Mercies is a book of extraordinary and delightful individuality. Alternately aggressive, outrageous, whimsical, and heartfelt, […]
Date: March 16, 2020
“how to get over is an instruction manual for the hopeless navigating uncomfortable personal spaces where the need to transform begins.” HOW TO GET OVER has been reviewed by The Blueshift […]
Date: March 16, 2020
Bone Light Orlando White. Red Hen (CDC, dist.) $15.95 (64p) ISBN 978-1-59709-135-0 Orlando White’s Bone Light recreates poetry from the molecular level. His vision presents language letter by letter: as […]