Steve Burns gives his two cents for Hilbert's All of You on the Good Earth.–
"Hilbert’s poetic prowess shines brightest when his lines are coated in darkness…It’s a visceral must-read."
—Steve Burns, Apiary Magazine
To read the full review, click here.
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Karen Rigby reviews Ron Koertge's The Ogre's Wife.-
"Koertge’s range of approaches…deserve mention for their ability to engage and delight. In its finer moments, The Ogre’s Wife turns the archetypal into subtle points of entry for reflecting on passion… Here, the storybook comes disconcertingly and achingly close to life."
—Karen Rigby, Foreword Reviews
To read the full article, click here.
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In the most recent issue of Glint Literary Journal Brenda Mann Hammack lauds Nicelle Davis' Becoming Judas.-
"Davis’ book does not wallow in masochism or confessionalism. Instead, Becoming Judas comes across as an homage to a time when rock and roll and religion did not seem anathema…"
—Brenda Mann Hammack, Glint Literary Journal
To read the full review, click here.
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The Baton Rouge Advocate's Andrew Burstein comments on the southern ancestry in the poems of Tess Taylor's The Forage House.-
"Taylor intuits history through her engagement with pieces and particles and secrets, making the most of captured fragments of memory and pottery. This combination of the material and ethereal is carefully measured…"
To read the full review, click here.
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Theresé Samson Wenham from NewPages commends Ernest Hilbert on his "honesty of character" and the "resonance of his language" in the poems of All of You on the Good Earth.-
"Ernest Hilbert's second collection of poetry, All of You on the Good Earth, is an enlightening example of the revival of the sonnet. The poems are intelligent, topically indulgent, and extremely well crafted."
To read the full review, click here.
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Julia Ann Charpentier from ForeWord Reviews is impressed with John Van Kirk's Song for Chance.-
"Van Kirk depicts the world of an aging rock star by alternating between soft reminiscence and gritty action….This skilled writer has combined external vibrancy with thought-provoking introspection, juxtaposing understated drama with inner sadness."
To read the full review, click here.
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Carmela Ciuraru from the San Francisco Chronicle calls Tess Taylor's The Forage House a "stunning debut collection."-
"The most fascinating biographical fact about Taylor is not that she can trace her ancestry all the way back, directly, to Thomas Jefferson; it is her eloquent, thoughtful response to this grand lineage, as she investigates (among other themes) questions about perception, memory, loss and fractured families."
To read the full review, click here.
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Marguerite Nguyen applauds the way Andrew Lam "undertakes the tricky task of interweaving a journalistic eye for detail with imagined dialogues and psychic journeys" in her review of Birds of Paradise Lost for the Journal of Southeast Asian American Education & Advancement.
"…Birds of Paradise Lost is not only an emotionally evocative work that gives us entry into diverse subjective experiences associated with Vietnamese diaspora, it is also a skillful handling of the short story form."
To read the full article, click here.
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Anne Yale from Voice in the Wilderness admits that she "could not put down" Nicelle Davis' Becoming Judas.-
"A fascinating foray into iconographic studies, Becoming Judas examines, interprets, questions, challenges, and re-invents the iconography of as unlikely a conflagration as one can envision…"
To read the full review, click here.
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Camille Guillot from Oxford American praises the "curated mood of a small museum" present in Tess Taylor's The Forage House.-
"Every so often there is a book of poetry that reminds us how well verse can speak history. The Forage House by Tess Taylor is one of those time capsules….On their own, the poems are visceral, densely detailed, and frequently playful…Read together, in order, the details are illuminated by context and gain historical sweep."
To read the full review, click here.
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Anna Challet from Tikkun discusses the stories of Andrew Lam's Birds of Paradise Lost.-
"…each story is a world unto itself. Lam’s characters are haunted by what they have lost, transfixed by embers that still cloud the air with smoke. What Lam explores is the question of whether they can conquer the ghosts, or at least learn to live with them peacefully."
To read the full review, click here.
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Sandy Longhorn from Atticus Review praises the language and layers of meaning found in the poems of Carolyn Guinzio's Spoke & Dark.–
"Spoke & Dark requires much of the reader, a keen attention to each word, each placement on the page of each mark, but Guinzio rewards as well, offering up a new path, a new way of seeing and understanding the fleeting essence of this fragile world and the enduring remnants."
To read the full review, click here.
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Brian Katcher from Forever Young Adult discusses the "unique" writing style in B.H. James' Parnucklian for Chocolate.-
"If this book had been presented to me as a recently discovered, unpublished work by Kurt Vonnegut, I would have believed it without reservation."
To read the full review, click here.
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Courtney McDermott from NewPages comments on B.H. James' "inventive" first novel, Parnucklian for Chocolate.-
"In stark, self-conscious language, the author navigates parenting, psychiatric facilities, and what it means to not quite belong in your family—a feeling not alien to most teenagers."
To read the full review, click here.
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Lee Gulyas from Contrary Magazine applauds Kelly Davio's use of "the lens and language of religion to question existence, family, and herself" in the poems of Burn This House.-
"Don't let Davio's inquisitive and sustained tone fool you; these smart and witty poems are the vehicle for a raw examination of how things work….The fire in Burn This House isn't solely destructive, but cleansing, a renewal."
To read the full review, click here.
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