From the category archives:

challenges

Hurrah’s Nest by Arisa White

April 23, 2012

Hurrah’s Nest by Arisa White is an illustration of the “untidy heap” or “tangle of debris that can block a stream” that family can become, and it will remind readers how birds create their nests out of the most unwelcome or tossed aside elements of the world from hair to fabric strings and twigs.  There [...]

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2011 Indie Lit Awards Poetry Runner-Up Review: What Looks Like an Elephant by Edward Nudelman

April 18, 2012

What Looks Like an Elephant by Edward Nudelman, published by Lummox Press, was the 2011 Indie Lit Awards Poetry Runner-Up.  Initially, readers may fear the collection’s use of math and science, but Nudelman’s poetry makes these concepts accessible in most cases.  Broken down into four sections, the collection explores the known and the unknown, that [...]

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Wild Place by Erica Goss

April 16, 2012

Wild Place by Erica Goss is a chapbook, published by Finishing Line Press, examining the wild places within ourselves and our interactions with nature.  Wild and untamed, the verse sings the beauty in the blame as humanity encroaches on nature, sometimes leading to its destruction and at other times unveiling the beauty beneath the scars.  [...]

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2011 Indie Lit Awards Short-Listed Poetry Review: Sonics in Warholia by Megan Volpert

April 13, 2012

Indie Lit Awards 2011 short-listed poetry title, Sonics in Warholia by Megan Volpert is highly experimental with poetic form meshing together pop culture and prose with lines from songs and other elements many will recognize in a homage to the conundrum that was Andy Warhol (most famous for the Campbell’s Soup Can).  An interesting thing [...]

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Listening to Africa by Diana M. Raab

April 11, 2012

Listening to Africa by Diana M. Raab are the poet’s thoughts on her trip to Africa in 2008.  The poems are not about Africa and the events that happen there, so much as the effect the trip had on Raab and her family.  A trip motivated by death and malignancy, Raab is seeking a spiritual [...]

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The Virgin Journals by Travis Laurence Naught

April 9, 2012

Imagine a life in which everything is viewed from a wheelchair or from the arms of someone moving you from the bed to the chair and back again.  The Virgin Journals by Travis Laurence Naught is that story and more.   Naught was diagnosed as an infant with incurable spinal muscular atrophy, and his poems and [...]

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Real Courage by Michael Meyerhofer

April 8, 2012

Real Courage by Michael Meyerhofer is a chapbook that showcases a unique perspective and use of imagery and comparison.  Much like “BPM 37093″ (Page 5), Meyerhofer takes often wildly different images and situations together in comparisons that generate an “aha” from the reader after a momentary question mark hovers over their heads. A smoldering white [...]

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The Penguin Anthology of 20th Century American Poetry edited by Rita Dove

April 5, 2012

The Penguin Anthology of 20th Century American Poetry edited by Rita Dove (listen to her NPR interview, where she talks about the anthology and provides advice for young poets) collects a few poems from some of the great poets at the the height of their craft between 1900 and 2000, and while Dove notes that [...]

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The Auroras by David St. John

April 4, 2012

The Auroras by David St. John is broken into three distinct sections:  Gypsy Davy, In the High Country, and The Auroras.  In this triptych of poems, “In the High Country” is flanked by the smaller sections “Gypsy Davy” and “The Auroras” but what ties the sections together is not a cohesive story as in Emma [...]

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The Yellow House by Patricia Falvey & Read-a-Long

March 30, 2012

The Yellow House by Patricia Falvey, which is her first novel, is an incredible, sweeping novel set in Ireland during the beginning of the nation’s struggle for freedom from Britain, the rise of the IRA, and WWI.  Eileen O’Neill, our heroine, comes from a long line of warriors or so her Da tells her, and [...]

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The Garden of Evening Mists by Tan Twan Eng

March 27, 2012

The Garden of Evening Mists by Tan Twan Eng is a highly atmospheric novel that oozes mysterious beauty and is set in Malaysia following the retirement of Judge Teoh Yun Ling, a survivor of a brutal Japanese internment camp during WWII when Japan attacked her homeland in China.  Following her survival she comes to Malaysia [...]

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The Yellow House Read-a-Long, Part 3

March 25, 2012

As part of the 2012 Ireland Reading Challenge, we’re reading The Yellow House by Patricia Falvey.  For the first week, we read pages 1-90, and the second week was for part 2, pages 91-164. Today, we’re discussing part three, which is for pages 165-238.  This week, we’re asked to talk about the section and ask [...]

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