From the category archives:

poetry

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 [...]

Read the full article →

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 [...]

Read the full article →

Resilience Edited by Eric Nguyen

February 24, 2012

Resilience edited by Eric Nguyen is a collection of essays, poems, stories, and advice for young gay, lesbian, bi-sexual, and transgender teens and young adults, but there are lessons in these stories for everyone, including those that bully, talk down to, or otherwise belittle people.  The world would be a much better place if we [...]

Read the full article →

Quilting the Black-Eyed Pea by Nikki Giovanni

December 23, 2011

Quilting the Black-Eyed Pea by Nikki Giovanni hums with the rhythm of spoken word poetry and the jazz of human experience.  Each poem carries with it an essence that reflects the Black experience from the capture and transportation of slaves and what that should teach us about how to treat people to the lessons we [...]

Read the full article →

Soul Clothes by Regina D. Jemison

November 25, 2011

Soul Clothes by Regina D. Jemison is slim collection of poems that explore the Black experience from a spiritual perspective.  She has quite a bit to say about the struggles Black men have with confidence, kicking habits, staying with their women, but she also has a lot to say about her own experiences and even [...]

Read the full article →

Beyond the Scent of Sorrow by Sweta Srivastava Vikram

November 22, 2011

Beyond the Scent of Sorrow by Sweta Srivastava Vikram is a small collection of poems that draw parallels between nature and women.  Reminiscent of Ecofeminism, a political and social combination of feminism and deep ecology that draws parallels between women and nature and calls attention to the misuse of both by patriarchy, Vikram develops a [...]

Read the full article →

A Wreath of Down and Drops of Blood by Allen Braden

November 16, 2011

A Wreath of Down and Drops of Blood by Allen Braden is a slim collection of poems, published as part of the Virginia Quarterly Review Poetry Series, and is steeped in bird imagery and rural life.  His images are at once beautiful and raw, bringing with it the full force of nature’s unbridled beauty and [...]

Read the full article →

The Conference of the Birds by Peter Sis

November 9, 2011

The Conference of the Birds by Peter Sis, an acclaimed children’s author and illustrator, has taken his skills to a 12th century Sufi epic poem of the same name written by Farid ud-Din Attar, who was not only a poet but a mystic.  Often these types of poems have a hidden spiritual meaning, and Sis [...]

Read the full article →

To Join the Lost by Seth Steinzor

November 3, 2011

To Join the Lost by Seth Steinzor is a modernization of Dante’s Inferno, and the irony that Dante takes a lawyer with him on his next visit should not be lost on readers.  Seth infuses his epic poem with modern tools and vices from bulldozers to politics.  Traveling the same path as Dante into the [...]

Read the full article →

Three Women: A Poetic Triptych and Selected Poems by Emma Eden Ramos

November 1, 2011

Three Women: A Poetic Triptych and Selected Poems by Emma Eden Ramos, published by Heavy Hands Ink this year (it is eligible for the Indie Lit Awards), is primarily a series of poems about British-American psychotherapist Annette, her daughter Julia, and a Croatian immigrant, Milena.  Ramos uses the idea of the Triptych beautifully here, in [...]

Read the full article →

The Chameleon Couch by Yusef Komunyakaa

October 7, 2011

The Chameleon Couch by Yusef Komunyakaa — broken into three sections — challenges the mind and the internal rhythm of our souls.  It challenges our preconceptions about everything from music to what it means to be an African American.  In the form of aubades and odes, Komunyakaa evokes song throughout the collection, which have readers [...]

Read the full article →

Waking by Ron Rash

October 5, 2011

Waking by Ron Rash — a collection of poems broken up into five parts — and the cover’s barren landscape with its snowed in vehicle is a perfect depiction of the desolate landscape presented in the first selection of poems.  From “Woodshed in Watauga County” (page 7) “as mud daubers and dust motes/drifted above like [...]

Read the full article →

← Previous Entries

Next Entries →