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Dancehall by Tim Stobierski

September 14, 2023 by

Source: the poet
Paperback, 90 pgs.
I am an Amazon Affiliate

Dancehall by Tim Stobierski, touring with Poetic Book Tours, is a collection in a five-act play format with poems that crescendo into an unforgettable love story. Stobierski’s poems are tender and full of emotion. In Act One, you’ll be enchanted by “Just as Sparrows,” in which a lover is compared to sparrows looking through the grass for that perfect morsel — holding the narrator’s heart gently but for what seems like just a moment. In that moment, a heart is captured and the journey of love begins.

And like a word (pg. 8)

I ache to be spoken--
to cling to your lip
and fall from your tongue--

to crack in your voice
and catch in your throat.

Speak me into being.

There is longing, desire, love, and so much wonderment at attachment and love. The opening act is like that initial rush of lovers who have eyes only for each other. It will bring you back to those early days.

“Press into me/as night/presses/into a canyon.//” says the narrator in “Want.” (pg. 20) We’re moving into the full love of this relationship and navigating the early relationship awkwardness. The narrator is opening up to this feeling of love and discovering the depths of it, nearly losing himself but reveling in it. But of course, what relationship is complete without disagreement?

Don’t we all try to bend and fit in a narrative not our own, make ourselves smaller and appease our lovers. “If I am too much to hold,/fold me in half/so I will fit in your arms.//” (“Crease”, pg. 30) Readers are now moving into the maturing of a relationship and realizations that all is not paradise, but the love still binds the narrator to his lover. In “If this is it,” the narrator says, “rest your head upon my chest/one last time,/and I will run my fingers/through the soft hairs/at the nape of your neck.//” (pg. 33)

Dancehall by Tim Stobierski is a beautiful collection full of tenderness and ache, and the poems will invest you in this love story from the start. Stobierski’s lines and images are endearing and heartbreaking. Don’t miss this collection.

RATING: Cinquain

About the Poet:

Tim Stobierski writes about relationships. His work explores universal themes of love, lust, longing, and loss — presented through the lens of his own experiences as a queer man. His poetry has been published in a number of journals, including the Connecticut River Review, Midwest Quarterly, and Grey Sparrow. His first book of poetry, Chronicles of a Bee Whisperer, was published by River Otter Press in 2012.

To pay the bills, he is a freelance writer and content strategist focused on the world of finance, investing, fintech, insurance, and software. In his professional writing, he prides himself on his ability to help the reader understand complicated subjects easily, a quality that informs his poetry.

He is also the founder and editor of Student Debt Warriors, a free resource for college students, graduates, and parents who are struggling to make sense of the complex world of student loans. Follow Tim on Instagram.

Filed Under: ARC, challenges, New Authors Challenge, poetry, Poetry Reading Challenge, Read in 2023, reviews Tagged With: ,

Inheritance by Taylor Johnson

September 13, 2023 by

Source: Gift
Paperback, 100 pgs.
I am an Amazon Affiliate

Inheritance by Taylor Johnson, who is Takoma Park, Maryland’s Poet Laureate, is deceptively quiet. It opens with a poem, “Since I Quit That Internet Service,” that speaks to community and finding your voice. It is such a hopeful beginning to a collection that delves into the depths of our nation’s capitalism, what role gender-ization plays in society and how it forces us to view ourselves as something we seem to have no control over, and the pressures of race, a societal box to check, and all its baggage.

All of these poems ask us to carefully consider the word “inheritance” whether that be what we’ve carried from our families, our DNA, what we’ve been given by relatives after they pass, and so on. Johnson, for example, widens his definition of “inheritance” to include the spaces between us and strangers and the slight nods of acknowledgement we give and receive in passing. Johnson’s poems are witnesses and participants at the same time — we all can relate to that if we take the time to pause and listen, watch, and consider the complex world and our participation in it.

Chiaroscuro (pg. 42)

Whereas I come into the into to talk with my shadow.
From you I've not hid my face.

For in the morning I make, and am made by you:
beautiful projection, boy in the mirror, boy in my mind.
I separate my flesh from my flesh to become more
like you, to drown in your holdings.

O young lord of my desire, you are the light
I ride toward, I run from. I eat less and avoid
being hailed. Anonymous interstitial prince
of my undoing, redeemer of my yes, I want

to grow into you, and then abandon your
imprecise naming. I am bequeathed violence—
your inheritance — and your rough glamour.

I am made to tarry, here, with you,
thus illumined by your tenuous light.

Inheritance by Taylor Johnson is a collection to read aloud and read again as you listen to each word, envision each image, and hear the truth of life and its complexity. We try so hard to simplify a world that is far more layered than our brains can comprehend, perhaps we should just live it, not try to wrangle it into submission.

RATING: Cinquain

photo by S*an D. Henry-Smith

About the Poet:

Taylor Johnson is from Washington, D.C. He is the author of Inheritance (Alice James Books, 2020), winner of the 2021 Norma Farber First Book Award from the Poetry Society of America. His work appears in Poetry Magazine, The Paris Review, The Baffler, Scalawag, and elsewhere. Johnson is a Cave Canem graduate fellow and a recipient of the 2017 Larry Neal Writers’ Award from the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities, and the 2021 Judith A. Markowitz Award for Emerging Writers from Lambda Literary. Taylor was the inaugural 2022 Poet-in-Residence at the Guggenheim Museum. He is the Poet Laureate of Takoma Park, Maryland. With his wife, Elizabeth Bryant, Taylor curates the Green Way Reading Series at People’s Book in Takoma Park.

Filed Under: challenges, New Authors Challenge, poetry, Poetry Reading Challenge, purchased, Read in 2023, reviews Tagged With: ,

The Five-Star Weekend by Elin Hilderbrand (audio)

September 12, 2023 by

Source: Purchased
Audiobook, 12+ hrs.
I am an Amazon Affiliate

The Five-Star Weekend by Elin Hilderbrand, narrated by Erin Bennett, is a rich person’s vacation but what anchors this weekend in reality is the relationships between these different women in Hollis Shaw’s life and the fractured relationship Shaw has with her daughter, Caroline. A tragic event widens the cracks in Hollis’ “Insta-worthy” life.

In the midst of her sadness, Hollis comes across a rejuvenating idea — the five-star weekend — in which you invite one friend from each of your “significant” stages of life: her teenage years, her twenties, her thirties, and midlife. She invites her childhood friend and “sister” Tatum, her elitist college friend Dru-Ann, Brooke who went through pregnancy and childbirth with Hollis in her thirties, and Gigi who Hollis has met online through her website as they connect over tragedy.

Tragedy has a way of amplifying what is wrong in a family. Hilderbrand’s novel also reminds us that what we see of people’s lives online — social media, websites, etc. — is only a snapshot of happiest moments but not the reality of their whole lives. Hollis Shaw’s picture-perfect Nantucket/Bostonian life is no where near perfect, but neither are many of her other friends’ lives — lives she has done little to keep up with.

The Five-Star Weekend by Elin Hilderbrand is a far deeper story than its dressings of high-end dinners, exclusive reservations, and sailing trips make it seem. These women are stronger because of their bonds, even if the have some wear and cracks. It’s the ability to overcome the slights and miscommunications of the past that ensure these women will be stronger into the future.

RATING: Quatrain

About the Author:

Elin Hilderbrand is the author of 28 novels, including the forthcoming THE HOTEL NANTUCKET (June 14, 2022). She is a proud 1991 graduate of Johns Hopkins University where she majored in Writing Seminars. In her senior year at Hopkins, Elin had her first short story, “Misdirection,” accepted for publication in Seventeen Magazine.

After a short stint working in publishing and teaching in New York City, she moved to Nantucket permanently in 1994. She attended the University of Iowa writers workshop and earned her MFA in 1998, and published her first novel, THE BEACH CLUB, in the summer of 2000. Her 2019 novel, SUMMER OF ’69 was her first novel to debut at #1 on the New York Times bestseller list. She is the mother of three children and loves riding the Peloton, cooking, and going to the beach. She will retire with her summer of 2024 book and plans on becoming a book influencer.

Filed Under: audiobooks, fiction, Hachette Books, Publishers/Publicists, purchased, Read in 2023, reviews Tagged With: , , ,

Remembering 9/11

September 11, 2023 by

(Photo credit: Lerone Pieters on Unsplash)

Sept. 11, 2001, was a journalist’s nightmare. Working in an office and waiting on copyedits from a client in New York City that day was not only surreal, but also devastating. Realizing that people you may have never met in person but worked with daily were no longer at the other end of your emails was horrifying.

I will never forget all of those colleagues lost. I will never forget the sadness. But I also remind myself that we cannot let hate win. We can pull together and let love guide us in recovery and moving forward together.

Take a moment today for silence and remembrance.

Filed Under: announcements Tagged With:

Mailbox Monday #747

September 11, 2023 by

Mailbox Monday has become a tradition in the blogging world, and many of us thank Marcia of The Printed Page for creating it.

It now has its own blog where book bloggers can link up their own mailbox posts and share which books they bought or which they received for review from publishers, authors, and more.

Emma, Martha, and I also will share our picks from everyone’s links in the new feature Books that Caught Our Eye. We hope you’ll join us.

Here’s what I received:

Super-Infinite: The Transformations of John Donne by Katherine Rundell, borrowed from the library for the 12 books, 12 friends reading challenge. It will be my last book for the challenge.

Sometime religious outsider and social disaster, sometime celebrity preacher and establishment darling, John Donne was incapable of being just one thing.

He was a scholar of law, a sea adventurer, a priest, a member of Parliament―and perhaps the greatest love poet in the history of the English language. He converted from Catholicism to Protestantism, was imprisoned for marrying a sixteen-year-old girl without her father’s consent, struggled to feed a family of ten children, and was often ill and in pain. He was a man who suffered from surges of misery, yet expressed in his verse many breathtaking impressions of electric joy and love.

In Super-Infinite, Katherine Rundell embarks on a fleet-footed act of evangelism, showing us the many sides of Donne’s extraordinary life, his obsessions, his blazing words, and his tempestuous Elizabethan times―unveiling Donne as the most remarkable mind and as a lesson in living.

What did you receive?

Filed Under: mailbox monday, meme Tagged With: , ,

Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice for Murderers by Jesse Q. Sutanto

September 6, 2023 by

Source: Borrowed
Hardcover, 352 pgs.
I am an Amazon Affiliate

Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice for Murderers by Jesse Q. Sutanto is just what you would expect it to be, especially given that fantastic cover. Vera Wong gets up at 4 a.m. every morning to start her day with texts to her adult son, Tilly, and to have her brisk walk before opening her “world famous” teahouse for business in San Francisco’s Chinatown. There are only two things wrong, she has just one customer, and the sign above the teahouse might just be misrepresenting the establishment as “Vera Wang’s World-Famous Teahouse.” Her son, Tilbert, is less than pleased by this, but since she has few customers, he believes the likelihood that his mother will be sued by the real Vera Wang are small to none.

One morning, Vera finds a dead body in her teahouse, and because the police don’t provide her with the respect she believes she is due and don’t seem concerned with the murder, she takes it upon herself to investigate — complete with her little notebook of suspects.

“Vera’s murder investigation is going so well that she wonders why more people don’t just decide to leave their boring desk jobs and go into detective work. She’s started daydreaming of having the huge VERA WANG’S WORLD-FAMOUS TEAHOUSE sign taken down and replace with VERA WANG: PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR.” (pg. 85)

Her son, Tilly, is a lawyer, but since he rarely keeps in touch, he’s mostly unaware of Vera’s investigation, until of course she starts asking him some very specific hypothetical questions about evidence tampering. Along the way, she begins offering advice to all kinds of potential suspects in the Marshall Chen murder. Sana, Riki, Oliver, Julia, and Emma begin to circle in Vera’s orbit as the search for the killer continues, even as Officer Gray insists that Vera stay out of it.

Like Sutanto’s other books, you are in for a wild ride with some crazy antics. But you will love Vera Wong — she’s a mother/grandmother in search of purpose and with this group, she has a lot of work to do, including solving a murder. I highly recommend Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice for Murderers by Jesse Q. Sutanto. If you read Aunties, you will love this one.

RATING: Cinquain

Other Reviews:

About the Author:

Jesse Q Sutanto grew up shuttling back and forth between Jakarta and Singapore and sees both cities as her homes. She has a Masters degree from Oxford University, though she has yet to figure out a way of saying that without sounding obnoxious. She is currently living back in Jakarta on the same street as her parents and about seven hundred meddlesome aunties. When she’s not tearing out her hair over her latest WIP, she spends her time baking and playing FPS games. Oh, and also being a mom to her two kids.

Filed Under: borrowed copy, fiction, Penguin, Publishers/Publicists, random house, Read in 2023, reviews Tagged With: ,

A Woman Is No Man by Etaf Rum

September 5, 2023 by

Source: Borrowed
Hardcover, 352 pgs.
I am an Amazon Affiliate

A Woman Is No Man by Etaf Rum was our August book club pick at work, and even though I had to miss the meeting for another meeting, I’m so glad I read this one. Deya is a high-school student in Brooklyn, N.Y., and her traditional Arab family from Palestine has her meeting with suitors before graduation, despite her hopes for a college education. To preserve their culture in which women are the silent backbone of the family, young women are married to men in their teens to have children and raise the next generation. Like her mother, Isra, Deya is expected to marry someone she barely knows and to start a family.

“A woman is no man,” is an oft repeated refrain from Deya’s grandmother. Told in alternating chapters by Isra and Deya, the narrative is threaded with the past of the grandmother, Fareeda, who also married young but was fortunate enough to flee Palestine after being evacuated to a refugee camp. Her strength is in her faith, but she also is the backbone of her family and the driving force behind their move to America. While both Deya and Isra see the move to America as a gateway to freedom and more opportunities, Fareeda sees it as something that must be guarded against because it will destroy their Arab culture. However, it is clear that Fareeda’s and Isra’s view of their culture stems from similarly abusive relationships with their fathers, and now husbands.

“…yet something about them seemed so American. What was it? Deya thought it was they way they spoke — their voices loud, or at least louder than hers. It was the way they stood confidently on the train, not apologizing for taking up the space.” (pg. 107)

The tension in this book is broken wide open by a family secret. For her entire life, Deya has been told her parents died in a car accident, but the truth will set them free in many ways, allowing a granddaughter and grandmother to bond, a daughter to understand her deceased mother better, and a daughter to have hope that her own hard-line mother may change.

Peeling back these layers chapter by chapter will slow the pace, but Rum’s narrative is this way to demonstrate the repetitive cultural oppression these women experience every day. As a modern reader outside the Palestinian culture, it will seem repetitive and unnecessary, but I would argue it is with purpose that Rum adopts this slower progression. We need to feel that pressure, that weight of oppression and constant restriction to understand how hard it would be to break free from it even as an American immigrant.

A Woman Is No Man by Etaf Rum is an emotional roller coast, and it will have readers shouting at these women to take advantage of their freedom and run away. But when you leave all that you know, it leaves you bare to the harsh realities of being alone in an unfamiliar world. Which is better? Sticking with the devil you know, or striking out into the unknown? Rum has created a multi-layered story that looks at the oppressive nature of the Arab community and religious expectations and the lure of freedom with consequences.

RATING: Cinquain

About the Author:

The daughter of Palestinian immigrants, Etaf Rum was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York. She has a Masters of Arts in American and British Literature as well as undergraduate degrees in Philosophy and English Composition and teaches undergraduate courses in North Carolina, where she lives with her two children. Etaf also runs the Instagram account @booksandbeans.

Filed Under: borrowed copy, challenges, fiction, Harper Collins, New Authors Challenge, Publishers/Publicists, Read in 2023, reviews Tagged With: ,

Mailbox Monday #746

September 4, 2023 by

Today is Labor Day in the United States. I hope you have time off from work, as it should be, and get in some reading time.

Mailbox Monday has become a tradition in the blogging world, and many of us thank Marcia of The Printed Page for creating it.

It now has its own blog where book bloggers can link up their own mailbox posts and share which books they bought or which they received for review from publishers, authors, and more.

Emma, Martha, and I also will share our picks from everyone’s links in the new feature Books that Caught Our Eye. We hope you’ll join us.

Here’s what I received:

Tender Is the Flesh by Agustina Bazterrica, narrated by Joseph Balderrama, purchased from Audible for my next book club pick at work.

Working at the local processing plant, Marcos is in the business of slaughtering humans – though no one calls them that anymore.

His wife has left him, his father is sinking into dementia, and Marcos tries not to think too hard about how he makes a living. After all, it happened so quickly. First, it was reported that an infectious virus has made all animal meat poisonous to humans. Then governments initiated the “Transition”. Now, eating human meat – “special meat” – is legal. Marcos tries to stick to numbers, consignments, processing.

Then one day he’s given a gift: a live specimen of the finest quality. Though he’s aware that any form of personal contact is forbidden on pain of death, little by little he starts to treat her like a human being. And soon, he becomes tortured by what has been lost – and what might still be saved.

What did you receive?

Filed Under: mailbox monday, meme Tagged With: , , ,

Guest Post: Being Intentional About the Objects in Your Story by Thushanthi Ponweera

August 30, 2023 by

Today, I have a guest post from Thushanthi Ponweera about her story I am Kavi, a novel-in-verse. Please check out what this book is about and stay for the guest post about being intentional.

Synopsis of the book:

In 1998’s Colombo, the Sri Lankan Civil War is raging, but everyday life must go on. At Kavi’s school, her friends talk about the Backstreet Boys, Shahrukh Khan, Leo & Kate… and who died—or didn’t—in the latest bombing. But Kavi is afraid of something even scarier than war. She fears that if her friends discover her secret—that she is not who she is pretending to be—they’ll stop talking to her. In an effort to fit in with her wealthy, glittering, and self-assured new classmates, Kavi begins telling lies, trading her old life—where she’s a poor girl whose mother has chosen a new husband over her daughter—for a new one, where she’s rich, loved, and wanted. But how long can you pretend to be someone else?

Doesn’t this sound fantastic? Please welcome Thushanthi Ponweera:

I first learned about being intentional about the objects and elements you write about in your story from Linda Sue Park at an online webinar. It was a new concept to me. I had already heard about not using too many secondary characters and about evaluating how much of a “main” character a main character is, but had I thought about all the background stuff? No. But after learning this nugget of wisdom, I started to think about it.

The basic idea is that everything you introduce to the reader has to have a purpose. I started combing through my draft of I Am Kavi with this in mind. The very first lines are about Jasmine flowers.

The Jasmine flowers glow incandescent
as they always do
eagerly looking for my outstretched hands.

So now I knew I had to weave in Jasmine flowers throughout the story. I started looking for places I could insert them in a meaningful way. At the beginning of the book Kavi is at home in the village of Anuradhapura. Plucking Jasmine flowers is the first thing she does each morning so that she can place them at the little altar of Lord Buddha in her house whom she worships daily. About one third into the story, she moves to Colombo and is obviously homesick. Yes!

Here was another place I could mention Jasmine, which had now become an important part of her life back home.

My nose is lonely.
It misses the sweet scent of Jasmine.

Of course, as she gets drawn into city life and is distracted by all the changes, her life back home – and with it the Jasmine flowers — is forgotten. It’s not till she’s back there in the last quarter of the book that I’m able to mention Jasmine again. This hopefully works as a signal to the reader and brings to life Kavi’s home and village setting. That was my intention!

The Jasmine blooms dot the darkness,
bright white on inky black,
their scent stronger than ever.

I’ve used other elements this way in the book too: the statue of Lord Buddha, a Kohomba tree, a bus, the temple, the full moon. When you are reading my book –and I really hope you do — keep an eye out for these and see if the repeated appearances help create stronger images and emotions. If it does, then I’ve been successful. And perhaps it will convince you to try it out in your next draft!

Thank you, Thushanthi Ponweera, for sharing these writing tips with us.

About the Author:

Thushanthi Ponweera is an author and poet from Sri Lanka. Before daring to follow her dream of being published, she was a marketing specialist and entrepreneur. Her writing reflects the frustration she feels at the inequality and injustice she sees around her and the deep love she has for her island home. Thushanthi recently moved to Qatar with her husband and two children. I Am Kavi is her first novel.

Filed Under: guest post Tagged With: ,

Mailbox Monday #745

August 28, 2023 by

Mailbox Monday has become a tradition in the blogging world, and many of us thank Marcia of The Printed Page for creating it.

It now has its own blog where book bloggers can link up their own mailbox posts and share which books they bought or which they received for review from publishers, authors, and more.

Emma, Martha, and I also will share our picks from everyone’s links in the new feature Books that Caught Our Eye. We hope you’ll join us.

Here’s what I received:

Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice for Murderers by Jesse Q. Sutanto from the library.

Vera Wong is a lonely little old lady—ah, lady of a certain age—who lives above her forgotten tea shop in the middle of San Francisco’s Chinatown. Despite living alone, Vera is not needy, oh no. She likes nothing more than sipping on a good cup of Wulong and doing some healthy detective work on the Internet about what her Gen-Z son is up to.

Then one morning, Vera trudges downstairs to find a curious thing—a dead man in the middle of her tea shop. In his outstretched hand, a flash drive. Vera doesn’t know what comes over her, but after calling the cops like any good citizen would, she sort of . . . swipes the flash drive from the body and tucks it safely into the pocket of her apron. Why? Because Vera is sure she would do a better job than the police possibly could, because nobody sniffs out a wrongdoing quite like a suspicious Chinese mother with time on her hands. Vera knows the killer will be back for the flash drive; all she has to do is watch the increasing number of customers at her shop and figure out which one among them is the killer.

What Vera does not expect is to form friendships with her customers and start to care for each and every one of them. As a protective mother hen, will she end up having to give one of her newfound chicks to the police?

The Night She Disappeared by Lisa Jewell for my birthday from my mom.

On a beautiful summer night in a charming English suburb, a young woman and her boyfriend disappear after partying at the massive country estate of a new college friend.

One year later, a writer moves into a cottage on the edge of the woods that border the same estate. Known locally as the Dark Place, the dense forest is the writer’s favorite place for long walks and it’s on one such walk that she stumbles upon a mysterious note that simply reads, “DIG HERE.”

Could this be a clue towards what has happened to the missing young couple? And what exactly is buried in this haunted ground?

“Utterly gripping with richly drawn, hugely compelling characters, this is a first-class thriller with heart” (Lucy Foley, New York Times bestselling author) that will keep you on the edge of your seat.

What did you receive?

Filed Under: mailbox monday, meme Tagged With: , , ,

What Follows by H.R. Webster

August 16, 2023 by

Source: Purchased
Paperback, 70 pgs.
I am an Amazon Affiliate

What Follows by H.R. Webster is a debut collection of poems that shed light on the darkness and the scars left in the wake of turbulence. The opening poem, “What Follows,” sets the tone immediately: “Every house I’ve ever lived in was filled with snakes./” and “The snakes I live with now leave/quieter marks.” (pg. 3)

These poems try to make sense of the darkness in the world, the men who catcall at every woman and the boys that love the danger of the flips and tumbles of the skate park. What follows that darkness, what’s left behind? Shame? Heartbreak? Desire? It’s not the harm or the dark emotions but the glimmer of light that remains, the hope of beauty and satisfaction. “Look at the stain/in the diamond. It’s not the thing itself,/but what’s left of the light that was swallowed./” (“Occlusion”, pg. 36)

What Follows by H.R. Webster explores the space in between the before and after trauma, reminding us that there is some light in the darkness. Her poems use language that doesn’t focus directly on the trauma. The poems state what the trauma isn’t, outlining the pain with pain that is easier to understand. Readers will learn so much in these poems, through the poet’s dark humor and explorations of deep desires and lashing out. It’s a deeply human collection that reflects on our darkest thoughts and feelings — many of which we bury deep.

RATING: Quatrain

About the Poet:

H.R. Webster has received fellowships from the Fine Arts Work Center, Vermont Studio Center, and the Helen Zell Writers’ Program. Her work has appeared in the Massachusetts Review, Poetry Magazine, Black Warrior Review, Ninth Letter, 32Poems, Muzzle, and Ecotone.

Filed Under: challenges, New Authors Challenge, poetry, Poetry Reading Challenge, purchased, Read in 2023, reviews Tagged With: , ,

The Unempty Spaces Between by Louis Efron

August 15, 2023 by

Source: the poet
Paperback, 62 pgs.
I am an Amazon Affiliate

The Unempty Spaces Between by Louis Efron, which is on tour with Poetic Book Tours, is a debut poetry collection that brings readers on a journey of exploration in the natural world to find not empty spaces that must be filled, but spaces that have hidden treasures. In the opening poem, “Beautiful Trees,” readers are shown the dead branches and passed fruit and leaves that have yet to fall, but as the narrator takes us into the earth, we are shown how the rain seeps down and the roots have dug deep and continue to do so. It’s a living being beneath the surface of the earth and it is beautiful.

One of my favorite poems in the collection is “Empty Attics,” in which dusty items sit and wait in the dark forgotten places. Imagine all those souvenirs bought and hidden away, tarnishing in the darkness. “our treasures/memories unlit/by such neglected bulbs/still failing to see ourselves/illuminated/as dust settles again/on the balconies of our mind/” (pg.25) Here we see attics filled with trinkets and memory, but they are rarely accessed. Does this mean we are unknown? Are we in darkness even about ourselves? Efron is showing us the introspection he himself is engaged in through his poems, and on this journey with him, we are exploring the identities of ourselves.

Another poem that will capture the storyteller and listener in all of us is “Rooms Without Nightlights” as Efron takes us inside the dark bedrooms of our past and the fairytales we know by heart. He sheds light on the shadows that scared us from sleeping and kept us on edge in our basements. He asks us to leave those “ruffled sheets/to tend to their own ghosts” but also to be wary of the “inviting masks/fooled only by our children/framed on forbidden trading cards/in palmed devices.” Vigilance can be a tricky skill.

The Unempty Spaces Between by Louis Efron allows readers to fall into the cracks and explore the emotions of our childish nightmares against the backdrop of more adult concerns. In many ways, we are looking for ourselves in that darkness and seeking the truth of it before the door of finality closes on us. What is in those spaces between?

RATING: Cinquain

About the Poet:

Louis Efron is a poet and writer who has been featured in Forbes, Huffington Post, Chicago Tribune, POETiCA REViEW, The Orchards Poetry Journal, Academy of the Heart and Mind, Literary Yard, New Reader Magazine and over 100 other national and global publications. He is also the author of five books, including The Unempty Spaces Between, How to Find a Job, Career and Life You Love; Purpose Meets Execution; Beyond the Ink; as well as the children’s book What Kind of Bee Can I Be?

Filed Under: ARC, challenges, New Authors Challenge, poetry, Poetry Reading Challenge, Read in 2023, reviews Tagged With: , ,