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Jane and the Final Mystery by Stephanie Barron

October 29, 2023 by 1 Comment

***This is the last review that will be published on Savvy Verse & Wit; please subscribe to Substack.

Source: Publisher
Hardcover, 312 pgs.
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Jane and the Final Mystery by Stephanie Barron (book 15) is the final installment in the series of mysteries in which Jane Austen herself uses her ability to read a room and ask the right questions to solve a murder. As each book is a mystery unto itself, you don’t necessarily need to reach them in order, but they do follow Jane Austen’s timeline and if you don’t know what happens to Jane in real life, you may want to begin at the start of the series because this one is the last.

Readers, like me, will not want to read this novel too quickly because we know that Jane’s life is nearing its end, but we cannot help but turn the pages in Barron’s story to find out who did murder the boy at Winchester College.

“Elizabeth and her deep anxiety for her son were much in my thoughts in the days that followed her visit; but it was not until two months later, and from a very different source, that I was to hear of actual violence at Winchester College — and the death of an unfortunate schoolboy.” (pg. 15)

Barron does well the show us how Jane may have suffered from her illness and the care she would have received from family members along the way, but we also see how determined Jane is and how dedicated to truth and family she continues to be despite all the pain. Barron also clearly has researched the time period very well, and she includes footnotes for those who need a little clarification, which I appreciated.

William Heathcote, the son of Jane’s friend Elizabeth, has been bullied at Winchester, but what Jane soon learns about life at the college will make teasing in today’s world seem less dire. Boys are shoved into canals and sluice gates opened so they flow into the canal and river, and so much more. Hazing is taken to a whole new level, but it isn’t just about fitting in. Sometimes rivalries can stem from classism and social ostracism. When William is accused of murder, Jane and her nephew, his friend, get to work on clearing his name.

Jane and the Final Mystery by Stephanie Barron is a page-turner. I couldn’t put it down. I had to unravel the mystery with Jane and her nephew, even though it broke my heart to see how much pain she had to deal with. Barron knows how to weave a historical tale that will leave readers wanting more.

RATING: Cinquain

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About the Author:

Stephanie Barron is a graduate of Princeton and Stanford, where she received her Masters in History as an Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Fellow in the Humanities. Her novel, THAT CHURCHILL WOMAN (Ballantine, January 22, 2019) traces the turbulent career of Jennie Jerome, Winston Churchill’s captivating American mother. Barron is perhaps best known for the critically acclaimed Jane Austen Mystery Series, in which the intrepid and witty author of PRIDE AND PREJUDICE details her secret detective career in Regency England. A former intelligence analyst for the CIA,  Stephanie—who also writes under the name Francine Mathews—drew on her experience in the field of espionage for such novels as JACK 1939, which The New Yorker described as “the most deliciously high-concept thriller imaginable.”; She lives and works in Denver, Colorado. Follow her on Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and GoodReads.

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

Dancehall by Tim Stobierski

September 14, 2023 by

Source: the poet
Paperback, 90 pgs.
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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.

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The Unempty Spaces Between by Louis Efron

August 15, 2023 by

Source: the poet
Paperback, 62 pgs.
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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?

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Exits by Stephen C. Pollock

July 20, 2023 by

Source: Poet
Paperback, 54 pgs.
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Exits by Stephen C. Pollock, which is on tour with Poetic Book Tours, focuses on the ultimate exit we all must make and speaks to the fear and acceptance of our mortality. The collection includes not only poems, but also photographs and artwork that inspired some of the poems. They complement one another well.

The opening poem, “Arachindaea: Line Drawings,” and accompanying photograph of a spider in its web begin a symphony to life’s unexpected beauty: “your finest threads are strung with pearls/and you, a brooch with a clasp./” But then darkness comes when we “magnify the shiny spheres/to divine that each conceals/a miniature, an image/of struggling wings, of life undone.” (pg. 1) The poem is multi-layered in its exploration of the predator-prey dynamic, demonstrating the beauty alongside the ultimate demise of the prey. The strings of the web begin a tune, one that cannot be escaped.

Throughout this collection, Pollock looks to nature for not only music, but also beauty in mortality. The flowers in “Seeds” give up everything to insects and birds, breeding new life from their own deaths, ending a lifecycle but also beginning it anew. “So many seeds were borne by each alone,/so many lost with loss of those I’ve known.//” the narrator says. It’s the mortality and the remembrance of those gone before us that enables them to live on, like the seeds from the dying flowers in our garden.

Through a variety of forms and styles, Pollock takes us on a breathtaking journey that reminds us that through the sadness and finality of death and mortality, there’s also things that live on. There are pieces of us in other lives and other places that we’ve touched. In many ways Exits by Stephen C. Pollock is a hopeful collection — a collection looking to provide peace.

RATING: Quatrain

About the Poet:

Stephen C. Pollock is a recipient of the Rolfe Humphries Poetry Prize and a former associate professor at Duke University. His poems have appeared in a wide variety of literary journals, including “Blue Unicorn,” “The Road Not Taken,” “Live Canon Anthology,” “Pinesong,” “Coffin Bell,” and “Buddhist Poetry Review.” “Exits” is his first book.

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Her Whole Bright Life by Courtney LeBlanc

April 25, 2023 by

Source: the Poet
Paperback, 100 pgs.
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Her Whole Bright Life by Courtney LeBlanc is a collection of rolling grief and healing. In the opening poem, “Self-Portrait,” the narrator speaks to the collections of past memories that are part of her being and how they make her feel about herself, but by the end, the living in the moment and in the past, have left her without a sense of who she wishes to be in the future. There’s an unsettled-ness in this poem that sets the tone for the rest of the collection and the roiling emotions that come through each subsequent poem.

In “I Don’t Understand Black Holes No Matter How Many Times Cody Explains Them to Me,” the poet speaks to the immense and unexplainable black hole, noting “For now, I’ll just accept/that black holes exist, that they are closer/than we previously thought, and that they/are a force so powerful, every mistake I ever/made would be swallowed by them.//” Her regrets seem large and able to swallow her hole, which explains why she sees black holes as a potential force that can make those regrets disappear.

Grief takes many forms in this collection. It is not just the slow loss of a vibrant father who dedicated himself to farming and gardening and his daughter, but it’s also the slow losses we don’t see until we lose a parent. We are no longer those children we were, life has shaped us. We’ve become someone else and yet still carry that younger self with us and long for what we see as a simpler existence without regret and loss.

From "Snails and Stars" (pg. 41)

...
Last year, a friend took a bottle of pills and went
to sleep. At his memorial we watched
the slideshow, his smiling face in every frame,
the galaxy of his friends spilling onto the lawn.
We are a constellation of caring, but we were not
enough to save him.
...

Her Whole Bright Life by Courtney LeBlanc is somber and full of life — its funny moments, its sad emotions and grief, and its unexpected gifts. LeBlanc is fast becoming one of my favorite poets. Her turn of phrase, her bravery in the face of deep emotional turmoil, and her ability to connect seemingly unconnected events into a poem that you can find your own story inside. Don’t miss this collection.

Other Reviews:

About the Poet:

Courtney LeBlanc is the author of the full-length collections, “Her Whole Bright Life” (winner of the Jack McCarthy Book Prize, Write Bloody, 2023), “Exquisite Bloody, Beating Heart” (Riot in Your Throat, 2021) and “Beautiful & Full of Monsters” (Vegetarian Alcoholic Press, 2020). She is a Virginia Center for Creative Arts fellow (2022) and the founder and editor-in-chief of Riot in Your Throat, an independent poetry press. She loves nail polish, tattoos and a soy latte each morning.

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Lo: Poems by Melissa Crowe

April 20, 2023 by

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Paperback, 88 pgs.
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Lo: Poems by Melissa Crowe, 2022 Iowa Poetry Prize winner to be published in May 2023, is an expression of grief, longing, and joy all at once as the young girl growing up within these poems and pages finds that the world is all at once beautiful and ugly. This song echoes throughout the collection from the opening poem, “The Self Says, I Am,” readers will see the whimsical imagination of a young girl surrounded by a rural landscape, but within that landscape blisters and sunburn can form, causing a young girl to learn to be “nimble” and “learned.”

The narrator of “Thrownness” says, “Maybe home is what gets on you and can’t//be shaken loose.” Taking the lighters side of that observation it is clear Crowe’s roots in Maine are still with her in the imagery she chooses, but on the flip side of that, the darkest parts of our childhood lives leave indelible scars. “Remember how every branch/on that same street seemed blessed with fat red berries/your mother said would make you sick and how — always/hungry, cupboards bare — you would not stop tasting them/anyway.” (pg. 5-6)

In many of these early poems, a young girl is yearning and she cannot get enough, even when what she receives is not necessarily the best thing for her. She is loved, but there are parts of her story that include attention, not necessarily love. Part 3 of this collection houses a variety of poem structures that tell a traumatic tale, and each mirrors the emotional state of the narrator. (be advised these can be triggering) “Thank god I thought, burning,/somebody will ask me. Nobody asked me.//Thank god I thought, burning, knowing/for the first time maybe what he’d//done to me, that what he’d done to me was/wrong enough to go to jail for, if you told.//” (“When She Speaks of the Fire,” pg. 30) This is where the reader weeps for this girl. You cannot help but weep. It is because the narrator is speaking directly to the reader, even if it’s framed as spoken to someone else. You are drawn in, you are “watching through a crack as thick as a man’s/fingers what unfolds beyond your power/to undo.”

Lo: Poems by Melissa Crowe is not focused just on the trauma and telling of it; it is the emotional journey of telling it and learning how to navigate the debris and the disappointment with loved ones who were supposed to protect you and didn’t/couldn’t and didn’t want to speak aloud about it even when it is clearly needed for healing. Another not-to-be-missed collection; pre-order it now.

RATING: Cinquain

About the Poet:

Melissa Crowe is a poet, editor, and teacher. She was born in Presque Isle, Maine, but she currently lives with her family by the sea in Wilmington, North Carolina. Crowe is an assistant professor of Creative Writing and Coordinator of the MFA program at UNCW. Her first full-length collection, Dear Terror, Dear Splendor was published by University of Wisconsin Press in 2019, and her second book, Lo, won the Iowa Poetry Prize and is due out from the University of Iowa Press in May 2023.

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In Kind by Maggie Queeney

April 19, 2023 by

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Paperback, 98 pgs.
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In Kind by Maggie Queeney, 2022 Iowa Poetry Prize winner to be published in May 2023, calls on the goddesses of old to illuminate the struggles of today. She deftly deals with trauma in a way that captures the darkness, the struggle, and the strength to move forward honoring that wound that makes up part of the whole person. In “My Given Name,” “Grit both the middle and the start of it://A bit of sand or shell shard, the hard/Speck of stone or flint or bone or beak—/What cannot be broken back//Into nothing, but offers an ever/Smaller division: this is what made me/What I am: Mar—as in mark, as in wound,//” (pg. 4)

Throughout her poems, transformation is taking place. Everything is unsettled in these poems, and it can be hard to get your bearings, but that’s to be expected given the subject matter (which those who have experienced trauma may want to consider before reading these poems). “We sang ourselves new bodies/the volume of our old hearts/” says the narrator in “Metamorphosis: The Daughters of Minyas Deny Ecstasy, Transform into Bats.”And in “A Charm, A Series of Survivals,” the narrator says, “He wrote his yes into my silence.” (pg. 21) Queeney demonstrates that old myths have something to teach us about punishments meted out to those who fail to conform to society’s expectations. They are unjust and harsh, but they also can become empowering enabling survivors to leverage those punishments as fuel in their own transformations and blossoming.

***(this is a graphic poem)*** Read the title poem, “In Kind,” at underbelly. It’s where I first saw Queeney’s work, and the differences between her draft poem and the final are amazing. Her poem builds from the rapping of the window washers’ ropes against the window, which take on the life of the traumatic memories, and these memories continue to haunt as the time passes and the narrator moves forward in the poem. The poem is not only about the witness and their trauma, but about the trauma of the victim who takes the actions leading to the witness’ trauma. It folds in on itself in a tragic way to remind us that “Nothing, and/no one ever enough.” Nothing could have prevented this tragedy. That’s the most hopeless moment in anyone’s life — knowing nothing you could have done would have saved a person you loved.

In Kind by Maggie Queeney is a deep exploration of trauma and transformation. It never shies away from the harsh realities and emotions of trauma, but it does seek to highlight the wounds can heal and be transformed into something that drives an individual’s healing and purpose. Do not miss this collection; pre-order it now.

RATING: Cinquain

About the Poet:

Maggie Queeney is the author of In Kind, winner of the Iowa Poetry Prize, forthcoming in 2023, and settler (Tupelo Press). She is recipient of the Stanley Kunitz Memorial Prize, the Ruth Stone Scholarship, and two IAP Grants from the City of Chicago. Her poems, stories, and hybrid works have been published widely. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Syracuse University.

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Elegies for an Empire by Le Hinton

April 18, 2023 by

Source: the poet
Paperback, 65 pgs.
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***A portion of the purchase price of Hinton’s book ($15) will go to the Lancaster Cleft Palate Clinic.***

Elegies for an Empire by Le Hinton, is a gorgeous collection of poems paying homage to parents, ancestors, and others who came before, while realizing that the foundations and moments the poet leaves behind for children will be similarly in the past, even as they are present. In each step forward, there is an echo of the past, like his opening quote says from Ralph Ellison, “The end is the beginning and lies far ahead.” In the opening poem, “Asking for my Mother,” there’s the echo of a mother’s voice, urging the speaker to not only think on the past as a lesson, but to also employ it in a humble way. There’s a tension between doing something and praying about it, while at the same time, there is the urge to do something, move forward because one is praying about it.

Second Chance (pg. 18)

I carry my family's dreams
into this soil's darkness.

Inside this pod, I hold these hopes:

a fresh garden,
a tender lunar spring,
a faultless reputation.

No one here can sing my past

There is a sense of lament in each of these poems, but carried inside it is a hope that cannot be contained. Rise from the soil to build a garden anew, sit alongside the spirits of your ancestors to learn the past and how to navigate the future. These meditations signal to the reader that the hustle and bustle of our lives needn’t be the only driver of our action or inaction.

Hinton is tackling topics that we see on the news every day, and not all of us live in that reality but are mere observers. The question I come away with is: Why are you sitting idly on your hands and observing when you can take action to make change? Do all Black men have to have internal conversations about death when stopped by police? Is there a way to remedy this issue without more violence? How can we think our way out and take action?

The entire collection is not about darkness, death, and loss. There is love here. “Still Life with Desire,” shows us that even while masked and left with unspoken words, lovers can create something beautiful just as “Beethoven composing/his 9th within the enveloping silence.” (pg. 39) Elegiac song fills the air when so much is lost, but what about the things we’ve gained. “Consider your good fortune to have survived/a virus that has no conscience or taste buds/and disregards the pleasures of a lengthened life//Then peel the skin, slowly, intentionally,/noticing the tiny movement of flesh/beneath your fingers, the initial droplets//of the sweetest of juices.” (pg. 41, “How to Eat a Peach During a Pandemic”).

Elegies for an Empire by Le Hinton reminds everyone about the importance of connection to ourselves, to one another, to our ancestors, and yes, even to our enemies. In “Allies and Ancestors”, the poet says, “we’ll recycle these deaths/over again and again and over.” The energy of us never leaves. We are all still here, still connecting, still influencing.

RATING: Cinquain

About the Poet:

Poet, teacher, Le Hinton, is the author of seven collections including, most recently, Elegies for an Empire (Iris G. Press, 2023). His work has been widely published and can, or will be found in The Best American Poetry 2014, the Baltimore Review, The Skinny Poetry Journal, the Progressive Magazine, Little Patuxent Review, Pleiades, and elsewhere. His poem “Epidemic” won the Baltimore Review’s 2013 Winter Writers Contest and in 2014 it was honored by The Pennsylvania Center for the Book. His poem, “Our Ballpark,” can be found outside Clipper Magazine Stadium in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, incorporated into Derek Parker’s sculpture Common Thread.

He is the founder and co-editor of the poetry journal Fledgling Rag and the founder of Iris G. Press/I. Giraffe Press.

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You Cannot Save Here by Tonee Moll

April 12, 2023 by

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Paperback, 84 pgs.
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You Cannot Save Here by Tonee Moll, winner of the Washington Writer’s Publishing House‘s 2022 Jean Feldman Poetry Prize, opens with a quote from Ocatvia Butler’s Parable of the Sower, which sets the stage for the whole collection. Moll’s poems are about every day moments that each of us can relate to, such as days in which we have little energy to perform even the simplest tasks or are exasperated with the search for love and acceptance. The collection points to the gradual wearing down of ourselves.

In the first poem, “You Cannot Save Here,” the narrator begins with “the first day of The End,” which sets up readers for the journey through the apocalypse of life. “I don’t do anything just/sit in the dimness of midday/room with unopened blinds” Think about it, would we really know when the end comes? Do we even know when our end is near or that death has come for us? Not usually. This theme of not knowing if it is the end permeates the poems in this collection where the narrator realizes in “If You See Me, Weep” that lyrics about the end of the world and it “being later than you think” have been sung for decades.

Not only is Moll calling us to task about our obsessions with the end of the world and the death of ourselves, but he also is urging us to “be a whole oak enveloped in kind potential.” (“Fruit of the Unenclosed Land”). Through the title poems (yes, multiple poems are titled “You Cannot Save Here”), readers are immersed in the apocalypses that populate our lives. Humans are such dramatic creatures. Moll is meditating on what it means when we’ve past the point of no return and how do we live with where we are. But don’t expect all of these poems to be dark and dreary, because they are far from that.

You Cannot Save Here by Tonee Moll is a light in the darkness, teaching us to see what we have and rejoice in that moment. The collection asks what is our potential and how can we achieve it, despite our apocalyptic perspective.

RATING: Cinquain

About the Author:

Tonee Moll is a queer poet, essayist and educator. Tonee holds an MFA in Creative Writing & Publishing Arts and a Ph.D. in English. They are the author of “Out of Step: A Memoir,” which won the Lambda Literary Award and the Non/Fiction Collection Prize. Their latest book, “You Cannot Save Here,” won the Jean Feldman Poetry Prize from Washington Writers’ Publishing House. They live in Baltimore, and they teach creative writing & literature as an assistant professor of English at Harford Community College.

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Dispatches from Frontier Schools by Sarah Beddow

April 6, 2023 by

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Paperback, 124 pgs.
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Dispatches From Frontier Schools by Sarah Beddow is an in-depth account of teacher in a poorly funded charter school and the pull of an educator to fulfill their passion in educating children and the tension it comes with when there is little funding, students are hard to reach, and family takes a back seat to her students. In the opening poem, “Dispatch for: [redacted]” the poet says, “I do not want    do not want cannot/stand this world/for them  So I touched/ her and listened.    She did/not dissolve    today but/surely she will/and/if I can   I will be/the nurse who notices   the silent shivering  the silent tears   and brings/an extra blanket//” (pg. 16)

Throughout this collection, readers will experience what it is like inside the classroom, dealing with managers, and caring deeply for students. She wants to reward her most engaged students, but the world seems to conspire against even the simplest rewards – a donut party. There’s a deep sadness in some of these poems. It’s clear the narrator of these poems is dedicated to her students, but teaching itself is hard enough without having to handle the pressures of the administration and compliance with rules. in “Dispatch re: Complaince” “I have / nothing else / to give   no ideas better than these / no students more woke / no donuts / no tears left to cry in the parking lot dawn / no me” (pg. 19)

Beddow tackles guns in school, education compliance, testing, inter-personal relationships between students, teen pregnancy, and how teachers must be involved but not be too involved in students’ lives. From “Dispatch re: Our Scholars” (pg. 55), “To take children of color and   performatively / age them into such series / stuffy  academics Lock them away in / an ivory tower  until they / emerge civil and / obedient  fit to meet the nation’s needs”

Dispatches From Frontier Schools by Sarah Beddow is a deeply moving collection of horror and beauty in educating students in a tumultuous time where students and teachers are under enormous pressures. Beddow is a masterful storyteller; she will have readers crying and thinking deeply about our education system.

RATING: Quatrain

About the Poet:

Sarah Beddow is a poet, wife and mother. She is the author of the book Dispatches from Frontier Schools (Riot in Your Throat) and the chapbook What’s pink & shiny/what’s dark and hard (Porkbelly Press). Her poems and essays have appeared in Bone Bouquet, Menacing Hedge, Entropy, GlitterMOB, and elsewhere. She has degrees in creative writing from Johns Hopkins University and Sarah Lawrence College. After completing her MFA in poetry, she earned an MS in Urban Education from Mercy College and spent nearly a decade teaching high school English. Though she now works in educational publishing, she looks forward to one day returning to the classroom.

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String by Matthew Thorburn

April 5, 2023 by

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Paperback, 84 pgs.
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String by Matthew Thorburn is a poetry collection that tells a story of a boy living through war and explores the thread of loss and memory with precision. Every moment with this boy is unexpected, and his pain becomes our pain. Through these poems, Thorburn gives us an intimate picture of this teenager’s life from the doctor with the cigarettes on his desk to Rosie, who catches his eye.

While there is memory that delights and makes this boy smile, there are other, darker memories that he cannot forget.

They (pg. 11)

liked to throw things
a man down a well a woman
through a window they

liked to know things
names and dates your hopes
what hurt my hiding place

the combination to Saltzman's
empty safe they liked to 
break things doors bicycles

legs and backs and necks
they liked to take things
money gold rings fingernails

and fathers they had
no need for her none for me
except they were hungry so

hungry and so angry
like shadows they liked to hide
behind my back they liked

to ride behind my eyelids
death was their dark horse
they never stood still.

Thorburn’s images bring the reader into each scene. It is harrowing; it is deeply depressing. But there also is light in the survival. What can survive a Holocaust? What can survive a war? What can survive genocide? Our memories, our connections, our stories. We merely have to share them.

Damaged Animal (pg. 12)

The poor white upright
piano scored with
bullet holes they shot it too

then tipped it off
the balcony mangling Rosie's

silver bicycle forever
after a damaged animal
the white keys broken

teeth in the gutter
where their piss trickled

the black keys like
fingers broken in 
black gloves

String by Matthew Thorburn is achingly beautiful and unforgettable. The story will have you turning the pages as if it were a novel. The imagery is searing and heartbreaking. If you are on the lookout for a narrative poetry collection with a cohesive story, this is one for you. Thorburn is at his best here.

RATING: Cinquain

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About the Poet:

Matthew Thorburn’s new book of poems is String, published by Louisiana State University Press in March 2023. He’s also the author of seven previous collections, including The Grace of Distance, a finalist for the Paterson Poetry Prize; the book-length poem Dear Almost, honored with the Lascaux Prize in Collected Poetry; and A Green River in Spring, winner of the Coal Hill Review chapbook competition. ​His work has been recognized with a Witter Bynner Fellowship from the Library of Congress, the Mississippi Review Prize, and fellowships from the Bronx and New Jersey arts councils and the Sewanee Writers’ Conference. A native of Michigan and for many years a New Yorker, he lives with his family in small-town New Jersey.

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Above Ground by Clint Smith

March 28, 2023 by

Source: Publisher
Paperback, 128 pgs.
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Above Ground by Clint Smith explores the impact of parenthood on a worldview, and how our historical institutions and personal histories influence their parenting, and how the social and political turmoil can creep into your life.

The collection opens with “All at Once” provides readers an opening sense of overwhelm. Everything is happening simultaneously in different places from the child learning to walk to the wildfires destroying the forest to teachers calling parents about good deeds of students to scientists finding a vaccine to a mother getting the sad news that cancer has returned. All of it is overwhelming in so many ways, much like becoming a parent can be. Isn’t that when the worries start piling up?

Smith’s poems are fundamental and sweet — the anticipation of a child’s birth even across miles and over FaceTime. But they also can call us to the chopping block like in “When People Say ‘We Have Made it Through Worse Before'”: “But there is/no solace in rearranging language to make a different word/tell the same lie. Sometimes the moral arc of the universe//does not bend in a direction that comforts us./ (pg. 12) and in “Roots” where the narrator reminds us: “Your life is only possible because of his ability/to have walked through this country on fire/without turning into ash.” (pg. 25)

“Lines in the Sand” is a poem that should speak to every parent and should tell our policymakers to rethink their actions. I cannot begin to tell you how emotional the lines in the poem are. “Legacy” is another of my favorites. It is just beautiful.

Above Ground by Clint Smith is more than a collection about parenting and parenthood. It’s about the care we should take with all the children, with our Earth, and with our own lives. We should not be idle and we should take our own steps to make things better. We want to stay alive, we must act, not be idle.

RATING: Cinquain

About the Poet:

Clint Smith is a staff writer at The Atlantic. He is the author of the narrative nonfiction book, How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning With the History of Slavery Across America, which was a #1 New York Times bestseller, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction, the Hillman Prize for Book Journalism, the Stowe Prize, the Dayton Literary Peace Prize, and selected by the New York Times as one of the 10 Best Books of 2021. He is also the author of the poetry collection Counting Descent, which won the 2017 Literary Award for Best Poetry Book from the Black Caucus of the American Library Association and was a finalist for an NAACP Image Award. His forthcoming poetry collection, Above Ground, will be published March 28, 2023.

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