Celeste Gainey’s debut collection, The Gaffer, is a triumph of nouns—of people, places, things, and ideas presented to us in the most trenchant and timely ways…. read more

One of the many things I admire about Dawn Lundy Martin’s poetry is her potent ability to puzzle the reader without losing the reader… read more

Julie Marie Wade on Jericho Brown’s latest poetry collection The New Testament… read more

Julie Marie Wade gives you ten reasons to read Mark Bibbins’ newest book…. read more

“Clarke is a provocative poet who never asks permission to make her voice heard.”… read more

“It would be redundant to ask if Simmonds plays an instrument when his voice is an instrument, a conduit of incomparable depth and range.”… read more

“McLane has made me appreciate the artful ways that ‘high’ and ‘low’ diction co-exist in her own work—and more than co-exist: the ways her idiosyncratic approach to poeming thrives through deft and playful juxtaposition.”… read more

A confession: I like to read the endings first. Not for novels or narrative memoirs, but always for a collection of poems. I’m not worried that the last poem in the book is going to give something vital away. Surprise is chronic in good poetry, and insight is recursive. These aren’t elements the reader has… read more

Darling and Guess provide a potpourri of perspectives concerning what marriage has meant and might mean in the early 21st century…. read more

Patricia Hampl says, “Autobiographical writing is bedeviled,” and she is right. The struggle to translate lived experience into art is not unique to memoirists, however; it is the resident challenge of all writers who dip their cups into personal wells. Perhaps it is simply the resident challenge of all writers…. read more