“On the far side of earthly existence, identity, borders, laws, and language lose their authority to shape reality even as the mathematical certainties of time and space persist.”
“Janet Hall has much to recommend it. Courington’s language and sense of place in this Southern town are brilliant, but as someone who has lived this lifestyle for my entire adult life, her characterization is where she shines.”
“In Bluff, Danez Smith (they/them) uses the full breadth of the poetic form to bring all of their complexities to a house of mirrors for an overdue conversation.”
“The beauty Barry renders in lines and rhythms, Flynn evokes in images and tones. I Tell Henrietta is about family, friends and acquaintances, and ultimately, the reader.”
“In this fractured mess of a world, once you forgive someone, accountability no longer matters. Mateer’s question is the same one I echo to others: ‘What has forgiveness done except elongate the line of broken women in his path?'”
“On the far side of earthly existence, identity, borders, laws, and language lose their authority to shape reality even as the mathematical certainties of time and space persist.”
“Janet Hall has much to recommend it. Courington’s language and sense of place in this Southern town are brilliant, but as someone who has lived this lifestyle for my entire adult life, her characterization is where she shines.”
“In Bluff, Danez Smith (they/them) uses the full breadth of the poetic form to bring all of their complexities to a house of mirrors for an overdue conversation.”
“The beauty Barry renders in lines and rhythms, Flynn evokes in images and tones. I Tell Henrietta is about family, friends and acquaintances, and ultimately, the reader.”
“In this fractured mess of a world, once you forgive someone, accountability no longer matters. Mateer’s question is the same one I echo to others: ‘What has forgiveness done except elongate the line of broken women in his path?'”
“Right This Way excels as suburban comedy of manners, with a tinge of satire, a lightness that overlays a darkness and the presence of grief and great loss.”
“Kentucky is in these poems, specifically eastern Kentucky, the poet’s ancestral home, and Ohio, specifically Dayton, so much so that Ohio, where Bentley lives, is a metaphor for the world.”
“[Spiegel’s] collection exercises a razor gaze, analyzing and dissecting through images … sparse treatments express his childhood sense of being an imposter, and his conclusion communicates this uneasiness persists despite his new stage of life.”
“About twenty years ago, I stole a translation of Jean Cocteau’s The White Book because the owner was homophobic. I suppose I believe (or at least hope) books find the right readers.”
“The lyricism of Driscoll’s writing is a trait that brings the reader into the stories: when reading, you feel as though you are standing on the porch or sitting in the fishing boat, hanging on every word the characters say, as you feel not for them, but with them.”
Chelsea Tadeyeske is the progenitor of a type of anti-aphoristic aphorisms that are at first glance disparate thoughts strung together, but ultimately are deep, cutting, and brilliant interconnected jibes that paralyze and, paradoxically, entice.
The flash fictions in Dan Crawley’s latest collection, Blur, seamlessly go back and forth between his characters’ pasts and presents, between calm and storm.
“Benjamin Niespodziany’s ambitious and engaging new collection of prose poems, Cardboard Clouds, ushers readers into a world of madcap theater and casual danger where the curtain might rise on all manner of weather and monsters and fantastical impossibilities. “
Lynn Levin, accomplished and prolific poet and translator of poetry, has brought her refined aesthetic to House Parties, her debut short fiction collection. As in her poems, she develops characters through distinctive voices and reveals insights by vivid imagery.
In her debut short story collection Earth Angel (CLASH Books, April 2023), Madeline Cash presents sixteen stories that attempt to digest the absurdity and cynicism of late millennials and early zoomers into bite-sized archives of rote human experiences.
The Hyakunin Isshu can be translated as “one hundred poets (or people), one poem.” It is one of the several venerable anthologies of Japanese poetry. The Hyakunin was compiled by Fujiwara no Teika (1162-1241), and the first full-color edition was published in 1775.
