Image Credit: Margarita Zueva “I line each bone of my spine against the bed, press my hands, damp with anticipation, against the bed// and wonder how long it will take me to die,” the speaker says in Jennifer LeBlanc’s collection of poems, Descent. Descent is a lush, gorgeous collection that delves into the Eleusinian Mysteries and the…
Author: Jessica Drake-Thomas
I am a poet, fiction writer, and blogger. I have degrees from Tulane University, Emerson College, and the University of Arizona. I am the author of a chapbook, Possession (dancing girl press).
This Week, I Read Claire L. Smith: Helena
Image Credit:Marko Blažević via Unsplash “This is a gift, Helena, not a curse. You can help them,” Minerva said.“I’m afraid of them,” Helena replied, blunt as a butcher’s knife.“And they sense that, and they think they can take your place,” Minerva replied, matching Helena’s tone. Helena is Claire L. Smith’s debut novella about a Victorian-Era…
This Week, I Read C.T. Salazar: Forty Stitches Sewing a Body Against a Ramshackle Night
Image Credit: Kim Giseok via Unsplash “You opened a suitcase full of leaves on my bare feet,” the speaker says in C.T. Salazar’s chapbook of poems, Forty Stitches Sewing a Body Against a Ramshackle Night. The poems are short sketches–no more than two or three lines composing brief sentences. Each one contains aperfectly distilled moment…
This Week, I Read Zoë Luh: [and time erodes like thunder]
Image Credit: Max La Rochelle via Unsplash Content Warning: The book reviewed here contains sexual assault, death, and medical violence. “i find home in cavities/in that darkness and space in between/learn to hold my tongue,” the speaker says in Zoë Luh’s debut collection of poems, [and time erodes like thunder]. The pieces in this book…
This Week, I Read Eleni Cay: Love Virus
Image Credit: Tyler Nix via Unsplash “Is it you, Rooster, who ignites these love particles? So tell me then, why him and me? If the love virus can attack anyone, anytime, why did it attack us?” the speaker says in Eleni Cay’s novel-in-verse, Love Virus. The book is a stream of consciousness–there are several different…
This Week, I Read Preston Smith: Red Rover, Red Lover
Image Credit: Duncan Kidd via Unsplash “You & I—precarious pronouns/that I will never tire of using,” the speaker says in Preston Smith’s chapbook, Red Rover, Red Lover. This book is packed with dreamy, enchanting love poems with the perfect dash of mythology. In the poem, “A God of Oracles and Light,” the speaker says: “I…
This Week, I Read Jason Crawford: Summertime Fine
Image Credit: Brooke Lark via Unsplash “I learned how to say my father’s name from his mother,” the speaker says in Jason Crawford’s new chapbook of poetry, Summertime Fine. “She held the R in the pit of her jaw like a neck bone BeRnard and if that don’t speak love into the frying pan, then…
This Week I Read Paul Robert Mullen: disintegration
Image credit: Brigitta Schneiter via Unsplash “as months shift/like blackbirds preparing broods in colour/you will see yourself in teardrops,” the speaker says in Paul Robert Mullen’s new chapbook, disintegration. disintegration is a dreamy, spellbinding collection of poems which are meditations on change and loss. In the poem, “after school,” the speaker says, “we laughed about…
This Week I Read Matthew Haigh: Death Magazine
Image Credit: Jonathan Ybema via Unsplash “I will say my skull is a gleamy sheet of metal. It’s pretty and sheer. Your body smells so good, like the air. I’m really into the good stuff all over your heart,” the speaker says in Matthew Haigh’s collection of poems, Death Magazine. The book is set up…
This Week I Read Kay Chronister: Thin Places
Image Credit: freestocks via Unsplash “Things happen in thin places that can’t happen anywhere else, but they are never safe from getting lost between clay and mist. They are always in-between,” the Widow Clary says in the title story of Kay Chronister’s collection of short stories, Thin Places. The collection does some really intriguing things…
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