Image Credit: Pietra Schwarzler via Unsplash Emma, by Gabriel Oladipo, is a series of voice poems from the perspective of a teenage girl, Emma. She is addressing those who are close to her, in a sort of confessional. Whether she’s actually telling them, or this is a journal is unclear. The poem, “White Teeth,”…
This Week, I Read Greg Santos’s Ghost Face
Image Credit: Steinar Engleland via Unsplash “If I ever visit Cambodia,/I wonder what it will be like/ to be met with smiling faces that look like mine?” the speaker in Greg Santos’s collection, Ghost Face asks. “Will I feel at home/ or utterly alone?” Ghost Face is about how the speaker fits in to his…
This Week, I Read Elisabeth Horan’s Self-Portrait
Image Credit: Alessandra Zani via Unsplash Self-Portrait is a collection of ekphrastic and biographical poems on Frida Kahlo’s work and life, written by Elisabeth Horan. Each of the poems is based on a painting by Kahlo, and they are arranged chronologically. While it is based on Kahlo’s life, this is a fictional representation. The tone…
This Week, I Read Lindsay Lusby’s Catechesis
Image Credit: Evie Schaffer via Unsplash “A girl has two choices:/ to be a tree or/ to be the forest,” the speaker declares in Lindsay Lusby’s collection of – poems, Catechesis, a Postpastoral. The collection is a stunning pastiche, interwoven with references to Grimm’s Fairytales, Silence of the Lambs, anatomical drawings from Grey’s Anatomy, and…
This Week, I Read Vanessa Maki’s Haunted Mind
Image Credit: MontyLov via Unsplash *Content Warning: The book reviewed contains discussion of suicidal thoughts and self-harm.* For the record, I will always promote books which discuss taboo subjects in a way that is meaningful and seeks to shed light on those subjects. Haunted Mind is one such book. “i’m your//devourer / your chaos /…
This Week, I Read Kathryn Gossow’s The Dark Poet
Image Credit: Annie Spratt via Unsplash Most of the time, people misuse the word “seems.” They mean that something looks a certain way, when they mean to say that it definitely looks the way that they’ve described. “Seem” should be used when something looks a certain way, but lurking beneath its surface, it’s actually another…
This Week, I Read Catherine Garbinsky’s Even Curses End
Image Credit: freestocks.org via Unsplash “I did not belong in the village/ where people would point and laugh,” the speaker in Catherine Garbinsky’s fairytale themed poetry collection, Even Curses End. “They did not see my robin’s egg heart/only the crooked branches of my body.” The pieces in this book tend to flip the narrative, telling…
This Week, I Read Alison Jones’s Heartwood
Image Credit: Micah Hallahan via Unsplash “Failing is fine, the best part of the heartwood is where you are going, with dead friends, passing through like falling mist,” the speaker assures the reader in Alison Jones’s chapbook, titled Heartwood. The heartwood is the innermost part of a tree, which yields the hardest timber. In the…
This Week, I Read Mela Blust’s Skeleton Parade
Image Credit: Andrés Gómez via Unsplash “As children// we are /terrified of the monsters/under our beds//and as adults,/we willingly lie//beside them,” the speaker says in Mela Blust’s debut collection of poems, entitled Skeleton Parade. Skeleton Parade is a goth chic collection of poems about sexual abuse, the accompanying anguish, healing, and empowerment. Blust’s ability to…
This Week, I Read V.C. McCabe’s Give the Bard a Tetanus Shot
Image Credit: Justin Campbell via Unsplash “New York City poets see their muse’s reflection/in the shiny glass of towering skyscrapers,” the speaker in V.C. McCabe’s Appalachian Gothic collection of poems, entitled, Give the Bard a Tetanus Shot. “While here I sit in Appalachia—the point where/the Bible Belt’s buckle ever tightens the Rust Belt—/surrounded by nothing…
This Week, I Read... 