Image Credit: Taylor@xoutcastx In To Feed My Woodland Bones, Kate Garrett defines a changeling as “a strange, ugly child/left in exchange for/a beautiful, wanted child.” Typically, the changeling is a fairy, who has been left in the place of a child. The stolen child has been taken to fairy, where he or she remains, forever….
This Week, I Read The Very Best of Caitlín R. Kiernan
Image Credit: Andre Benz This week, I read The Very Best of Caitlín R. Kiernan, a collection of Kiernan’s best short stories. This collection is deeply impressive. After each story, I had to stop, so I could fully appreciate the spell that each one cast over me. What surprises me the most is how I…
This Week, I Read Benjamin Cutler’s The Geese Who Would Be Gods
The poems in this collection are well-crafted, thoughtful pieces which combine the contemporary with the mythological in pursuit of finding meaning in a world where technology has become a god of its own.
This Week, I Read Robert Frede Kenter’s An Audacity of Form
Image Credit: Gabriele Diwald “the shattered rattling windows never change; not since the flood despite the possibility – it is no anomaly here, the pelting rain dictating typewriter fingers.” This is my favorite line from An Audacity of Form by Robert Frede Kenter, a book of poems, with accompanying photographs by Julia Skop. It evokes…
This Week, I Read Marisa Crane’s Our Debatable Bodies
Image Credit: Sharon McCutcheon This week, I read Marisa Crane’s Our Debatable Bodies. As the title suggests, this collection has a lot to do with societal perception of the physical body, particularly for women who love other women, and women who don’t conform to gender norms. The book is also about how the world is…
This Week, I Read Kristin Garth, Tianna G. Hansen, and Justin Karcher’s A Victorian Dollhousing Ceremony
Image Credit: David Hofmann This week, I read A Victorian Dollhousing Ceremony by Kristin Garth, Tianna G. Hansen, and Justin Karcher. This is a dark fantasy, comprised of poems which fit together to form an operatic narrative collection, told in three voices: the Wizard, the Doll, and the Firebird. The Doll and the Firebird are…
This Week, I Read Elisabeth Horan’s Odd list Odd house Odd me
This week, I read Elisabeth Horan’s Odd list Odd house Odd me: Poems for Emily. These are not “after” poems, but rather a one-way correspondence from a poet to a kindred soul. There are references to Emily Dickinson’s work, but nothing that tries to be Dickinson. These are utterly from Horan’s own voice and perspective,…
This Week, I Read Bola Opaleke’s Skeleton Of A Ruined Song
Image Credit: Mike Labrum This week, I read Skeleton Of A Ruined Song, a collection of poems by Bola Opaleke. The poems in this book are well-crafted and eloquent pieces, which document the experience of living in violence, and seeking refuge in other countries. The voice is what really drives this collection. It’s like the…
This Week, I Read…Beth Gordon’s Morning Walk with Dead Possum, Breakfast and Parallel Universe
Image credit: João Marcelo Martins This week, I read Beth Gordon’s collection of poems, Morning Walk with Dead Possum, Breakfast and Parallel Universe. The book begins with the piece, “I’m Inventing a New Language,” a prose poem which sets the quirky, otherworld tone for the collection. The speaker says “I’m as close/ to zero as…
This Week, I Read…Elisabeth Horan’s Bad Mommy, Stay Mommy
Image Credit: Sharon McCutcheon Elisabeth Horan’s chapbook, Bad Mommy, Stay Mommy is a raw soliloquy from the perspective of a woman struggling with post-partum depression after the birth of her second child. Mental illness is an attack from the inside and this book is a look into the core of that struggle. The speaker is…
This Week, I Read... 