by MATTHEW POTTS Devin Jacobsen, Breath Like the Wind at Dawn (Sagging Meniscus Press, 2020), pp. 208. Scary stories are probably about as ancient to human culture as campfires, but there’s a special sort of monster that lurks in the …

by ELLIE RAMBO Walter Serner, Last Loosening: a handbook for the con artist & those aspiring to become one (Twisted Spoon Press, 2020), pp. 189. The “Last Number” from Walter Serner’s Last Loosening, recently translated from German by Mark Kanak, … Read more

by MEGAN SWARTZFAGER Eduardo C. Corral, Guillotine (Graywolf, 2020), pp. 72. “Welcome / to la cagada,”– or, “the shit”– one undocumented immigrant trekking through unforgiving desert tells himself in award-winning poet Eduardo C. Corral’s second and latest collection of poetry, … Read more

by DEBORAH BACHARACH Dora Malech, Flourish (Carnegie Mellon University Press, 2020), pp. 91 Dora Malech’s fourth collection, Flourish, uncannily mixes dark themes with playful language. The darkness can be found on the road the speaker travels en route to a wedding in … Read more

by JULIA EDWARDS Kathryn Nuernberger, Rue (BOA Editions, 2020), pp. 104. In an online reading series via Green Mountains Review, Kathryn Nuernberger declares that the closing poem in her new book Rue, “The Real Thing,” is “the closest thing a … Read more

by DEBORAH BACHARACH Pamela Sneed, Funeral Diva (City Lights Books, 2020), p. 148. Pamela Sneed is a Black lesbian scholar, activist, poet, historian, and professor, and she brings all this expertise to Funeral Diva, her new cross-genre book. The first two … Read more

by JESSICA CORY Natalie Diaz, Postcolonial Love Poem (Graywolf Press, 2020). pp. 120 pages.  “My brother has a knife in his hand. / He has decided to stab my father,” read the opening lines of the collection’s second poem, “Blood-Light.” … Read more