Jesse DeLong’s Poetic Chemical Reaction: A Review of The Amateur Scientist’s Notebook
by DEREK WITTEN Jesse DeLong, The Amateur Scientist’s Notebook (Baobab Press, 2021). Anyone who has vaguely intuited an unknown poetic language behind terms like electroweak, phosphorous, chlorofluorocarbons—or even behind the law of gravity– will find a skillful interpreter in Jesse DeLong. …
by MINDY BUCHANAN-KING Nikki Wallschlaeger, Waterbaby (Copper Canyon Press, 2021). Reading Nikki Wallschlaeger’s third collection of writing is an immersive experience. The title, Waterbaby, elicits a sense of submersion, and the theme of water winds and slips between the …
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 JAMIE WATSON Billy-Ray Belcourt, A History of My Brief Body (Two Dollar Radio, 2020), pp. 142. What does it mean to have a brief body, to wonder when one will truly feel here, now? How much history can …
by HANNAH ROBERTS Kaveh Akbar, Pilgrim Bell (Graywolf Press, 2021), pp. 80. “Regarding loss, I’m / afraid / to keep it in the story, / worried what I might bring back to life,” Akbar admits in “Soot,” the opening …
by SARAH LOFSTROM Katharine Coldiron, Ceremonials (Kernpunkt Press, 2020), pp. 134. A novella inspired by the 2011 Florence + the Machine album of the same name, Ceremonials is an ethereal dreamscape of a text. It embodies sensuous transformation in its … Read more 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 Waterbaby: A Review
Breath Like the Wind at Dawn: A Review
Seeking Utopia: Queer and First Nations Embodiment in Billy-Ray Belcourt’s A History of My Brief Body: A Review
“Ask me again / about my doubt”: A Review of Kaveh Akbar’s Pilgrim Bell
Ceremonials: A Review
Last Loosening: A Review
Guillotine: A Review
Flourish: A Review
Rue: A Review