Book Reviews

Mortality with Pronoun Shifts by Don Colburn Winner of the 2018 Cathy Smith Bowers Chapbook Contest Main Street Rag Publishing Company, 2019, 40 pages, $12 ISBN: 978-1-59948-732-8 Available at https://mainstreetragbookstore.com Mortality. It’s a mighty word that has the potential to haunt each of us on our walk through life, forcing us to face the inevitable. […]

In These Voices by Sherri Levine The Poetry Box (August 29, 2018), 42 pp $12 ISBN #: 978-1948461115 Available at: https://thepoetrybox.com/bookstore/in-these-voices True to its title, Sherri Levine’s In These Voices deftly explores personae ranging from a squirrel to an English teacher to ruminating lovers and parents. Throughout this collection of 22 short poems, Levine employs

The Rhythm of It, Poetry’s Hidden Dance by Anita Sullivan Shanti Arts Publishing, 2019, 118 pages, $14.95 ISBN: 978-1-951651-03-9 (softcover) Available at http://shantiarts.com Author web site: https://www.anitasullivan.org The Rhythm of It, Poetry’s Hidden Dance by Anita Sullivan is a collection of essays brimming with ideas that accompany the author’s mindful and body-movement exploration of poetry.

Improbable Press, 2019, 110 pages   $20 ISBN 9781088457542 Available at – www.amazon.com Fluidity is the word that came to mind as I read Charles Castle’s latest collection of poems. Divided into seven sections, Chasing Down the Storm does indeed chase a panorama of personal pathos and characters that utilize a bridge between nature and the

Uttered Chaos, Laura LeHew ISBN# 978-0-9889366-6-9 2016, 35 pp., $10.00 www.utteredchaos.org In And if the Dead Do Dream, Anita Sullivan draws the reader into her personal realm: her house, her walks in the woods, her family. She answers “Where Did You Grow Up?” and signs her “Dear Baobab” letter “Love, Anita.” Fully two-thirds of the

Uttered Chaos Press, 2018, 80 pages, $19 ISBN 978-0-9998334-1-4 https://www.utteredchaos.org As I often do when I start a book of poetry, I opened Judith Montgomery’s Litany for Wound and Bloom at random and dove in. The poems are startling and beautiful, standing on their own even without the arc of the arrangement, though that had

Self-published book, 2018, 53 pages, $12.00 ISBN 978-1724418180 Available on Amazon and Barnes and Noble To write 21st century poems in the manner of 20th century English translations of Chinese poems by Ezra Pound or Gary Snyder may seem an affectation  ­– I use this word knowing that I, too, write this way. In Doug

Before Dreaming by Arn Strasser   Budding Branch Books, an imprint of Asher & Merriman Publishers ISBN# 978-0-9841874-1-6 2015, 89 pp., $19.95 www.buddingbranchbooks.com   Before Dreaming almost is correct; Between Dreaming would be accurate. Arn Strasser’s collection investigates the interaction between the dream state and wakefulness. He approaches the enigma of the dream world with

Uttered Chaos, 2015, 74 pages, $10   ISBN 978-0988936645   Available via Amazon   Mrs. Schrödinger’s Breast is one of the most complex and carefully layered collections of poetry that most of us will ever read. I wondered, when I saw the title, whether this was a feminist restatement of Woody Allen being chased over

ISBN-13 978-0-9980999-4-1 The Poetry Box 2017, 73 pp, $12.00 On her web site, www.triciaknoll.com, Tricia Knoll speaks of herself in the third person. She is a tree hugging . . . Master Gardener who routinely talks to crows who ignore her. She also calls herself an eco-poet. In the opening line of “The Klickitats,” the first