Book Reviews

Painted Thrush Press, 2015, 65 pages, $12 ISBN 978-1508484356 Available via Amazon at https://www.amazon.com/Cascade-Siskiyou-Poems-Pepper-Trail/dp/150848435X The Siskiyou Mountains of southern Oregon and northern California are what writers of stories of the west, both historic and fictional, call “rough country.” It is in fact about as rough as anyone might ask for in the lower 48 states, […]

Riddle, Fish Hook, Thorn, Key by Kelly Terwilliger Airlie Press, Portland, OR ISBN-13 978-0989579964 2017, 79 pp., $16.00 Reviewed by Anita Sullivan When you pick up a copy of this remarkable book, stop! Look at the cover – really look at it. Across the bottom rests a narrow strip of seashore in vivid blues, whites and

No Acute Distress by Jennifer Richter Southern Illinois University Press ISBN-13 #978-0809334827 2016, 67 pp, $15.95 Author website: www.jenniferrichterpoet.com Reviewed by Tiah Lindner Raphael From Disease to Ease: Transforming Pain into Resilience Jennifer Richter’s second full-length collection, No Acute Distress, was published in 2016 by Southern Illinois University Press as part of the Crab Orchard Series in

Everything is Shining By Jan David Madsen Lulu, 2016, 66 pages, $15 ISBN 978-1329812314 Available at https://www.lulu.com/ Author website: https://zestymumbles.com/ Reviewed by Emily Pittman Newberry When Carolyn Martin sent out a call for poets to write reviews of books, I scanned the list of books on the OPA website and was drawn to Everything is

Here From Somewhere Else by Judith Arcana Left Fork Press, 2015, 26 pages, $10 ISBN 978-0692589526 Available at https://leftfork.org/books/ Reviewed by Tricia Knoll Judith Arcana’s chapbook Here From Somewhere Else was a perfect choice for the Turtle Island Quarterly’s 2015 Editor’s Prize. The press focuses on deepening connections to the natural world. The eighteen poems in the collection

Setting the Fires by Darlene Pagán Airlie Press, 2015, $15.00 Reviewed by Carolyn Martin When Randall Jarrell defined a poet as someone “who manages, in a lifetime of standing out in thunderstorms, to be struck by lightning five or six times,” he could have been describing Darlene Pagán. In Setting the Fires, lightning strikes this

Nice and Loud by Lois Rosen Tebot Bach, 2015, $16.00 Reviewed by Susan Clayton Goldner Nice and Loud, a collection of beautifully crafted poetry by Lois Rosen, is authentic and yet tender. It is intimate, unselfconscious and introspective. Her story takes the reader into the world of a young Jewish girl growing up in a cramped,

a question of mortality by Susan Clayton Goldner Wellstone Press 2014 $15.00 Reviewed by Lois Rosen I first had the joy of meeting Susan Clayton-Goldner at a novel-writing workshop led by Marjorie Reynolds in Portland, Oregon years ago. Susan shone as an astute critic and author of family-centered mystery novels. She’s published three: Finding a Way

Avenida Uriburu by Michael Hanner Chandelier Galaxy Books, 2015 Available on Amazon.com for $6.00 plus s & h Reviewed by Sara Burant Perhaps not coincidentally I was reading Avenida Uriburu on a train. It was raining steadily. Outside, shapes and colors ran together. I forgot where I was then remembered a jacket I wore as

Reviewed by Carolyn Martin Ocean’s Laughter by Tricia Knoll Kelsay Books, Aldrich Press Hemet, California ISBN: 13: 978-0692541852 2016, $17.00, 102 pages (on Amazon) triciaknoll.com twitter:@ triciaknollwind Those who know and love the Oregon Coast will experience a delightful shock of recognition while reading Tricia Knoll’s Ocean’s Laughter. This rich and varied collection about Manzanita