Book Reviews
OPA seeks to promote poets by featuring independent reviews on our website. Do you have an interest in reviewing a colleague’s book or have someone interested in reviewing your book? Please contact our book review coordinator. See the book review guidelines here.
The epigraph, “I am haunted by waters,” from Norman Maclean’s masterpiece novella, A River Runs through It, prepares readers of Gary Lark’s Daybreak on the Water for a book about fishing and family. As in...
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Callie Comes of Age is a haunting coming-of-age story that could fool you with its lyrical, almost casual language. Prepare your heart. It is full of a staggering anguish. When significant people die, it is...
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In Stealing Flowers from the Neighbors, Portland poet Sherri Levine proves that she understands the Rumi epigram that introduces her book: You have to keep breaking your heart until it opens. The result is a...
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Like the horrific tragedy of 9/11, everyone will remember where they were when Covid19 shut down the globe. In early March 2020, days before nation-wide school closures, I was standing in a room full of...
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22
Jan
2021
Reviewed by Paul Telles This Swarm of Light by Suzanne Sigafoos I-Beam Books (2020), 65 pp $16 ISBN #: 978-1-938928-10-9 Available at: https://shop.spybeambooks.com/product/this-swarm-of-light In her first full-length collection, Portland poet Suzanne Sigafoos delivers on her...
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Reviewed by Paul Telles What She Was Wearing by Shawn Aveningo SandersThe Poetry Box (November 5, 2019), 48 pp, $12ISBN #: 978-1-948461-32-0Available at: https://thepoetrybox.com/bookstore/what-she-was-wearing In What She Was Wearing, Portland poet Shawn Aveningo Sanders bravely...
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The Barbie Diaries by Dale Champlin Just a Lark Books (November 17, 2019), 65 pp $14 ISBN #: 978-1708450267 Available at: [email protected] Is it possible to say anything new about Barbie? Since her introduction in...
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The Leaf by Nancy Christopherson Nancy Christopherson (July 13, 2015), 66 pp $8 ISBN #: 978-0-692-42433-9 Available at: http://www.nancychristophersonpoetry.com/ In her 2015 book, The Leaf, Oregon poet Nancy Christopherson showcases uncommon poems about one of...
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01
May
2020
Bee Dance by Cathy Cain The Poetry Box (June 15, 2019), 87 pp, $16 ISBN #: 978-1948461221 Available at: https://thepoetrybox.com/bookstore/bee-dance In Bee Dance, Portland poet Cathy Cain brings a fresh take to one of...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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EPSON MFP image 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...
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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....
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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...
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Before Dreaming EPSON MFP image 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...
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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...
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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...
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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,...
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