Book Review
The Black Ocean
“Before we are forgotten, we will be turned into kitsch. Kitsch is the stopover between being and oblivion.”—Milan Kundera So begins the opening poem in Brian Barker’s second book, "The Black Ocean", and that epigraph frames the...
Book Review
Environmental Politics and the Creation of a Dream
The Apostle Islands are a breathtaking archipelago of twenty-two islands in Lake Superior, off the northern tip of Wisconsin. Containing white sand beaches, rugged cliffs, and water-carved caves—as well as the last remnants of the...
Book Review
Little Boy Blue
In her eighth book, poet Gray Jacobik plunges readers deep inside the story of a mother looking back on her life with her first-born, a son born when she was still a teen. Written as one poem in twenty-three separate movements, Little...
Book Review
The Homelessness of Self
Susan Terris’ sixth book of poetry, The Homelessness of Self, takes readers deep within the mental landscape of rootlessness. Her lyrical poems obsessively capture being unmoored, in that the poet never touches down long enough for...
Book Review
Putting Down Roots
Walk into a garden and you can find more than tomatoes heavy on the vine, trellises filled with green beans, and rows of flowers meant to please the eye and occasionally the palate. History and culture are planted there. This is the...
Book Review
Casanova in Venice
How exactly did the world-renowned playboy come to be, and what was it that made him tick? Kildare Dobbs’ most recent poetry collection, Casanova in Venice: A Raunchy Rhyme, provides insight into these questions and more as he takes...
Book Review
The Write Start
Jennifer Hallissy’s "The Write Start" is an enthusiastic guide that empowers parents and those who work with children to help young learners develop great writing skills. A pediatric occupational therapist and mother, Hallissy explains...
Book Review
Complete Physical
Canadian physician and writer Shane Neilson immerses readers in the human struggles and surprising joys of being what some term “a healer” in his latest poetry collection, "Complete Physical". Neilson, however, does not believe in...