Book Review
Amber Revolution
For all its authentic, artisanal, true-to-the-earth talk, today’s wine industry is high tech, and the science-driven approach to quality in the vineyards and wineries around the world has surely made these the glory days for wine...
Book Review
Crude Angel
Angels, however crude, fear a few places, according to E. M. Foster, but the same cannot be said of poets. Boundlessly curious, no subject is off limits for bards like Suzanne Cleary to tread. New Yorker Cleary earned her Pushcart Prize...
Book Review
All We Know of Pleasure
All anthologists should be so lucky: “Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to gather the best erotic work by top female poets.” Off Enid Shomer went, wherever the trail led—to poems by Denise Levertov, Sharon Olds,...
Book Review
American Radiance
Luisa Muradyan comes to America from Ukraine as a child. She grows up to study poetry at the doctorate level; meanwhile, her poems are published in Paris-American, Blackbird, Los Angeles Review, and Poetry International, among other...
Book Review
In Country
In the Iraq edition of wartime for American soldiers, fear of being blown to pieces by hidden explosives frequently loses out to the wiliest enemy of all—boredom. This is the wartime footing—six years in an M1A1 Abrams tank—that...
Book Review
Wobble
With carefully planned havoc, Rae Armantrout takes a page from the jesters of old—mocking the universe’s solidity without fear of retribution. Her talent will protect her. Recently longlisted for the National Book Award, she is the...
Book Review
Footnotes
Ah, footnotes. Nothing endearing or sexy about them—unless you’re such a geek of letters, language, history, and research that you’ve developed a fetish for their unique supporting role. But the humble footnote also knows how to...
Book Review
Humdinger
Brush, charcoal, chisel, file, lathe, and potter’s wheel, yes, but what is it about artists’ tools like the chainsaw and welding torch that fail to impress so many art lovers and critics—as if real art can’t possibly come from...