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first published in Barrelhouse mag https://www.barrelhousemag.com/blog/mcconnell-currentdisasters-waite Reviewed by David Waite Roadside Press / May 2025 / 100 pp In Jen McConnell’s Current Disasters, the absurd looms just as large as dread or joy or understanding. The twenty stories, some medium-sized and some only a paragraph, often have a shattering absurdity, but equally often, they offer …

“I am thankful for a poet who can thrust the worry, the guilt and too much caring out—and let in some sun, new air, some frank clarity through the sealed-up windows we use to protect ourselves. Be generous to yourself as a reader and add these poems into your day, your life, too.”—Ellen Stone Read …

It begins: “One of the bright spots of small press publishing during the decade of the 2020s has been Roadside Press and its consistently impressive offerings. While in the Introduction to Roadside Assistance the editors insist that the anthology is not meant as a “best of” or “greatest hits” collection, the prose and poetry pieces included in …

This podcast is an extension of WNIJ’s Poetically Yours weekly segment. Richard Vargas is featured in this segment. Vargas’s Rockford-inspired poetry collection, “The Screw City Poems,” was released on July 11. In this episode, he talks about his writing style, his early years in Compton, California, and what led him to Rockford. TO LISTEN, VISIT: …