Parallel Lives Every city has one, a block God forgot, some unofficial war zone, demilitarized, but alive and active with all the usual suspects cops roust on periodic missions to clean up after some particularly rowdy disturbance, something so embarrassing, around election day, even the mayor is moved to act. After the votes have been …
Tag: poetry
Apr 20
Review by Alan Catlin: How to Play House by Heather Dorn
Heather Dorn, How to Play House, Roadside Press, 2023, 116 pages $15 “Heather Dorn is a real mom with real life issues. She’s more Journal of a Mad Housewife than Kate Middleton, though she’s not a stuck at home mom going crazy with her kids but a PhD in English Literature who teaches at the …
Apr 17
Excerpt from Unknowable Things by Kerry Trautman
Because, Brian I liked you at first, because your dad fixed a flat on my mom’s Pontiac in his robe, and because of your black jelly bean eyes and big-toothed laugh, and because you almost almost rubbed my thigh. But I bought off-the-shoulder homecoming velvet for someone else, because of your seaweed smell, because of …
Apr 16
Excerpt from Abandoned By All Things by Karl Koweski
abandoned by all things my brother phones late at night, he’s been drinking again, asking if I might write a few poetic lines in honor of our dead father so Richie G can temporarily immortalize the words on his forearm below the half-finished angel, a tribute to a dad he vaguely remembers from his early …
Apr 14
Review by Lori Howe: Ain’t These Sorrows Sweet by Lauren Scharhag
In Ain’t These Sorrows Sweet, Lauren Scharhag invites readers into her hand, lifts us across space and time, and offers us the nourishment of memory cached in beans and light, in tomatoes and rosaries and barbacoa. She illuminates the crossroads of time and history and inheritance as they culminate in our own mouths and are …
Apr 10
Review by Linnet Phoenix: Ain’t These Sorrows Sweet by Lauren Scharhag
Today, I finished reading Ain’t These Sorrows Sweet and what a journey we have been on, through dark places, wonderfully described: “Burned out encampments in railroad yards give no scent of myrrh.” This book contains beautiful, heart-wrenching narrative poems which it has been a tearstained pleasure to read. I realised that the book was a …
Apr 03
Review by Anthony Mangos: INNOCENT POSTCARDS by John Pietaro
‘Innocent Postcards’: Progressive poetry reflects 20th-century politics and culture by Anthony Mangos, People’s World Author-poet-musician John Pietaro has been a constant, positive force in the ongoing progressive culture of New York City. Hailing from Brooklyn, Pietaro’s passions are equal parts literature, music, workers’ rights, and social activism. He founded the Dissident Arts and Brecht Lives! …
Mar 26
review by Mala Rai: These Are the People in Your Neighbourhood by Jordan Trethewey
review of THESE ARE THE PEOPLE IN YOUR NEIGHBOURHOOD by Jordan Trethewey, originally published in Miramichi Reader at https://miramichireader.ca/2024/03/these-are-the-people-in-your-neighbourhood-by-jordan-trethewey/ These Are the People In Your Neighbourhood by Jordan Trethewey March 25, 2024 by Mala Rai Jordan Trethewey’s tribute to the people of Fredericton, a city I have never been to, travelled nearly 5400km westward for a curious …
Mar 24
Gregory Corso: Ten Times a Poet
The much-anticipated Corso book can now be ordered at https://www.magicaljeep.com/product/corso/165 or https://www.amazon.com/Gregory-Corso-Ten-Times-Poet/dp/B0D32HHZDH/ GREGORY CORSO: TEN TIMES A POET (Roadside Press, 2024) Cover Art by Jonathan Collins. Compiled & Edited by Leon Horton. Co-Editor: Michele McDannold. Contributions by Raymond Foye, Kurt Hemmer, Gregory Stephenson, Ryan Mathews, Jay Jeff Jones, Westley Heine, A. Robert Lee, Ed Sanders, …