first published in misfitmagazine.net James Duncan, Cistern Latitudes, Roadside Press, Distributed by Magical Jeep, also available on Amazon, 2024, 84 pages, $15 Duncan’s narratives often put me in mind of late 50s, early 60s cafés featuring traditional folk singers. These were usually solo acts playing acoustic guitar with artists singing traditional ballads and the occasional original song. …
Tag: review
Jun 23
JD Monroe reviews THE DEAD AND THE DESPERATE by Dan Denton
first published at https://www.i94bar.com/reviews/books/3126-disaffected-dan-denton-must-be-your-new-fave-author Disaffected? Dan Denton must be your new fave author The Dead and The Desperate By Dan Denton (Roadside Press) Way back in the New Wave/Post punk era, one of my only friends was a kid with a very similar name to mine. He was really into Depeche Mode and Tubeway Army, and he had a real …
Jun 22
Alan Catlin reviews INNOCENT POSTCARDS by John Pietaro
first published at misfitmagazine.net John Pietaro, Innocent Postcards: poetry ciphers, verse, Roadside Press, distributed by Magical Jeep, also available on Amazon, 2024, 87 pages, $15 Moving back and forth throughout the Cold War years to the present, Pietaro’s unusual but affecting collection effectively renders a state of mind that was dominated by Cold War politics. I …
Jun 21
Alan Caltin reviews DISPOSABLE DARLINGS by Todd Cirillo
first published in misfitmagazine.net Todd Cirillo, Disposable Darlings, Roadside Press, distributed by Magical Jeep Distribution and available on Amazon, 2024, 84 pages, $15 Reading Cirillo put me in mind of working in the neighborhood bar and hanging out with the regulars. When I dedicate a book, as I often have, “to the regulars as they made life …
Jun 20
Alan Catlin reviews ALL IN A PRETTY LITTLE ROW by Dan Provost
first published in misfitmagazine.net Dan Provost, All in a Pretty Little Row, Roadside Press, Magical Jeep Distribution, available on Amazon, 196 pages, 2023, $15 All in a Pretty Little Row, collects ten of Provost’s chapbooks published over the past 20 years. Some of these are rarely seen, extremely limited editions, so this recent trend by prolific poets to …
Jun 09
“A Circle Amuses Itself”: A Review of Gregory Corso: Ten Times a Poet by R. M. Corbin
“… he clarified his intention, which was “beat” as beatific, as in “dark night of the soul,” or “cloud of unknowing,” the necessary beatness of darkness that proceeds opening up to light, egolessness, giving room for religious illumination.”—Allen Ginsberg In some ways, Gregory Corso represented a darkness within a darkness: a beat within the Beat. …
May 24
Susan Ward Mickelberry reviews: These Many Cold Winters of the Heart by Ryan Quinn Flanagan
Ryan Quinn Flanagan’s These Many Cold Winters of the Heart begins with an epigraph from Emily Dickinson “I am out with lanterns looking for myself,” a perfect depiction of this collection. You will be riveted from the opening poem, “I Grew Up in a Brewery Town,” where the Molson plant closes down but “people survived, they usually …
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! …
