At the Waterline by Brian K. Friesen Ooligan Press, 2017 $16.95 Inspired by his firsthand experiences while working on the Columbia River, Brian K. Friesen’s debut novel, At the Waterline, is a reflective, multi-faceted story. The book follows Chad, a man with a penchant for the water, through his mission to find himself after his tragic …
Often, we’ll talk about the ear of a poem—its aurality, how the poem sounds. We talk about alliteration and rhyme and the elusive “flow” of the poem and figure out that poems are about how they sound in our ear as listeners. And why not? We go to poetry readings, sit in the audience, pay …
I Don’t Think of You (Until I Do) by Tatiana Ryckman Future Tense Books, 2017 $12.00 I Don’t Think of You (Until I Do) by Tatiana Ryckman is a poetic novella about love, heartbreak, and distance. Over a short but powerful 110 pages, Ryckman details a gender ambiguous narrator’s struggles in a long-distance relationship. Striking …
All the News I Need by Joan Frank UMass Press, 2017 $19.95 The fear of aging is a common concern; our society stresses over it and the media highlights it as a negative process. Finding wrinkles and gray hair is a disastrous discovery, and there is always the worry of becoming too static. This cycle of …
Mark Doty’s “Broadway” begins with this opening: “Under Grand Central’s tattered vault / —maybe half a dozen electric stars still lit— / one saxophone blew….” It’s an opening that places us, and highlights the constellations on the ceiling of Grand Central’s main terminal. A page later into the poem we are told “The rooftops were …
A Moral Tale, and Other Moral Tales by Josh Emmons Dzanc Books, 2017 $16.95 Josh Emmons’s first collection of short stories follows a man, a woman, an artist, a tiger, an egg, and more through a menagerie of tales consisting of both brand new concepts and classic fables rethought with refreshing imagination. A Moral Tale, and …
The Dog Looks Happy Upside Down by Meg Pokrass Etruscan Press, 2017 $15.00 One can only hope that their book review could be as concise and affecting as one of Meg Pokrass’s stories in her collection, The Dog Looks Happy Upside Down. Sporting fifty raw and honest vignettes, this text beckons the reader into explicit …
The Bowl with Gold Seams by Ellen Prentiss Campbell Apprentice House Press, 2016 $16.99 Ellen Prentiss Campbell’s debut novel, The Bowl with Gold Seams, is a touching work of historical fiction which focuses on themes of acceptance, love, and overcoming tragedy. Campbell tells the story of the Bedford Springs Hotel in Pennsylvania that served as a …