MadBooks is an imprint of Carlow University’s Madwomen in the Attic Program. The brainchild of Professor Jan Beatty, head of Carlow’s writing program and instructor of several Madwomen in the Attic courses (for non-matriculated students) during the regular school year, MadBooks has now published eight collections of poetry, the first in 2008, the most recent …
Windows & Stones: Poems by Tomas Tranströmer translations from the Swedish by May Swenson and Leif Sjöberg Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1972; reprint, 2011 Tomas Tranströmer, with his reception of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2011, has gained something close to celebrity status in Europe and even the United States in the sense …
Martha Collins is the author of several poetry collections, including White Papers recently released from the University of Pittsburgh Press and the book-length poem Blue Front, winner of the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award and chosen as one of “25 Books to Remember from 2006” by the New York Public Library. Her other awards include fellowships from …
The Human Line by Ellen Bass Copper Canyon Press 2007 In this powerful collection of poetry, Ellen Bass invites the reader to participate in a reawakening of sentience, a renewal of seraphic credentials. How often we hear religious leaders deal in perfunctory, enigmatic, clandestine phrases and homilies that carry very little meaning, if any, for …
The Water Books: Poems Judith Vollmer Pittsburgh: Autumn House Press 2012 Sometimes it’s hard to know how to introduce a poet, or even a review of her book. Where do you start? The first poem in the volume, the biography of the poet who wrote it? Most of the time, I would consider the book …
Geoffrey Hill is one of those names in contemporary English-language poetry that passes our lips without thinking when we consider our current poetry that has ample roots in historical forms and scholarship. He is one of those rare poets today who, whether we like him or not, read him or not, is carrying forth not …
My talented and savvy cousin Bob says I ought to think about my brand. He’s an artist and artisan, and part of his business (Fahrenheit.com) is rebranding companies. He suggests “That New York poet.” It’s too hard to think about defining myself, performing myself, so instead I start thinking about women with instantly recognizable brands: …
One of the mysteries of marriage is watching Phoebe revise. I’ve seen her take a thirty page draft and just throw the whole thing out. All of it. And start over. The ideas are all there and greatly clarified. But the words she throws out. What she keeps is the clarity of thought. For my …