by John Samuel Tieman the words we didn’t say I take a bite of my lunch silence sour and salt This afternoon I sit on my porch, proud of all I’ve won, thinking of my poor days and how, at my age, the middle class doesn’t look as bad from the inside as it does …
by Dawn Potter Today, most of us automatically equate narrative with prose: stories, novels, memoirs, plays, and biographies that depend on skillful narrative control. This is understandable because many successful poems ride on the strength of their word choice, imagery, or cadence rather than their superior character development or plot construction. Nonetheless, as a narrative …
by Jim Danger Coppoc If you want to view paradise Simply look around and view it Anything you want to, do it Want to change the world, there’s nothing to it -Willy Wonka “In this class, and in the literary life in general, there are two rules, and two rules only—one, have something to say; …
Blowout, poems by Denise Duhamel. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press Pitt Poetry Series, 2012. $15.95. Reviewed by CL Bledsoe Duhamel charts the rise and fall and aftermath of a relationship in these poems, from the first real sparks to the warning signs to the realization it’s over, the divorce, and the settling of ashes. Her …
A Mountain City of Toad Splendor, poems and prose by Megan McShea. Baltimore: Publishing Genius Press, 2012. Reviewed by C.L. Bedsoe When I read collections like this, I’m frequently reminded of the excellent poem (and song) “It’s Saturday” by John S. Hall which contains one of my favorite lines: “Sense cannot be made. It must …
reviewed by CL Bledsoe Interstitial by Sean Patrick Hill Buffalo, NY: BlazeVox Books, 2011. BlazeVox poetry collections tend to have three things in common: physically, they tend to be oversized (not necessarily thick, but wide or tall) and very attractive; stylistically, they tend to be experimental (whatever that means – so basically, they don’t usually …
by John Samuel Tieman Dear Ada, Years ago, when I was young, I taught school on the island of Dominica. One day, I read to the students Alan Dugan’s “Love Song: I And Thou”. Immediately after class, a student asked me to recite the ending of the poem for him — I can nail my …
reviewed by CL Bledsoe The Switching/Yard, poems by Jan Beatty. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2013. Anyone who’s ever ridden on a train has found himself staring out the window and wondering at what he saw. The landscape, the towns we pass, the people; all evoke stories. In her most recent collection, Beatty has written …