Laura DiNovis Berry
Bio
Welcome! I provide free book reviews for modern poets! At the end of the year, 10% of all earnings and donations will be given to a non profit organization. This year you will all be helping Lambda Literary! Thank you!
Twitter: @poetryberry
Stories (70/0)
Jennifer O'Grady Explores the Limits of Human Life
On the whole, Jennifer O'Grady's 2017 collection Exclusions and Limitations, published through Madhat Press, is built upon solid (or what could called staid) poetry, and yet, there are glittering sections of language dispersed throughout the pieces like glass shattered atop a sidewalk. O'Grady's collection follows the pattern of many poetry books as it is dissected into three movements. It must be noted that she does a lovely job at alternating between poetic forms in order to keep her readers interested in the text. "Fireflies," for example, flits about in a delightful, airy manner across the page. Its lines simulate the delicate movements of those tenderly illuminated travelers the speaker ruminates on.
By Laura DiNovis Berry5 years ago in Poets
Wight Creates a Garden for the End of the World
Philadelphia poet Anne-Adele Wight's 2016 collectionThe Age of Greenhouses is very much like its cover: eye-catching and weird. Its subject matter, which is human kind's raging destruction of the environment, is clearly dear to Wight's heart; however, as Florence Welch of Florence and the Machine sings, "...the heart is hard to translate. It has a language of its own." Wight's powerful conviction is not diluted in her pages, but at times the ultimate goal of her mission, to protect the planet, becomes hard to understand. Poetry is an excellent mode for an individual wishing to convey the intense passions they are feeling within the core of their being, but the initial explosion of word upon paper can lead to confusion. The manner in which Wight constructs her poetry is as if they are written in code. This makes many of them difficult for readers to decipher.
By Laura DiNovis Berry5 years ago in Poets
Snyder Embarks on a Poetic Journey
Sarah Dickenson Snyder is no stranger to the world of verse or, as it turns out, the greater world at large. In Notes From A Nomad, Snyder knits together her many forays throughout distant countries and her appreciation for their inhabitants' histories into a neat, rather compact collection. Published in 2017 by Finishing Line Press, this is her second full-length book of poetry to date, but it can safely be assumed that Snyder will be undertaking more adventures which will no doubt inspire her to soon produce a third volume. Unlike the googly-eyed rock goby she muses on in "Ecosystems," she is eager to "... know about what lives outside of us."
By Laura DiNovis Berry5 years ago in Poets
Karen Akers Uses a Quiet Art to Speak out Loudly
There are several noteworthy poems flitting about among the pages of Karen Ankers's poetry collection, One Word At A Time. Published in 2017 by Tylluan Press, Ankers's book of poems serves as a form of political commentary and is particularly focused on the negative spaces that exist in the gaps of society; those individuals who are homeless, who are forced to beg, individuals who do not have a soapbox available to stand on in order to tell their stories. Indeed, the word "silence" is applied quite a number of times throughout the book. The overall message of the collection is one chastisement, which, in its repetition, can become tedious; but in all fairness, that is rather the purpose of this set of poems. Readers may benefit from declining to diligently read straight through this collection. Rather, they should take their cue from the title and savor these pieces slowly, one word at a time.
By Laura DiNovis Berry5 years ago in Poets
Praise for Lauren Scharhag's First Collection of Poems
Lauren Scharhag's 2013 publication, West Side Girl & Other Poems, is her first and only collection of poetry. Upon review, this exciting piece of work could perhaps be more aptly described as an assembly of mini-epics rather than a compilation of poems. Readers will find that each piece is a complete story, and that each of these stories is filled with its fair share of horrifically beautiful descriptions. The collection opens with a rather temperate piece, "Good Bread." This is a quiet yet confident little poem which pays homage to a lineage of women who "...looked at the moon and baked bread round."
By Laura DiNovis Berry5 years ago in Poets
In Geraldine Connolly's Newest Book, a Beautiful Melancholy Is Found
Instantaneously mesmerizing, Aileron's cover alone alerts tempted readers that they will be transported to elsewhere, perhaps to some mysterious plane which will allow them to view this mortal coil through a different, more illuminating lens. Once inside, the readers are indeed sent whirling down a rabbit hole of verse. Be "...afraid to touch this book, this volume of stories..."; these are not simplistic poems, nor are they happy. Geraldine Connolly's choice of subject matter and forms do not allow for thoughtless consumption. Reading them is akin to eating a peach still encased by its fuzzy skin. The delicious sweetness of her work's imagery and manipulation of language is accompanied by an agitation to the throat as the readers recognize the darker intonations of gender politics and other nefarious themes when traveling down each poem's stanzas.
By Laura DiNovis Berry5 years ago in Poets
Susana H. Case Offers Excitement, Ghosts and Goats
Open Susana H. Case's Drugstore Blue and embark on a time traveling journey filled with decisive and imaginative verse. This is a brilliant collection which repudiates the notion that poetry is a lethargic art reserved only for elderly patrons and love sick adolescents. The kinetic energy released by the enclosed pieces effectively transports the readers to the settings of each one. Even the recalled memories of her parents' elopement is filled with vibrant detail. Within the 15 lines of "I Think of My Mother and Father, the Early Years," she crafts a story brimming with such romantic tension and nervous excitement that the emotional residue could easily cling to a reader for months after he or she turns the page.
By Laura DiNovis Berry5 years ago in Poets
In Review: 'The Paradox Complex' by C. L. Williams
First impressions are everything and poet C. L. Williams does not fail to make an impression with his eighth book of poetry, The Paradox Complex.The overall structure of the book, rather than the poetry itself, generates questions. While the cover design is clever in it's presentation of earthy tones on the front and more celestial purples on the rear, the use of playful fonts for the book's title and titles of the poems, the marking of some pieces as lyrics without directing readers as to which those are, and the excerpt for a future prose piece at the collection's close derails focus from what is most important: the poetry. An inspection of the multi-dimensional state of humankind, Williams' introspective and emotionally honest poems, which at times come dangerously close to losing individual distinction under a mono-stylistic cloak, do provide lines that catch the reader by surprise with their raw beauty and clever word-play.
By Laura DiNovis Berry5 years ago in Poets
Karen Paul Holmes Creates Attainable Poetry
Poetry as an art form has the (sometimes rather apt) reputation of remaining elusive to the casual reader. Newcomers to the delightful world of verse may become locked in an eternal struggle with the flightiness found in poetry, its teasing winks and abstract whispers of surreal messages. Such conflicts are enough to throw quite obtrusive roadblocks in the path of the apprehensive—albeit curious—reader. No such ethereal opaqueness exists in No Such Thing as Distance. Karen Paul Holmes has created a poetic collection that is not only a successful piece of art, but also accessible to those readers who are not yet poetic scholars (but will be soon enough). The inspiration for these poems were planted in the everyday happenings of a real and vivid life. Then, after years of cultivation, they blossomed into this delicate, yet strong assembly, waiting to be shared with passersby. These writings are fleshy. They grip to the reader like the wisteria which is mused on in "The True Nature of Things." The forms she applies to her pieces are carnal. The winding mountain road beneath Holmes' car in "Soundtrack for Highway 129, Near the Appalachian Trail" becomes real for the reader as the line breaks move to and fro, and the dangerous nature of the road is mirrored by the beautiful and doomed Gilda of Giuseppe Verdi's opera:
By Laura DiNovis Berry5 years ago in Poets
