book reviews
Reviews of the best poetry books, collections and anthologies; discover poems and up-and-coming poets across all cultures, genres and themes.
Five Poetry Books You Can't Miss
Poetry is an art. There’s no limit to the number of stories that can be told and feelings that can be conveyed in verse. I’m personally a big fan of our Instapoets, including Rupi Kaur and Amanda Lovelace, but I’d like to share several books that fans of these massively popular modern poets will also enjoy. This list contains a mix of old and new books of poetry about love and musings on life in general.
Leigh FisherPublished 6 years ago in PoetsLaForge Instills New Life into Ancient Myth
Published by Ravenna Press in 2017, the poet and prose author Jane Rosenberg LaForge's work Daphne And Her Discontents weaves a complicated, personal family history and ancient Greek myth into a complete, original poetry collection. The intertwining of personal stories with a piece of history shared by the world allows these poems to travel into the past, throughout present and well into the future. This strategy elevates LaForge's collection to a new plane. It also effectively destabilizes readers as LaForge has done quite well in creating an atmosphere which feels as though "...we move as though space and sea inverted..."
Laura DiNovis BerryPublished 6 years ago in PoetsAnalysis of 'The Lady's Dressing Room'
Swift had written many parodies regarding ideas and thoughts that were presented in the 18th century. In “The Lady’s Dressing Room,” Swift shows a whole other side of femininity, the more hidden and disgusting side and the poem demonstrates how the man’s reaction changes towards the woman once he goes snooping in the lady’s dressing room. The entirety of the poem is meant to come off as a satire for both men and women. For women it is to stop trying to reach men’s unrealistic expectations, by taking hours in the dressing room trying to look like a goddess and for men the satire is meant to make men not invade a woman’s private space because one might find things that they were not supposed to and it might trigger some emotions that turn a man into someone who sees ugliness and not beauty. examples are all meant for satire that women try to match up to men’s unrealistic expectations by going through all the trouble, to impress a man. In “The Lady’s Dressing Room,” we can see the humorous side of the 18th century; Jonathan Swift has a unique way of expressing problems of the 18th century through using a sense of humor and even more so, wit.
Flashes of Attraction but No Reaction
Passion and sexuality are often (if not THE) most powerful muses for poetry, unfortunately the poetic verses of Adrian Ernesto Cepeda do not do justice to the more steamy, erotic side of humanity. His collection, Flashes & Verses... Becoming Attractions, published by Unsolicited Press in 2018, is an exercise in melodrama. Used to excess, the words "cream" and "licked" rapidly begin to fill the reader with a profound distaste and those soured words will (unhappily) linger with said reader even when the book is at a close. The poetry in which Cepeda features the delicacies of the human flesh is not sensual or even gratuitous for that matter, but mawkish.
Laura DiNovis BerryPublished 6 years ago in Poets'The Minute' Is Immense in Young's Poetry
Michael T. Young's poetry book, The Infinite Doctrine of Water, reads as the notebook of an obsessive naturalist who is desperate to record every last detail found in the world around him. It can be said that the utter essence of Young's collection is revealed through the speaker's comments in "Spy Game;" this book of poetry is simply the elegant translation of "...an entry in the sidewalk's journal..." which had previously been "...scripted in rainwater..." Young is intensely fascinated with the finer points of daily life, especially those details that often end up slipping unnoticed through even a keen observer's fingertips.
Laura DiNovis BerryPublished 6 years ago in PoetsA Case for Love
A case for Love: Intolerance is not your friend. In fact, it is that kid that made fun of you in fourth grade because you had braces and talked with a lisp.
Literary HypePublished 6 years ago in PoetsLost in Vocalization
Warning! If you are close to the one you love this poem may excite you to nymphomania. If you are taking any drugs that alter the senses, it is advised to wait three days as this poem is so hot it may cause severe hallucinations. And if you have a heart condition well you gone die anyway so look at this as dying on top of your fine ass woman during—well you figure it out!
I AM. Master of ArtsPublished 6 years ago in PoetsW. R. Rodriquez's Words Guide Readers Through the Beautiful Bronx
W. R. Rodriquez's Concrete Pastures of the Beautiful Bronx was written ten years ago but it could have stepped off the presses today. Its passion is streaked with cynicism and yet this collection is filled with a bleeding kind of joy.
Laura DiNovis BerryPublished 6 years ago in PoetsStephen Byrne's Award Winning Poetry Cuts Deep into Societal Stagnation
In this day and age (or as it has been since humanity evolved to create power structures in order to keep each other in check) everything is political, and Stephen Byrne's Somewhere but not here is no exception to this rule. Inspired by the savageness of humanity's every waking moment, this award winning poetry collection touches on the infestation of "fake news" to brutal gang rapes half way across the world. Byrne's ultimate goal is to engage his readers' minds in such a powerful way that "the night will fall in screaming / & the dawn will snap in two." He is trying to create discomfort for those individuals who think they are impervious in their own snug homes, who believe themselves to be out of reach from "the men of nightmares & dreams." Byrne's cutting poetry highlights that ownership of that supposed safety is simply an illusion. For those whose bubbles of security have been rudely popped, they will feel a "wet chill, like a frozen / tongue touching your cheek."
Laura DiNovis BerryPublished 6 years ago in PoetsJennifer 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.
Laura DiNovis BerryPublished 6 years ago in PoetsWight 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.
Laura DiNovis BerryPublished 6 years ago in PoetsSnyder 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."
Laura DiNovis BerryPublished 6 years ago in Poets