book reviews
Reviews of the best poetry books, collections and anthologies; discover poems and up-and-coming poets across all cultures, genres and themes.
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."
Laura DiNovis BerryPublished 6 years ago in PoetsPoet Review: Rupi Kaur
Over the past few years, Rupi Kaur has become one of today's most popular poets. At just 25, the Canadian-Indian poet is the author and illustrator of two New York Times Bestsellers: milk and honey, and the sun and her flowers. She's performed her poetry around the world, and her collections have been translated in more than thirty languages.
Katherine J. ZumpanoPublished 6 years ago in PoetsIn 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.
Laura DiNovis BerryPublished 6 years ago in PoetsSusana 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.
Laura DiNovis BerryPublished 6 years ago in PoetsS.L Gray: and the Things That Couldn't Be Written About
S.L Gray is a poet and author. Her book is on Amazon at Skin, Bones, and Too Much Love. Her honesty in her answers is something to be admired in an artist and in a human being. I asked her to let me interview her after reading her poetry and following her for a few weeks. I had to know more about her words, where they came from, what her spark was, and what makes her wheels go round and what breaks her.
Belle DenkaPublished 6 years ago in PoetsBook Review: Emily Corwin - 'Tenderling'
Like the faeries and sirens of traditional lore, Corwin's poetry is as dangerous as it is beautiful. Her writing has the rhythm of a folktale and the surreal logic of a dream, with intertwining themes and repeated symbols. She holds up a magic mirror in which we can see royalty reflected as monsters, virtue as vice, and fiction as truth. Like Alice Through the Looking Glass, we find ourselves in a distorted wonderland, at once whimsical and yet frightening. Corwin's skill is making the fantastic seem familiar, and the mundane seem magical. There is a deep pathos to her poetry: She explores fear, desire, and even humor with subtle wordplay, double entendres, innuendos, and hidden meanings. Consider the following verse:
Cheryl LynnPublished 6 years ago in PoetsIn 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.
Laura DiNovis BerryPublished 6 years ago in PoetsKaren 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:
Laura DiNovis BerryPublished 6 years ago in Poets'Milk and Honey' Review
Shopping at my local Walmart for some groceries and some household items, I came across a paperback copy of "milk and honey" by Rupi Kaur. Everyone has been raving about how great this book was and all that jazz. I was intrigued by why everyone loved it so much, that I wanted to check it out myself. I am a huge bookworm, and I have been trying not to buy a single book for a while since my "To Be Read" pile is never ending. When I decide to give in, I then end up buying at least two books. Yes, I know it's a problem, but hey I'm not addicted to drugs or alcohol, I'm addicted to reading and buying books. Completely different. Anyways, back to my story...
Samantha PoppPublished 6 years ago in Poets'365 Sleepless Nights'
"A restless year. Four hopeless seasons. Fifty-two obsessive weeks. Three hundred and sixty-five sleepless nights. One poetic journal of change, loss, damage, sorrow, healing, good and evil, chaos and peace, helplessness and hope, summarizing a year's evolution of feelings in fifty-two poems feeding consecutive thoughts day by day."
Viktoria PappPublished 6 years ago in PoetsOvid's Movement From Mythology
Introduction Through great minds we receive great intellect, but furthermore, greater comprehension of cultural diversity throughout periodical works. We gain the ancient stories of the fulfillment of destinies and the divine interactions interconnecting gods and goddesses with mortal endeavors. We have the privilege to witness what history books do not have the time to divulge: raw evidence of an evolving people beyond invention, but reaching to a higher power, a religious upbringing of a culture constantly seeking the ultimate. While most works focus on the geographical religion of their time, Ovid writes an epic which breaks this model by diminishing the gods and moving towards the glorification of a Roman Empire standing on the foundation of its people, not the chaos of the gods.
Kayla StarrPublished 6 years ago in PoetsWhy Rupi Kaur Is a Poet
I see everywhere people angrily calling out Rupi Kaur and saying, "She is not a poet," or, "She doesn't write poetry." I always sit in disbelief when I see these words. I am put into two states: 1. being confused if they even bothered to read her novels and 2. if they honestly think she is not a 'poet' or if they just simply do not like her style of poetry.