There’s no doubt that Pulitzer Prize winner Rae Armantrout is a superb poet, but to fully appreciate her latest book Wobble, a quick read-through might not do.
NewPages Blog :: Book Reviews
Check out book reviews of titles from independent publishers and university presses on the NewPages Blog.
A People’s Guide to Publishing
Joe Biel’s A People’s Guide to Publishing is an inspirational and practical guidebook for anyone interested in starting and sustaining a publishing company. Biel, founder of Microcosm Publishing, a small, Portland, Oregon-based press, understands how to build a publishing company from scratch, and with his conversational style he leads readers through every stage of this process and beyond.
The Habit of Turning the World Upside Down
Howard Mansfield’s new book, The Habit of Turning the World Upside Down, is a series of essays describing public and private projects that have deprived people of ownership. Entities behind the projects often claim they’re “acting in the public interest,” writes Mansfield. He goes on to say, “I was especially interested in the emotional toll these projects took. [ . . . ] I was witnessing an essential American experience: the world turned upside down. And it all turned on one word: property.”
Continue reading “The Habit of Turning the World Upside Down”
America, We Call Your Name
I love anthologies. Where else can you read so many diverse, creative ideas linked to a theme and compiled in one electrifying place? In the introduction to the anthology, America, We Call Your Name: Poems of Resistance and Resilience, Murray Silverstein asks, “With our common culture so fractured, what did poetry have to say?” The answers here are emotional and right on target.
Rail
Rail is epic. Yes, another barbaric yawp in the American song to the self. Full of food stamps and freight trains, Trader Joe’s dumpster diving, bullet shells in sewer drains, brotherhood, and prescription pills for depression, this collection is Kerouac, Ginsberg, Whitman, Sandburg, and O’Hara for the selfie generation. Continue reading “Rail”
You or a Loved One
Winner of the 2017 Orison Fiction Prize, the debut story collection You or a Loved One by Gabriel Houck is sharp, witty, insightful, and truculent. Exposing the underbelly of a post-Katrina Louisiana full of deadbeats, bayou, and folks just trying to survive, the stories swivel between interlinked-stacked flash fiction, script-like treatments for short films, and interior examinations of beautifully flawed characters. The linking thread is that nothing is spoon-fed. Most conclude with blunt endings that leave room for speculation. With vast un-signaled leaps in narrative time and reader-please-speculate-where-to-connect-the-dots, Houck has created a collection where saying less means more, where the randomness of life can be examined, where layers build to great pay-off. Continue reading “You or a Loved One”
Stories for People Who Watch TV
If you’re looking for a break from the tensions in today’s political climate, pick up a copy of Timmy Waldron’s new book, Stories for People Who Watch TV. He’s compiled nine stories, eight of which have already risen to the top of slush piles to be published in literary magazines. The ninth might also stand a good chance, so let’s start with that one, titled “Ouroboros.”
Quite Mad
Sarah Fawn Montgomery’s new book, Quite Mad: An American Pharma Memoir, is an in-depth exploration of the ways mental illness is defined and treated, both historically and in the contemporary world. She looks at how our culture simultaneously creates and condemns its maladies, and she offers a glimpse of how the conundrums and contradictions surrounding mental illness can be deconstructed and unraveled.
Under Water
Under Water is the sequel to J.L Powers’ 2012 novel This Thing Called the Future. Despite the six-year interval between episodes, I hadn’t forgotten Khosi; her little sister Zi; and Little Man, childhood friend and blossoming love interest of Khosi’s. Within the first few pages of the book, I had been brought right back into their lives, immediately following the death of Khosi’s mother and then grandmother. This Thing Called the Future endeared me to the no-nonsense Khosi and the hard choices she was faced with making in her life, as well as the realities of how she knew—or didn’t know—those closest to her. Under Water moves seamlessly from that first piece of South African life into this continuation, which is just as relentlessly hard-edged and heartfelt.
Don’t Let Them See Me Like This
Where is it
Considered
Good fortune
Not to have been raped
Capitalism has made ever season
Cancer season– from “How the dead rose from their graves”
Jasmine Gibson’s debut collection, published by Nightboat Books, Don’t Let Them See Me Like This is an incendiary epistle to a failed world.
Museum of The Americas
of nameless Mexicans desired only as epistles
anchored in their death;
the dialect between Selfas Subject & Self
as Object separated by panes of clarity
into softer yellows.
–from “The Mexican War Photo Postcard Company”
The National Poetry Series Winner, Museum of The Americas by J. Michael Martinez is culmination of erudite research, family history, and a dismantling of the originations of American racial constructs, especially along the U.S.-Mexican border since The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (1848) and the present day, where labelling humans “illegal” and “alien” is common government practice.
The Pendulum
Imagine discovering that the grandparents you adored as a young child were Nazis, and your grandfather was responsible for untold cruelties. That’s exactly what happened to Julie Lindahl, a Brazilian-born American who now lives in Sweden. She spent years traveling abroad seeking the truth about her mother’s German father, whom she called Opa. The Pendulum: A Granddaughter’s Search for her Family’s Forbidden Nazi Past is Lindahl’s memoir of her findings and her search for understanding.
Island in the City
Island in the City: A Memoir is composed of a series of interrelated essays about identity by Micah McCrary. These essays interrogate what it means to be black, queer, and middle-class, even as they question the stability and meaning of those categories themselves.
Letters from Max
For the most part, my copy of Letters from Max is unmarked. No circles around words with lines leading to other circled words. Minimal scrawls in the margins. This is due to the simple fact that I never wanted to stop reading in order to pick up a pen.
Buddhism for Western Children
This book is tough. Buddhism for Western Children is a novel about a ten-year-old boy and his family, who drive from Halifax, Canada to Maine in order to meet and live with Avadhoot Master King Ivanovich, spiritual guru. It’s not a light, beach read, but a pearl that takes time. I will go ahead and say that it might irritate you a bit. There aren’t many quotation marks—and plenty of people speak throughout the novel—but once that epiphany sparks, the fact that the ten-year-old boy (Daniel) is just as perplexed, if not more, Buddhism for Western Children becomes this unbelievable, almost method-acted attempt to convey sensory overload.
Please Let Me Help
Is it too early to start experiencing holiday dread? Probably. But that hasn’t stopped me from practicing political arguments in the shower and sulking on the couch while binge-eating. However, I did stumble upon some needed comedic relief the other day in the form of some questionably helpful letters written by Zack Sternwalker.
To Float in the Space Between
I was nervous going into this book. I imagined a comparison between two poets to be full of abstruse information on cadence and meter, et cetera. To Float in the Space Between is indeed a comparison between the author, Terrance Hayes, and the late “prison poet,” Etheridge Knight; however, at no point in time does Hayes leave the reader out in the storm. He invites us inside, shares a cigarette, and lets us borrow his skin for a couple hundred pages.
Scoundrels Among Us
Scoundrels Among Us is definitely a man’s book. There aren’t too many female characters, and as much as I want to criticize it for that, I’d be lying if I said that the book never made me laugh. It’s full of terrible, dark humor, sometimes absurd—in the best possible way (think Daniil Kharms, or even Bob Kaufman). There are kids on fire, sitting in class with charred skin, a group of nine brothers that work at a Costco-esque department store, all pretending to be the same person, and a man, who’s dying alone in a forest, and his last wish is to have an extra-large Cajun Deluxe Meat Lovers pizza delivered to his exact, addressless location.
The Circle
Editor Patrick ten Brink has rounded up a mix of genres for the newly released The Circle: A Brussels Anthology.
Follow the Sun
Quinn Boyle, a deep-sea fisherman, and his older brother Robbie, a sports journalist, lead an impressive cast of characters looking for answers to some mysterious disappearances in Edward J. Delaney’s book Follow the Sun.
GeNtry!fication
stage
you are not suppose to be here
yet you are –
some natural contradiction.
your snarl and ravenous appetite—
fiction. an imagined geography.Black bodies or the scene of the crime
Chaun Webster’s GeNtry!fication defies labels. Chapbook? Full length collection? Manifesto? Academic essay? Diatribe? Graphic novella? Epistles? Jazz improvisation? Or classically structured symphony?
What is Not Beautiful
where I am
farthest from my mother
waiting
on 200th St
What is Not Beautiful is strikingly beautiful. Like the first snowflakes on a fallen autumn leaf, Adeeba Shahid Talukder’s words are delicate, insightful and sublime.
Coming Out of Nowhere
“I carry my history stitched into my skin.” This line from Linda Schandelmeier’s poem, “Leaving for the University,” perfectly evokes the contents of her second book, Coming out of Nowhere.
But let’s back up a bit. Before university, Schandelmeier grew up in a frame cabin on a 160-acre homestead south of Anchorage around the time that Alaska became a state. In her preface, she characterizes these part-autobiographical, part-historical works as: “These poems sometimes take a circuitous route in order to arrive at a deeper truth.”
The Shell Game
If you are looking for a book that fits into the genre of “Creative Nonfiction,” especially as an introduction, your best bet is to pick up The Shell Game immediately, edited by writer Kim Adrian. It is an anthology of lyric essays that range from crossword puzzles about becoming a grandmother, to eBay ads for the writer himself (0 bids, Price = $9.95).
The Flip
According to Jeffrey J. Kripal, the “flip” is “that moment of realization beyond all linear thought, beyond all language, beyond all belief.” The Flip introduces scientists, philosophers, and average-joes that have undergone some sort of “flip,” some “new real” that took them from point A to B—B typically being a state of consciousness, one in which it is blatantly clear that we are nothing more than stardust, and there are powers at work that we may never comprehend.
MILK
Save your congratulations and your flowers
My baby is sunbathing on the moon
And with the eternal blue light she glows
In her clear house, with shutters
Save your kind regards, and visits
With doughnuts and kisses
Save your little nothings that amount to nothing
Save it save it
Purple green and christened blue
—from “Save Your Flowers”
Why do I love this?! Why do I read this book and just love, love, love it?!
Because we’ve all been there, suspended metaphorically or actually between life and death, damage and grief, birth and birthing, these spaces of WTF? where we desperately want to name the space and experience for the shitty, icky, unnameable thing it really is. That liminal emotional edge where, yeah, this agony might be transformed into something beautiful someday but please don’t name it that!
Out of the Woods
Out of the Woods: Seeing Nature in the Everyday is a collection of essays by Julia Corbett that examines the false dichotomies between humans and nature, culture and wilderness. To break down these divisions, Corbett, a professor in the Department of Communication and the Environmental Humanities Graduate Program at the University of Utah, looks closely at “everyday nature”—the animals, plants, and objects in and around the cities and suburbs of America.
The Lives of the Poems and Three Talks
Joshua Beckman, widely published writer, translator and editor-in-chief of Wave Books, inaugurates Wave’s Bagley Wright Lecture Series with his two-book set, The Lives of the Poems and Three Talks.
Let the Whole Thundering World Come Home
The C-word. Cancer. I’m sure if you interviewed ten people and asked them what their top three fears are, this one would make the list. And in a time in which we’re all necessarily exposed to the environmental risks posed by advances in the manufacturing industry, big agribusiness, and global warming, this fear is heightened.
Adult Teeth
Domesticity at its finest, or worse. Whatever it is, Jeremy T. Wilson makes sure that the reader has a nice, comfortable spot on the couch of these unhappy homes before bulldozing them. Adult Teeth is a book for any adult who has ever considered cheating on his or her spouse, a what-not-to-do guide for divorcees and potheads that wonder what being an alligator might feel like.
Samuel Johnson’s Eternal Return
Samuel Johnson’s Eternal Return is the needle and thread that connects life and death, grumpy old man and flâneur. The story revolves around a fellow named Samuel Johnson who dies protecting his son from an armed lunatic. He then enters into the body of the lunatic as a passenger, watching the world like a TV show through the eyes of his own murderer. Eventually, the lunatic dies, and Samuel Johnson bounces from body to body, hoping to one day reunite with his son.
The Lake Michigan Mermaid
The Lake Michigan Mermaid is a beautiful and haunting collection of poems about a relationship between a young girl and a freshwater mermaid. The poems alternate between the voice of the girl and voice of the mermaid, with Anne-Marie Oomen writing the girl’s poems and Linda Nemec Foster writing the mermaid’s. And woven throughout the book are lovely watercolor illustrations by Meridith Ridl.
Be Brave
Be Brave: An Unlikely Manual for Erasing Heartbreak is tremendous. I came upon this volume by sheer dumb luck—through a professional discussion board on which I was posting my first ever reply after lurking for years—to J.M. Farkas, who had written her first ever post to the group “looking to connect with teachers teaching Beowulf” who were open to unexpected ways of approaching the text. Yes, please! But, as I learned, Be Brave isn’t just about Beowulf. In fact, it’s hardly about Beowulf per say. It is a complex, layered work, starting with its origin.
Punishment
On the window sill,
in a plastic ice cream cup
a little plant is growing.
Nancy Miller Gomez’s chapbook on her time spent teaching incarcerated men to write poetry at the Salinas Valley State Prison is short . . . too short.
The Promise of Failure
Reading the title of John McNally’s book, The Promise of Failure: One Writer’s Perspective on Not Succeeding, I wondered if, in the end, I would get good news or bad.
The Owl That Carries Us Away
When I think of fiction, I imagine literature that takes me far away from my own reality into other worlds. Anticipating Doug Ramspeck’s first fiction book The Owl That Carries Us Away, I almost envisioned a giant owl taking me to a brand-new world. To my surprise, however, I found myself, or rather lost myself, in worlds similar to my own. The familiar places and situations opened possibilities for me to relate to the characters and sympathize with them, while the carefully crafted language became the link offering connections to the author’s worlds.
Not Elegy, But Eros
Nausheen Eusuf’s debut collection Not Elegy, But Eros is conversing with giants. Wallace Stevens, Robert Frost, Emily Dickinson, T.S. Eliot, Freud, and a slew of other great names are sitting at the table. In both form and content, Eusuf is serving what these great minds have tackled before.
Meet Behind Mars
The stories in Meet Behind Mars by Renee Simms touch on womanhood, family, sacrifice, and morals. Some of the tales are twisted with a bit of surrealism, a little Twilight Zone to counterbalance the absolutely real, cramped truth of growing up not only period, but a woman and black.
Experience in Groups
Let’s start here: Experience in Groups is a book of poetry. Specifically, it’s a book of poetry written by a well-established poet—Geoffrey G. O’Brien—which means that I’m sure that a lot of it went right over my head. But, all I can do is explain the things that I thought I understood, and see where it goes from there. Perhaps everything I say in the next seven hundred words or so is gobbledygook, but then again, there’s a chance that it’s not. Overall, that’s kind of how I felt about Experience in Groups.
Buddha’s Dog & Other Meditations
Buddha’s Dog & Other Meditations by Ira Sukrungruang is a testament to the variety of forms nonfiction writing can reach as well as this author’s mastery of each. For teachers of creative nonfiction, this text models a range of approaches; for students of CNF (whether formally enrolled or not), this is a wonderful mentor text; and for us more general readers, this is a book to expand our experience with great satisfaction.
Starting with Goodbye
Starting with Goodbye: A Daughter’s Memoir of Love after Loss is a powerful new book by Lisa Romeo about the way our relationships with those we love change and deepen, even after death. Telling the story both of her father’s death and of her need to heal and go forward, this memoir is a moving account of the never-ending love between a father and daughter.
The Lion’s Binding Oath and Other Stories
Ahmed Ismail Yusuf’s The Lion’s Binding Oath and Other Stories, presents an insider’s view of everyday life in Somalia during the mid to late 20th century. Yusuf had fled his birth country in the late 1980s during the Somalia civil war, and has since lived, educated himself, and worked in Minnesota.
Continue reading “The Lion’s Binding Oath and Other Stories”
The Undressing
The Undressing examines the physical, bodily relationship with the spiritual relationship between two lovers. There are elements of the political—the strongest portions of the book—and of the foreign. Li-Young Lee’s collection is philosophical, not exactly accessible for a first-time poetry reader, but one that with re-readings gathers depth and meaning each time.
The Drowning Boy’s Guide To Water
Whereas the race card is now everyone’s card
in a deck I did not cut. I hate card games,
the conceit of the shuffle. I hate when white people
hate white people because hating white people
is fashionable. A person’s color is a still thing
to hate.
—from “Nonbinding Legislation, or a Resolution”
Cameron Barnett’s first collection, published by Autumn House Press, is powerful. Each poem in The Drowning Boy’s Guide to Water is a full meal, and not always easy to digest. His craft is superb, pure excellence in both expression and thrust, but the themes are exhausting, necessary, and yes, every single thing is race. Barnett’s endurance analyzing America’s binary black and white world is honorable, essential, and true, yet leaves the reader bone-tired.
Dots & Dashes
. . . I met my husband in a class
on Ovid where we learned longing
changes us
to limestone, or causes us
to caress the white bull—no matter
that he’s animal and his child minotaur,
the dividedoffspring of our love.
—from “At the Reading of the Antiwar Poets, 2007”
Every time I read Jehanne Dubrow’s work, I write a good poem. In fact, after reading and reviewing her book The Arranged Marriage over a year ago, I wrote a whole chapbook, published the following year. Perhaps she is something of a muse to me. Perhaps this is why, after spending nearly two years in Denton, Texas, and nearly also working as an adjunct instructor at the University of North Texas where she serves as an associate professor, I did not try to meet her even though I was encouraged to.
Maybe our muses are best left alone, enigmas granted asylum from gaze and inquiry. In any case, Dubrow continues to bring me good luck and inspire more poems.
Swim
With the #metoo movement still changing the conversation on how women are treated in the US, this book of stories set in the 60s felt culturally relevant rather than retro. In three short fictions, Sandra Scofield examines the ambivalence and vulnerability of three women as well as the entitlement and ignorance of the men in their lives. Gender, more telling of one’s mobility and expectations in the 1960s than today, casts the male and female characters in narrowly defined roles. Women long for masculine freedoms and adopt a rebellious edge to keep themselves out of prepackaged social norms, while the various men in their lives conform to egoism, salvific nostalgia, and violent acts of privilege.
Sustainability
Toward the middle of Sustainability: A Love Story, I decided to read slower in order to sustain it, if only for a minute longer. I didn’t want the journey to end, just as the author, Nicole Walker, doesn’t want the world to end; there are too many great things to live for, this book being one of them. It is composed of thirty-eight essays, all of which read like prose poems, stuffed with scientific research on topics such as recycling, McDonald’s, and suicide. Most of all, it’s a love story written to Portland, Oregon; Walker’s family; and the little blue dot.
Angelitos
Reading graphic novels sort of makes me feel like I’m ten years old, but when they include issues like poverty, molestation, and the 1985 Mexico City earthquake, I realize that a ten-year-old me wouldn’t know what to think. I still don’t, for that matter. Angelitos by Ilan Stavans and Santiago Cohen throws you straight into the lion’s den of Mexico, where homeless children run amok, and the only one that seems to care is a Catholic priest by the name of Father Chinchachoma.
Gloved Against Blood
Gloved Against Blood by Cindy Veach is about the textile industry in the 19th century, and the people whose lives it directed, including the lives of Veach’s ancestors. Her poems bring to light the oppressing conditions the women who worked at the mills endured. She uses found poems from news and slave narratives to add a level of expose to her work. The poems also weave a history of Veach’s family, and she hints at the fact that this history, like many hardships endured, is never completely shaken but inherited, like a thimble passed down might hold a stain of blood.
That One Cigarette
What if Lee Harvey Oswald’s assassination of JFK was thwarted? What if a hardworking FBI agent discovered the 9/11 plot and arrested the terrorists before they boarded planes? What if an 80-year-old Martin Luther King swore Barak Obama into office as the 44th president? What if a California screenwriter and professor, Stu Krieger, followed four families through these what-ifs from 1963 to 2009? Well, that would be That One Cigarette.