The poems in Kristen Tracy’s debut collection Half-Hazard (Graywolf Press) are warning signs in a big, dangerous world. Tracy leads her readers by the hand into a surreal landscape of circus animals, vampires, and the fields of Idaho. An author of twelve novels for young readers, Tracy brings all the magic and pain of adolescence…
Read MoreIt’s like an intricately-versed, extra-high-definition nature special. Although its imagery is vivid, determining meanings in Jen Hadfield’s poetry collection, Byssus, can be as murky and sticky as trudging through a bog of mollusks. You may often struggle to peel the parasitic, wonky dialect and labyrinthine imagery away from the core…
Read MoreThe Voice at 3:00 A.M. is poetic pop. It’s easy to understand the broad appeal of Charles Simic’s work: his collection, The Voice at 3:00 A.M., has the unshakable aroma of compromise. By aiming to amaze everyone, it mainly just tickles, rather than truly resonating with, the individual reader. I found it promising but eventually…
Read MoreNever before has an elegy made me feel so giddy inside. Bob Hicok’s Elegy Owed provokes the reader to completely rethink the concept of the elegy, warp it from a leaden dirge into a necessary foil of wit and celebration. No abysmal doldrums weigh this collection down. With childlike playfulness, the shamanistic Hicok yanks the sky down…
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