Creature, Wing, Heart, Machine
The indispensable bricks of nature: earth, water, air, and fire, are in perpetual harmony with one another, shaping and reshaping human experience. It is hard to imagine that a concept so deeply rooted in antiquity and Greek philosophy would not only apply to the evolution of art and individual thought, but it is also the basis of ever- changing modern machines and technology. L. S. McKee's debut poetry collection, Creature, Wing, Heart, Machine, takes this concept further while navigating larger human concepts like love, heartbreak, loss, and coming to terms with mortality in the Digital Age.
That Was Then, This Is Now
“We are obsessed with ourselves,” wrote theoretical physicist, Carlo Rovelli in his book, Reality Is Not What It Seems. “We study our history, our psychology, our gods. Much of our knowledge revolves around ourselves as if it were the most important thing in the universe.” Rovelli thinks physics can teach us better, and in Vijay Seshadri’s new collection That was Now, This Is Then (Graywolf Press, 2020), the poet, like the physicist, toils over language in order to relay the unsayable realities that go beyond the basic human experience.
See The Wolf
Sarah Sousa’s See the Wolf (CavanKerry, 2018) is a collection of familiar cautionary tales around the metonymic “Big Bad Wolf.” The poems achingly read like a cold admission of female obedience—a more honest and accurate portrayal of a woman who smiles politely from scar to scar, pays attention to social niceties, and always cautiously takes the direct path home. The wolf lurks in the multiplicity of female experience….
The Wounded for the Water
Matt W. Miller’s latest collection, The Wounded for the Water (Salmon Poetry, 2018) opens with a preface poem that reads like a lonely sea shanty, a solitary voice singing: “Now to chart a way / of skinning waves … Now to slice beneath the bloom / of blue … Now to be sewn in foam / and still to breathe … Now to stitch across / all my definitions of drown.” The poem, like the book, renders masculinity visible in a setting of many waters—and with the collection’s refrain: What does it mean to drown?
Iron Moon:An Anthology of Chinese Worker Poetry
...The translations by Eleanor Goodman are an impeccable achievement of negotiating two linguistic landscapes. Multiple layers of artistry are at play here, integrating the raw spirit of the original poems while also strategically fitting language into larger aesthetic dimensions. This collection reminds us of the many human complexities of industrial life, and the exceptional literary value in working class poetry. This book should be a staple in every poet’s respected collection.
The Brighter House
William Wordsworth wrote in his poem, “Ode: Intimations of Immortality and Recollections of Early Childhood” that we are but “trailing clouds of glory…” and boldly declared, “Heaven lies about us in our infancy!” Wordsworth believed that children are wise and celestial, and as we grow we veer further and further from our divine selves. In her collection, The Brighter House, Kim Garcia suggests the opposite—that we are not de-spiritualized with age, and instead describes a personal transition from uneasy earthly child to heavenly poet. “Who can say what is a blessing?” says the speaker in the poem, “In the beginning was all the after.” “I am blessed with curses.”
Union River
Paul Marion writes, “To understand America, a good place to start is where you are.” A true “Poet of Place,” Marion’s Union River is a collection of writing that ranges from prose poems, to micro essays, to lyrical insights—all densely packed with the simple act of existing. Readers embark on a road trip where the concept of “America” becomes more than a country, a city, or spot on a map, but a place for the speaker to dramatize the state of consciousness and recognize the art of human life...