by Adedayo Agarau Isabella Kara interlucent adj in·​ter·​lu·​cent | \ ¦intə(r)¦lüsənt also -)l¦yü- \ Definition: shining or glowing between or in the midst of other things The relationship between a body and a poem is that each is an entity capable of movement, having the ability to love, protest, plead, begin, and end. The difference, however, is that a poem does not die. Each sentence, enjambed or not, stacked upon each other in a poem like towers of babel, is a movement t

Teo Do Rio Softening by Olivia Braley, ELJ Editions, Magpie Series, 2021 Reviewed by Scott Neuffer Not sure why I’m getting déjà vu writing this review right now, but the feeling is strong. Maybe because Olivia Braley’s Softening , her debut prose chapbook, has universal appeal. Maybe it gets there through steady illumination of a particular pain, the hallmark of a great writer. At twenty pages, Softening is short but impactful, a series of crystalline vignettes written in

Nicole Herrero Color All Maps New by Jack Bedell, Mercer University Press, 2021 Reviewed by Scott Neuffer At one point the speaker of the poems in Jack Bedell’s deftly crafted and luminescent poetry collection, Color All Maps New , wonders about leaving his home of Louisiana and holing up in a clean, broken mountain range, as if to escape the primordial swampland. For the purposes of this review, let’s assume the speaker is Jack himself — a dangerous assumption — and that he

Arièle Bonte Mother Tongue Apologize by Preeti Vangani, RLFPA Editions, 2018 Reviewed by Scott Neuffer Some men don’t know how to use their tongues right, and it shows. The speaker of the poems in Preeti Vangani’s Mother Tongue Apologize finds enough power in the poetic beat of her own tongue — a master of three languages, in fact — to leave such men to the rubbish heap of history. Containing just under fifty knockout poems, this collection weaves the grit and dizziness of

Gwendal Cottin Ribald by Alina Stefanescu, Bull City Press Inch #44, 2020 Reviewed by Lannie Stabile “Your mom can die, but that birder will keep walking down the street, whistling as you piss your pants.” For such a tiny book, Alina Stefanacu’s Ribald , a micro-collection of essays, demands a lot of unpacking. Let us snap open Grandma’s antique trunk, and what will we find? A handful of gravel, a pocketknife, a stressed horse, a gauntlet and sword, a scream, a cold beer wit

by Scott Neuffer Someone gave me an Amazon gift card for Christmas, and I spent it on books. I’m sorry. Amazon is a monster, but if I didn’t spend it on books, I would’ve blown it on Nintendo 64 games, and then I wouldn’t be reading at all. The books I got were written by trampset contributors, all collected works of short fiction, all written by ingenious women…. Every Mask I Tried On by Alina Stefanescu, Brighthorse Books, 2018 This story collection bristles with restless

Sagar Kulkarni Tragedy, Ecstasy, Doom, and so on by Kip Knott, Kelsay Books, 2020, $18.50 paperback Reviewed by C. Cimmone They tell you in school to write with careful descriptions in order to “project the reader to another place.” This task is easily achieved when writing long prose, but when writing short poetry, it can be a challenge. Fortunately, Kip Knott did not see this as a challenge when producing his poetry collection Tragedy, Ecstasy, Doom, and so on. Knott’s var

by Madeleine Corley Donna McL Tara Isabel Zambrano takes us across different folds of time, realities, and human emotions in her new book Death, Desire, and Other Destinations from Okay Donkey. I’m delighted to have had the opportunity to dive into this collection, especially given Okay Donkey’s background of publishing stellar pieces and collections in the past. I can firmly say Zambrano marvelously adds to this trend with her book. Zambrano leads us in “Alligators,” a piec

C D-X Audio Therapy by Reggie Johnson, published by Reginald Johnson, $14.85 paperback, 2019 Reviewed by Chris L. Butler Reggie Johnson’s Audio Therapy is a poetry collection designed for those who find refuge in music to cope with their mental health. Johnson’s chapbook combines a series of rhythmic free form flows, with a rapper’s delivery. The structure of Audio Therapy follows a question and answer format where Johnson provides an introduction to each poem. As the book

Rob Potter Collective Gravities by Chloe N. Clark, word west, $15 paperback, 2020 Reviewed by Ian MacAllen Few people would have predicted a global pandemic would plunge the world into a collective isolation with the specter of death threatening at every moment. Yet Chloe N. Clark’s debut story collection, Collective Gravities , offers a prescient examination of these anxieties. Several of Clark’s stories even go as far as manifesting the sense that she somehow anticipated t

Joel Holland The Meadow by Kristin Garth, APEP Publications, $14 paperback, 2020 Reviewed by Ambrose Hall A collection of poetry that begins in childhood, with chilling glimpses into small town abuse, and follows the young girl into adulthood, to awkward early sexual encounters, through her first serious BDSM relationship, to its heartbroken ending. The Meadow is an intense, sometimes painful ride of mixed emotions that build and build into a fevered, dark sensuality, reple

Frida Aguilar Estrada Ways We Vanish by Todd Dillard, Okay Donkey Press, $14 paperback, 2020 Reviewed by Shannon Frost Greenstein What is grief? Todd Dillard’s debut chapbook opens with this line, not exactly a rhetorical question but something still unanswerable. What follows is the author’s attempt to understand, to understand what is left behind when someone is lost. Thus readers will experience Ways We Vanish , a collection which, on a fundamental level, regards absence

guille pozzi Lovely Daughter of the Shattering by Patrice Boyer Claeys, Kelsay Books, $14 paperback, 2019 Reviewed by Sury Ghosh “I love you,” I told him as I kissed him good night. He said he loved me too, and went on to ask: “Mama, do you love me more than you love yourself?” Not knowing what the right answer is to that question, I only repeated what I said to him earlier, that I loved him, very much. As a mother of this young person, I had often found myself in situations

Doctor Tinieblas Saturday Night Sage by Noah Lekas, Blind Owl, $15 paperback, 2019 Reviewed by Travis Cravey Noah Lekas’ collection begins and ends with travel. In between we are told some amazing stories about work, philosophy, and the Midwest. We will deliver art to the wealthy in New York and wait impatiently with others for the factory bell in Racine to free us. The subtitle of the collection is “narrative poems of mysticism and menial labor,” and Lekas delivers powerfu

moises ferreira Let the Buzzards Eat Me Whole by Ingrid M. Calderón-Collins, Another New Calligraphy, 2019, $16 paperback Reviewed by Scott Neuffer My wife tells me not to talk about it: her trauma. She survived the dirty wars in Peru. If you talk, you die, she tells me. People don’t talk about it. The dead are dead. The living go on. Sorry, it’s not my place, I say. But these ghosts. I can feel them. Why are so many Latinx immigrants haunted this way, knowing nothing but e

Stanisław Krawczyk Humiliation by Paulina Flores, trans. by Megan McDowell, Catapult, 2019, $16.95 paperback Reviewed by Scott Neuffer There is nothing more human than being humiliated, the feeling of being undone, when the careful constructs of the ego unravel in bewilderment. The word itself comes from the Latin “humilis,” meaning low, from “humus” or earth. It’s as though humiliation returns us to the primordial pain, clips our skyward wings, inters us once again in the m

Tonmoy Iftekhar The Crossing Over by Jen Karetnick, Split Rock Review, 2019, $10 paperback Reviewed by Sury Ghosh Jha Jen Karetnick, in her chapbook of poems The Crossing Over , writes about what is arguably one of the most heart-wrenching events of present times, the migrant exodus across the Mediterranean Sea. Karetnick gives a boat a voice, and all of the poems are written as an experience that the boat has or has not. The poems draw a sequence that starts with the birth

Thiago Zanutigh Point Blank: Poems by Alan King, Silver Birch Press, 2018, $15 paperback Reviewed by Scott Neuffer Alan King’s new poetry collection begins with “Hulk” in which the poet walks the streets at night growing into something superhuman. The poet is a black man and knows that in America, fear and suspicion are projected on him at all times, especially at night. “White people look at me / and pretend they don’t see / the breeding of slaves, / pretend not to know / w

Avery Evans Bombing the Thinker by Darren C. Demaree, Backlash Press, 2018, $8.99 paperback Reviewed by Scott Neuffer A famous statue sits thinking with its legs blown off. And a poet who just wants a friend — who just wants to be whole — talks to the maimed statue, tells it dirty jokes, writes letters to its long-dead creator. This is the world Ohio poet and trampset contributor Darren C. Demaree creates in his profound and strangely touching poetry collection, Bombing the

Pine Nut Mountains, Nevada/Scott Neuffer Desert Mementos: Stories of Iraq and Nevada by Caleb S. Cage, University of Nevada Press, 2017, $22.95 hardcover Reviewed by Scott Neuffer To grow up in Nevada is to learn a certain scrappiness at a young age, a kind of resilience in the face of a hard landscape. It’s the same quality the characters in Caleb Cage’s new short-story collection, Desert Mementos: Stories of Iraq and Nevada , carry with them into battle. Cage is a Reno nat