Nightingale Capability
Italy, May, 2011 We’ve been in Bogliasco a week before we understand the bird that’s wakened us each miserably early morning is a nightingale. I am pleased by this just as I was years ago, when I had...
View Article“I am holding onto the gut.”
wetatuhneesáhUt. I am holding onto the gut. Wah. Once they were accepted they were allowed inside—White men. D. D. Mitchell, Indian Agent, among them. They sent a boy. The Arikara men. Bear...
View ArticleThe Pointer
“The Pointer” received the 2nd annual Bevel Summers Prize for the Short Short Story. Swallows fly in and out the broken windows of a V-12 silvered by weather, our great-grandfather’s ancient Sunday...
View Article“A House upon the Height–”
A House upon the Height recording —Emily Dickinson The fence that runs the road hems the house in, thigh-high grass and clover tight, pushing back through the wire slats. The farmer’s wife next door...
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Secure the Shadow by Claudia Emerson LSU Press (2012)
Reviewed by Lisa Russ Spaar Claudia Emerson’s poems have always stalked liminal territories—abandoned houses, vestigial buildings reclaimed by wildness, bodies caught in birth and death throes, the...
View ArticleTrophy
This prized fish on the wall in our suburban split-level is a rainbow trout, an identification I know because my husband made a point of telling me this, more than once, when he brought the fish home...
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The Chameleon Couch (FSG, 2011) by Yusef Komunyakaa
Reviewed by Philip Belcher Komunyakaa Review Erudition as Disguise On occasion, an eager and adept reader happens upon a poetry collection that satisfies immediately. The lyric intensity of individual...
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The Last Child by John Hart (Minotaur Books)
Caveat lector: I seem to be in a meddlesome mood. And from the starting gun, I don’t want you to think that I’m recommending this book for the reader primed for precise and evocative, character-driven...
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Nightwoods by Charles Frazier
Recommended by Andrea Siso Nightwoods Review The lean, taut narrative of Nightwoods creates a story in which the setting holds as much spark as the characters, and is the central factor that brings...
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The Coldest Night by Robert Olmstead (Algonquin)
Coal Black Horse and Far Bright Star convinced me that Robert Olmstead can write as well as anyone around about the solitude, the boredom, the hellish waiting and the sheer horror that beset men at...
View ArticleFor the Relief of Unbearable Urges (Faber and Faber) by Nathan Englander
Recommendation by Sophie Xiong 2012 must be a banner year for Nathan Englander. He has (at long last) come out with his second collection of short stories titled What We Talk About When We Talk About...
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Bring Up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel
Recommended by Sarah Kennedy If you love the Tudors, you will probably like Hilary Mantel’s Bring up the Bodies. The sequel to her Wolf Hall, the book continues the story of Henry VIII’s secretary...
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Confederado by Casey Clabough
Recommended by William Wright Casey Clabough’s first novel, Confederado, is the story of Alvis Benjamin Stevens, a confederate soldier of central Virginia who returns home four months after the...
View ArticleTo Clare, a Rehearsal
Die lieder sind verweht . . . (“The songs trail away in the wind”) — O Kuhler Wald Johannes Brahms, Opus 72, no. 3 I am sorry to disturb you so...
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A Face to Meet the Faces: An Anthology of Contemporary Persona Pieces
A Face to Meet the Faces: An Anthology of Contemporary Persona Poetry edited by Stacey Lynn Brown and Oliver de la Paz (Akron, 2012) by Nick Ripatrazone Dislocated Identities, Found Personas Edward...
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