Reviewed by Celia Bland This volume describes a slip—both personal and cultural—into self-indulgence and escapism. In poem after poem, romantic ideals are subsumed in quick encounters, dirty puns, and Powell’s figurative décolletage of a dowager poet, a witty but jaded survivor of the courtly lists. Which is not to imply that Powell is in drag—she’s […]
September Read of the Month: “Useless Landscape, or A Guide for Boys,” by D.A. Powell
September 4, 2013 by 1 Comment
August Read of the Month: “Turn Me Loose: The Unghosting of Medgar Evers,” by Frank X Walker
August 7, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Reviewed by William Aarnes One of the shortcomings of the recently published Angles of Ascent: A Norton Anthology of Contemporary American Poetry is its failure to include poems by Frank X Walker. Perhaps the reason that a sampling of Walker’s poems does not appear is the kind of poems he writes. The editor of the […]
July Read of the Month: “Suite for Three Voices,” by Derek Furr
July 3, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Reviewed by Cameron Williams In “Starting from Error,” the prelude to Suite for Three Voices (a piece also nominated for the Pushcart Prize), Derek Furr muses, “What if there were an ‘h’ in ‘went,’ as there so often was in my students’ writing? When is involved in went, time rolled up in the past tense, […]
June Read of the Month: “The Little Way of Ruthie Leming,” by Rod Dreher
June 5, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Reviewed by Philip K. Jason This soulful biography has the makings of an American classic. It has attributes that are likely to put it on all kinds of reading lists: family dynamics, coping with illness, grieving, religious questioning, small town life, and regional culture to name a handful. Its subtitle pushes some of these buttons: […]
May Read of the Month: “The Kings and Queens of Roam,” by Daniel Wallace
May 15, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Reviewed by Matthew Simmons One of the great frustrations of being a young person in a small town is how incredibly boring it seems. Everything that happens seems to happen somewhere else, and wanderlust is an oppressive feeling, something inescapable, omnipresent, and, importantly, your greatest desire in the world. This is true everywhere, it seems, […]
May Read of the Month: “The Kings and Queens of Roam,” by Daniel Wallace
May 8, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Reviewed by Lizzie Gheorghita Daniel Wallace fans, count yourselves lucky. The Birmingham native’s forthcoming novel, The Kings and Queens of Roam, echoes the passion for mythology and adventure first evidenced in Big Fish. Wallace illuminates the rich history of a fictional land rife with burly lumberjacks, Chinese immigrants, feral dogs, and ghosts, and seamlessly melds fanciful and imaginative elements […]