Literate, imaginative, erudite, precise, and lovely—the poems by Michael Minassian in 1000 Pieces of Time (Sheila-Na-Gig Editions 2025) are all that and more. Minassian blends the here and the gone, the realistic and the fanciful, the dreamy and the sharp, in a collection at once creative and impeccably well crafted. Divided into three distinctive parts, […]
“The Athlete Whisperer: An Improbable Voice in Sports” by Andrea Kirby
February 1, 2026 by Leave a Comment
To be truly captivating, a personal memoir needs to have at least these three things: an interesting baseline story, meaningful insight, and a strong voice conveyed well in quality writing. In all those ways, Andrea Kirby’s new memoir, The Athlete Whisperer: An Improbable Voice in Sports (FriesenPress 2025), excels. The baseline story tells readers how […]
“Great and Small” by Josh Dugat
January 11, 2026 by Leave a Comment
In this rich, rewarding collection, Josh Dugat pays tribute to the varied matters of the world—subjects both seemingly simple yet expansive, intimate yet universal. As reflected in its title, the many poems in Great and Small: Poems (Able Muse Press 2025) luminously ring with celebration and observation of a myriad of things. Dugat casts his […]
“Antebellum Oz” by Joseph Eldredge
December 1, 2025 by Leave a Comment
An Antebellum Oz (Choice Press 2025) by Joseph Eldredge is a boldly reimagined The Wonderful Wizard of Oz in which six friends—three free siblings, three enslaved youths—on a Mississippi farm at the beginning of the Civil War find themselves uplifted in a hurricane and set down in Oz. The story is inventive, thought-provoking, and engrossing […]
“Lullaby for the Grieving” by Ashley M. Jones
November 12, 2025 by Leave a Comment
Heralded as her most personal collection of poetry yet, Ashley M. Jones’s Lullaby for the Grieving (Hub City Press, 2025) dazzles with its power and beauty. With innovative forms, profound themes, and a fierceness tempered by sensitivity, Jones addresses many topics. Given the title, it is no surprise that poems about grief dominate the collection, […]