In a series of short, water-centric essays, Cat Pleska’s My Life in Water (UnCollected Press 2024) spans a lifetime of memories. Each lovingly crafted story is told in elegant prose using the powerful poetic imagery Pleska is noted for. The first story, “Wash Me Clean,” predates Pleska’s own memories; rather it is a confession by […]
“Yoke & Feather” by Jessie van Eerden
November 27, 2024 by Leave a Comment
Yoke & Feather by Jessie van Eerden (Dzanc Books 2024), described as “a collection of braided essays,” is an intimate yet sweeping search for the “everyday sacred,” the small prayers and essential longings underlying our daily striving for connection, fulfillment, and as yet unrecognized need. Linking seemingly discordant experiences so apt they ring harmonious as […]
“I Could Name God in Twelve Ways” by Karen Salyer McElmurray
November 26, 2024 by Leave a Comment
The Sufi mystic and poet Rumi wrote, “There are a hundred ways to kneel and kiss the ground.” In prayer, in supplication and humbleness, in homage, in desperation for healing and peace. The ground we claim or that claims us. A foreign ground we travel for exploration and enlightenment. Home ground, dismissed, wished for, finally […]
Nonfiction Books of Note for December: “Conversations with Jimmy Carter” and George Singleton’s “Asides”
December 19, 2023 by Leave a Comment
“Conversations with Jimmy Carter,” editor Tom Head Conversations with Jimmy Carter, (University of Mississippi Press, 2023) is a collection of ten interviews that reaffirm what we already know about the man. He walks the walk, not just talks the talk. As he tells Bill Moyers in the first interview, “I feel like I have one […]
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, […]
“The Patron Saint of Dreams,” by Philip Gerard
January 20, 2012 by Leave a Comment
By Donna Meredith In a well-known poem, Robert Frost once depicted humans as standing on a shore looking out to sea, unable to perceive much about their world. Philip Gerard, however, writes from the North Carolina coast with an unusual gift for peering not only “out far,” but also “in deep,” a talent vividly […]