“Obscura,” by Frank Paino

Reviewed by William Walsh I remember in graduate school how I admired Frank Paino’s ability to move people with his strength of words and deep painful angst on subjects that neither I nor most poets could write about. I felt his passion for history and the truth his narrators were conveying. Whether the narrator was […]

May Read of the Month: “Fly Fishing in Times Square,” by William Walsh

Reviewed by Claire Bateman  …[C]onsciousness needs the world and other people to develop, but then it can grow and exist on its own; once external relations become internal, the universe exists from within…”  Marcello Massimini and Giulo Tononi, Sizing Up Consciousness “What happens when imagination confronts the universe?” Walsh explores this instigating question by revealing […]

“Weathering,” by David Havird

Reviewed by William Walsh Generally, when I read a book, for pleasure or review, I thumb through the weighted pages to feel the texture, the heft of what I can expect. Some may say that I harp on the tactile too much, but there is always the importance of the physical connection between the book […]

“Southern Writers Bear Witness,” edited by Jan Nordby Gretlund

Reviewed by William Walsh There’s something about the tactile sensation of opening a book and smelling the paper and ink that lends itself to seemingly unlimited possibilities. Two very distinct things prompted my anticipation of Southern Writers Bear Witness. One, I started off in the mid-1980s interviewing southern writers, including some of the same writers […]

William Walsh

William Walsh, who is originally from Jamestown, New York, and has lived all over the United States and Canada, is a narrative poet in the tradition of James Dickey, David Bottoms, and Fred Chappell. His new collection of poems, Fly Fishing In Times Square, recently won the Editors’ Prize and will be published by Cervena Barva Press (Boston) in […]

“Heads On Fire: Essays on Southern Fiction,” edited by Jan Nordby Gretlund

  Reviewed by William Walsh There is a reason I do not own a Kindle, a Fire HDX, an iPad Air, an HP Omni, or any of the many e-book readers, and it’s not because I’m against modern technology or I’m some hermit-like curmudgeon living in a 1950s cave who thinks the old way of […]