poetry
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Brian Teare’s first collection was recommended to me by one of my MFA teachers who knew him. There are two overwhelming impulses in the way the poems are crafted: sound and form. Brian is a poet who creates forms anew when he writes. He pushes the boundary of form and calls into question whether form…
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D. A. Powell recommended this book when Sarah Vap and I interviewed him a few years ago. I had seen it around, you know, but I hadn’t really known what to make of it. I read it–I remember this so clearly–on a flight to my friend Katie’s wedding in Minneapolis. I read it cover to…
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I’m pretty sure this book floated into my life when I first arrived at graduate school, recommended reading for the Magical Realism course I took in my first term. I’m sure I didn’t track it down until some time later, but when I did, I was glad to have remembered the recommendation. Raymond Queneau recounts…
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When this anthology came out, it caused quite a stir. People expressed appreciation, anger, anxiety, even confusion–and I think this anthology itself caused a lot of other groups, movements, and publications to develop into succinct efforts. Every anthology is a failure–to someone, for some reason. The job of the editor is a difficult and often…
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I was encouraged by a friend to seek out this book. It was one of the best pieces of reading advice I’ve been given. I remember poring over this volume when I first got it, enjoying it, and then I hit the central long poem in the book, “From L’Hotel Terminus Notebooks,” and that’s when…
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Helpless and horrified, the readers of Blood Dazzler can do nothing to stop the impending trauma and destruction of Hurricane Katrina as she sets her one clear eye on the city of New Orleans. We know the ending of the story, which makes the retelling so much more terrifying: hospital patients abandoned, a sports facility…
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