Rocket Caleshu’s “The State”
In his “A Sense of Measure,” Robert Creeley discusses what one’s ‘given to write’: ‘No merely intellectual program can find …
General Criticism
Cassie Pruyn’s “Traveler’s Monologue”
‘[. . .] in whose crook’—that is, stolen moment—’I once discovered the most complete of all moments’—that italicized phrase, like the …
Kamden Hilliard’s “A Clutch of Tony”
This Kamden Hilliard’s “A Clutch of Tony” reads terribly wrong: all that iffy spacing and whipped-round apostrophes, misspellings + elisions, …
Linda Russo’s “Plant Light Situating”
datableedzine is publishing important work, & upon very first read became a glossy of weight. In their fourth issue, Linda Russo’s …
Favorite Bookish Thing 2016: Gene Wolfe’s Castle of Days
In choosing Gene Wolfe’s Castle of Days, I think: Anybody else touches it, I’ll eat them. (I’d go hungry if it …
Favorite Bookish Thing 2016: Dennigan, Riggs, Place
Invited to Cole’s house for a poetry reading. Claimed a beer—I came empty-handed; moved a table, spoke with Rose Marie …
Favorite Bookish Thing 2016: Heather Phillipson’s “100% other fibres”
Poodle mouth; a face-without-neck. Rotating before exploding. If Gilbert and George were melted down, if they had long-standing careers on …
Favorite Bookish Thing 2016: Lines by Hesiod
In a state of near-misery, I return to reading I did this summer: Dorothea Schmidt Wender’s ’73 translation of Hesiod …
Andrew Wells’ Jimmy Walks Unbended
I’ve had eye on the three-poem shortbook form that defines PYRAMID Editions. Editor Owen Vince seems to desire a one-sitting …
Jess Feldman’s Call It a Premonition
Jess Feldman picked an intriguing conceit to govern a series of very contemporary poems: ‘translate’ the Voynich manuscript, a 15th-century …
Sections from Owen Vince’s THE ADRIFT OF SAMUS ARAN
Not since reviewing Saavedra’s “From the Temple Priapus” have I been tossed into such lavish feeling: these five sections from …
Micro-Micro: Ada Limón’s “Service”
Up recently at Buzzfeed, Limón’s 2015 poem is exemplar of one of contemporary talk-poetry’s favorite modes: shallow identity verse. In …
Matt Kilbane’s “That Her Acts of Beauty be Remembered”
Kilbane’s poem, up recently at DIAGRAM, recalls one of poetry’s primary joys: memory and place enlivened by language’s occupation. Here it is, that …
Sarah Grigg Rolph’s “Roadkill”
This short lyric, up recently at Painted Bride Quarterly, is notable for an unassuming approach that avails a very ready perspicacity. I’ll admit, …
Henry Israeli’s “On Every Hand a Great Plain”
The plea at the heart of every act of criticism is a plea for better, less disposable poetry. The more …
Peter Longofono’s “Die Kranken”
“Die Kranken,” published in Noble / Gas Qtrly‘s 202.3, is a triumph of hard enjambment and worthy vocabulary. These elements combine …
Looking at ‘Best of the Net 2014’: G.C. Waldrep
G.C. Waldrep was no one to me before I read his prose poem, and a venal incarnation of my simultaneous …
Looking at ‘Best of the Net’ 2014: Bowen, Gou
[The PACK’s impressed by the quality of Sundress Publications’ selections for ‘Best of the Net’ 2014. Over the next few …
William Brewer’s “Appalachia, Your Genesis”
William Brewer’s taut poem of uneasy homecoming begins, like Joyce’s Ulysses, with a razor. Joyce does it thus: Stately, plump …
Allen Braden’s “Instructions On Being a Sea Creature”
Imprecision greets the reader of this poem at the outset, and never, afterwards, does the piece seem to resolve the miscommunications to which …
