With more than typical Latin fierceness, this series of prose poems by a native Puerto Rican twists the traditional meaning of the title word to introduce a new concept of beastliness. As themes and language evolve, the sometimes hidden,... Read More

Humility is as contradictory to basic human nature as it is central to the pursuit of spirituality. According to this book, “The prideful soul can be successful-at all the things that ultimately do not matter. He will have no success... Read More

If you’d asked me a week ago, / I’d have said no, I wouldn’t love someone who’d had a sex change. / But that was a week ago, and today I’m feeling gutsy. Most of the poems in this first collection are gutsy. They are sexual and... Read More

“Love, what we’ve lived through together / has not killed us yet” are the words of a woman who has lived raw and close to death. The author, a long time AIDS educator, also weathered the trauma of her partner’s organ failure and... Read More

A physical stimulus—a source of discomfort—often helps children with attention deficit disorder to focus their awareness. In this novel, protagonist Eileen feels the same need to reconnect with life through pain or some other sharp... Read More

Emotional poverty and a yearning for freedom are the leitmotivs in Oubliette. The poems delve into the darkness of actual and imagined fears, of loss and isolation, and they propose the possibility of redemption. The title poem of the... Read More

“The violin is my life, but the viola my destiny,” says Paganini upon receiving the infamous Destiny viola, or the Voice of Manush. This second book of the “Destiny Suite,” a grand mythology of classical music, chronicles the... Read More

In an age when people have become “moral sneaks,” collectively avoiding rather than embracing the truth, Donaldson and Wamberg ask with Mark Twain, “Where are the ‘merely honest’ people?” and how do we become honest? With a... Read More