“I can’t say I’m sorry, / you who are to me both sun and moon.” The book’s backbone seems simple: a relationship between a man and a woman. It begins with one of many references to Greek mythology wherein the speaker identifies... Read More

The literary feminist fable, for all its PC piety, is hardly a foolproof genre. All too often its didactic intentions succumb to humorlessness, and lifeless, allegorical plotting overtakes the flesh and blood characters. Witness no less... Read More

“Hit them pines wildman, hit them pines,” Davis hollers as he creates a scene from Stanley Easter. A scene that is recreated in each listener’s brain, and is as vivid and individual as the person listening cares to allow. That’s... Read More

“I know that when the storm of Lenin and Stalin came / to outrage itself, poet masses left and Akhmatova / alone remained,” writes Braggs in the title poem of his latest collection. He is in the house where the great Russian poet... Read More

When it first happened, she was shocked. When it happened again, she decided maybe that was just the way she wrote. Maybe all writers write through to strong characters, tricky plots, a scary detail. Maybe a writing room made to resemble... Read More

What is left in the world for people who are still alive yet whose lives have been destroyed? All is inverted. Pain is now painless. Poverty is ambiguous riches. The hurtful past is now the ambivalent present. Dailey writes with the... Read More

Regardless of the title’s emphasis on the female half of a marriage, Gochnauer, a regular contributor to the Kansas City Star and author of the Homebodies column, focuses on the need for both partners to work together and agree on the... Read More

The author’s concept of the Christianity he wants the reader to “know” is clear from the beginning. Titled to draw those who know the author from his bestseller, Knowing God, he capitalizes on language that is conservative and... Read More