Beckman and Zapruder have tackled perhaps the largest taboo in American letters: the political poem. This genre is often dismissed as didactic or worse, un-poetic, but "State of the Union" proves just how good political poems can be.... Read More

The characters of Margaret Luongo’s short story collection are united not by outward demographics, but by a commitment to survival. Most have reached a moment of crisis. There are the usual births, marriages, and deaths, but there are... Read More

In the first poem of Kazim Ali’s latest collection, "The Fortieth Day", God gives way to Lostness, and questions become more important than answers. The search for understanding is relentless, and in order for this search to occur, the... Read More

Sidney Wade could easily be speaking of herself when she writes about a turtle that “precisely / balances her load / of hungry bone on / four dactylic feet.” These lines end the poem “Tortoise” from Wade’s latest book, Stroke,... Read More

The Factory of Tears is a real place in Valzhyna Mort’s eponymous collection of poems. In fact, its productivity rate is higher than the Department of Transportation, the Department of Heart Affairs, and every other governmental... Read More

At its best (Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Salman Rushdie, Angela Carter), magical realism lures in its readers, making the impossible seem merely improbable. Antonio Muñoz Molina’s novella, "In Her Absence", is a supreme example of this... Read More

Throughout his collection of poems "From Whence", Chitwood seems bent on disproving fellow Southern poet Allen Tate who once wrote, “The typical southern conversation is not going anywhere.” Chitwood cites this disparaging comment in... Read More

In his 2002/2003 Frost Medal acceptance speech, Lawrence Ferlinghetti described three types of poetry, the last and most important being standing poetry, “the poetry of commitment, often great, often dreadful.” Sean Thomas Dougherty... Read More