Inspired by his childhood on a dairy farm in Illinois, tales of rural life lead the way in this Austin Smith collection focused on family, violence, and memories. Smith left the Midwest to live in California, where he teaches at... Read More

Lush imagery, beckoning history, curious interactions, elusive dreams, and existential questions fuse in this prose poetry collection, the fifth by Donna Stonecipher. She resides in Berlin and translates from both French and German.... Read More

How to prepare for this collection? Pick your teeth with an axe after chewing on some freshly split ash. Carly Joy Miller is relentless. She doesn’t want you to breathe normally. Her lines resemble piano wire around the neck of a scary... Read More

That there’s such a stratospherically high level of difficulty in writing great poetry doesn’t get discussed much, probably out of superstition and a belief among poets that, after Homer’s singular brilliance, the gods disabled the... Read More

The arrival of a new poet doesn’t cause stars to wobble or birds to fall from trees—as far as we know—but heads do turn and the inevitable sizing up begins immediately. Kailey Tedesco, help yourself to a glass of bubbly, you are... Read More

Like angels and unicorns, fables have made themselves scarce of late, but leave it to the land and language of magic realism to bring forth a bona fide specimen. A gorgeously illustrated, book-length poem of masterful prose, there’s... Read More

Long stretches of hunger, sleep deprivation, filth, fear-filled nights under bridges, and the accompanying existential questions will leave a mark on a man, and his poetry. Kai Carlson-Wee lays it out there in this shy, wistful,... Read More

Curiosity skilled the poet. Seemingly unwilling to rein in her interests, Jen Town’s sense of wonder and delight with what catches her attention is infectious. Her work has lit up the pages of Epoch, Crab Orchard Review, Third Coast,... Read More