Directions Westerly by Will Schutt (Yale University Press, 2013); Strange Borderlands by Ben Berman (Able Muse Press, 2013).
It’s hard not to warm to the archness of a collection that begins, “Two doors down lived a descendant of de Sade,” lifting a trapdoor to literal, figurative, and uniquely Western nightmare. At first, the poems of Will Schutt’s Westerly … Read More
Metamorphoses Song & Error: Poems by Averill Curdy (Farrar Straus Giroux, 2013).
Having admired Averill Curdy’s work since I first read “Sparrow Trapped in the Airport” in the November 2005 issue of Poetry, I snapped up Song & Error soon after its March 2013 release and relived the discovery of that poem, … Read More
Immersed in Song If One of Us Should Fall by Nicole Terez Dutton (University of Pittsburgh, 2012)
The poems of Nicole Terez Dutton’s debut collection, If One of Us Should Fall, which received the 2011 Cave Canem Poetry Prize, are marked by music and intimacy. Often addressing “you” or “we,” the speaker invites readers to travel with … Read More
Do You Know What a Leader Is?
1. In the confines of my overnight holding cell, the images burn and keep burning, though it is not my wife, but Lucia, whom I call to cool them. “It’s me,” I say. She’s groggy—I’ve woken her up. I hear … Read More
Tiny Rhode Islands
Yet another crazy-warm winter. Spring will come early this year but it’s already been coming early for almost a decade. Tonight’s temperature is a record high fifty-eight degrees. Local meteorologist Dick Schwoegler is doing a damn good job of explaining … Read More
O Thou, Whom My Soul Doth Love
Jerusalem For Asher, a time of confusion, a time of desire. One month, and he had yet to kiss Galina, yet to hold her hand. Their most intimate moments were when he watched her dance the Mediterranean Wiggle, the Snake … Read More