Breathing Technique by Marija Knežević (Zephyr Press, 2021). In a selection of excerpts from “The River’s Name,” the standout poem of Breathing Technique (Zephyr Press, 2021), Serbian writer Marija Knežević explores the protean nature of borders, agency and … Read More
Funeral Diva by Pamela Sneed (City Lights Books, 2020). In an interview on the Ezra Klein Show, the two-term American poet laureate Tracy K. Smith describes poetry as “insisting on a different logic…trying to pull out a different … Read More
An Incomplete List of Names by Michael Torres (Beacon Press, 2020). Michael Torres’s powerful debut, An Incomplete List of Names, opens with an act of loyalty—the kind that rides shotgun in an ’87 Mustang and doesn’t ask questions … Read More
The Mother House by Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin (Wake Forest University Press, 2020). Still Life by Ciaran Carson (Wake Forest University Press, 2020). Since the Covid-19 pandemic has fundamentally changed so many aspects of our lives, it stands to … Read More
Kontemporary Amerikan Poetry: Poems by John Murillo (Four-Way Books, 2020). Kontemporary Amerikan Poetry: Poems, John Murillo’s second collection, is constructed in the vein of a craft-book, and nearly every poem can be read on several levels—as literary criticism, … Read More
The Dragons, the Giant, the Women: A Memoir by Wayétu Moore (Graywolf Press, 2020). The pages of the immensely talented Wayétu Moore’s memoir The Dragons, the Giant, the Women are resonant with absence. “We are told that all … Read More
Requiem with an Amulet in Its Beak by Elizabeth Knapp (Washington Writers’ Publishing House, 2019). In her second poetry collection, Requiem with an Amulet in Its Beak, Elizabeth Knapp springboards from the pop and political zeitgeists of the … Read More
Be with Me Always by Randon Billings Noble (University of Nebraska Press, 2019). “But then I met J, and my heart emptied its pockets,” writes Randon Billings Noble about meeting her husband in the essay “Ambush” from her … Read More
Orders of Protection by Jenn Hollmeyer (University of North Texas Press, 2019). When Salamander first published Jenn Hollmeyer’s short story “Step Off at Ten” in the spring of 2012, the editors were taken with the story’s subtle power … Read More
Sex & Taipei City by Yu-Han Chao (Red Hen Press, 2019). The Taipei of Yu-Han Chao’s debut story collection Sex & Taipei City both bustles and glistens. It’s a city of industry and aspiration—skyscrapers and metro trains, prep … Read More
Footnotes in the Order of Disappearance by Fady Joudah (Milkweed Editions, 2018). House of Fact, House of Ruin by Tom Sleigh (Graywolf Press, 2018). Fady Joudah is the Palestinian-American translator of two of the poet Mahmoud Darwish’s books … Read More
Extravagant Rescues: Poems by Brett Foster (Northwestern University Press, 2019). First of all, in the interest of full disclosure, Brett Foster was my classmate in the Graduate Creative Writing program at Boston University. In 2015, Brett died from … Read More