Dear Beast Loveliness: Poems of the Body By Tim J. Myers ISBN 978-1609641238 BlazeVOX Reviewed by Grace Stansbery In Dear Beast Loveliness, Tim J. Myers explores the physical and spiritual existences pertaining to the body. “The most profound of all human experiences is simply having a body,” he writes, and “of all our universal realities, [...]

Blitzkreig By John Gosslee Rain Mountain Press 2013 ISBN-13: 978-0989705110 70 pages The tree lay down on the garage roof and stretched. You have your heaven, it said, go to it. –William Carlos Williams, The Hurricane Maybe World War II ends earlier if white lab-coated William Carlos Williams scrawls “The Hurricane” longhand on the back [...]

Introduction for October: Being Unreal I don’t know about you, but my right-now life is laden with reality: bills, the 9-to-5 (necessary to pay said bills), the leaden thing that weighs on everyone at said 9-to-5 (making them mean and me mean), family, the failures of family, a slowing metabolism and no will or energy [...]

If asked what my greatest ambition was, I’d admit it was still to write a great poem–not a great poem as per some throng of critics, or high powered literary figures, but great to one talented, intelligent, engaged reader who I trust to never let me down in terms of aesthetic judgment. This reader exists [...]

Easy Math: Poems, Lauren Shapiro, Sarabande Books (Kathryn A. Morton Prize in Poetry), pp. 65, $14.95, February 2013. Reading Easy Math by Lauren Shapiro is like being invited to an outrageous party where “the only escape/is realizing you’re already there.” It’s a come-as-you-are party, so readers are encouraged to show up with tousled hair, wearing…

Light Pollution, Match.com Potlatch No man is an island. Some men are on islands. Some men are on two. Odysseus flicked his phone awake began to type: “Penelope, my darling, I —” Calypso came into the room. Phone disappears into pocket, on silent. Whisper I to you: “Come on the drift of the moon. The [...]

Reading Goat In The Snow Emily Pettit’s lush lines unfold and unfold and unfold. She’s a master of the short line, gorgeously complex in her use of dark themes (strongest being a version of intense human anxiety) and poignantly reveals these themes in an unselfconscious, direct voice. The distinctive “leaping” I find in so much [...]