CustomsSolmaz SharifGraywolf Press, 2022 Review by ALHS Solmaz Sharif’s Customs opens with an eruption in the face of the violence of conditionality: “I had to.” This first poem is titled “America.” Customs is poetry about conditionality in that it...
Blue-Skinned GodsS.J. SinduSoho Press, 2021 Review by Marcie McCauley In Blue-Skinned Gods, S.J. Sindu presents a narrative designed to challenge readers’ understanding of truth and trust, belonging and belief. “I had hoped for a story,” Kalki muses, but “instead...
AutowarAssiyah Jamilla TouréBrick Books, 2021 Review by Catherine Harris Assiyah Jamilla Touré’s debut collection is both concrete and abstract, dissolving and rematerializing into new forms at every turn. The speaker in Touré’s collection is repeatedly reborn, shedding their previous...
The RenunciationsDonika Kelly Graywolf Press, 2021 Review by Stella Cali Donika Kelly’s second collection of poetry, The Renunciations, begins with fire as a transitional force that overwrites the physical landscape of the speaker’s body. Standing in a field, “the undergrowth...
Made-Up: A True Story of Beauty Culture Under Late Capitalism Daphné B. Translated by Alex ManleyCoach House Books, 2021 Review by Alanna Why When you think of make-up, do you think of a frivolous activity or a form of self-care? For...
Odes and LamentsFiona Tinwei LamCaitlin Press, 2019 Review by Cynthia Sharp Odes and Laments is one of three of Fiona Tinwei Lam’s exquisite poetry collections. The cover of Odes and Laments, designed by Vici Johnstone with photography by Janet...
Postscripts from a City BurningSam CheukPalimpsest Press, 2021 Review by Robert Colman Hong Kong has stood as a kind of anomaly for many years: as a city colony of a nation (UK) well past its years of empire, and...
The Drowning HouseJohn Sibley WilliamsElixir Press, 2021 Review by Erica Goss “I dwell in possibility,” Emily Dickinson wrote—but to survive our daily lives, too often we replace possibility with dullness. Both familiar and comforting, routine implies a necessary amount...
HouseholdersKate CayleyBiblioasis, 2021 Review by Katie Zdybel In the closing story of Householders, Trout—a woman who was born into a commune which her mother, Naomi, eventually smuggled her out of—returns to that commune with the now aging, dementia-stricken Naomi....