A Pontiac in the Woods by Fred Misurella 306 pages – Amazon “Body language,” he said, holding back a smile. “Head’s down, but your shoulders look like they want to kick butt.” Really.…

Image Credit: Bryan Engelmann   I stepped outside of the medical plaza and texted my husband. The baby is dying. I’m going to miscarry again. He was several blocks away,…

* * * Meadowlark song in a March field of snow ringing again and again from hiding behind fencegrowth …meadowlarkpiccolosplash …meadowlarkwhistle …meadowlarkyellowlight up some patch of snow along with the…

Wanting Radiance by Karen McElmurray The University Press of Kentucky, April 2020 272 pages / Bookshop / Amazon   Wanting Radiance, Karen McElmurray’s powerful and lyrical new novel, is part…

scarf by Amy Sarig King The question before us is bread. The fluff of the flour and the crystals of salt. The warm-water yeast and the well into which she…

Garth Prince sculpts thoughtful, world-spanning sounds on the soulful “Falling in Africa”. The highly tactile nature of the arrangements gives them a timeless quality. Rhythms are nimble and the dexterity…

Image Credit: Florida Memory, State Library and Archives of Florida   Your teacher made you practice crouching under desks barnacled with ancient snot. Her sentences were rough with words like…

Rendang by Will Harris Granta (UK) & Wesleyen Poetry Series (U.S.), August 2020 80 pages / Bookshop / Amazon   More than once while preparing this review, I found myself…

Tanaya Winder is an author, singer/songwriter, poet, motivational speaker and educator who comes from an intertribal lineage of Southern Ute, Pyramid Lake Paiute, Diné, and Duckwater Shoshone Nations where she is…

I should not have been surprised when the man sitting next to me on the subway started to lean over my shoulder and read the essays I was grading for…

* * * Barred White Noise and Blue A barred owl hoots—unseen——–heard Dig,—–the cloak of night An apparition—secreted on some dark bough A noisy booger,—–audacious whoop—against constant flood of freeway…

Aveli Amun speaks truth to power on the potent, politically charged poetics of “First 6”. The agitprop lyrics come to grips with the sad scenario the United States has created…

I’ll Be Gone in the Dark by Michelle McNamara Harper, February 2018 352 pages / Bookshop / Amazon   Michelle McNamara (April 14, 1970- April 21, 2016): writer, mother, wife,…

Lessons I’ve Learned From a Woodpecker: Save your brain Get to work Be loving Be free I had a few concussions when I was younger. I feel like we are…