Poetry Review: Unholy Heart by Grace Bauer
Unholy Heart: New and Selected Poems by Grace Bauer. The Backwaters Press: An Imprint of the University of Nebraska Press. 2021. 169 pages. $19.95. Paperback. New and selected poetry collections can sometimes be cumbersome when approaching any poet to experience their work. I always find that’s because we must figure out where to begin. With Unholy Heart: New and Selected Poems by Grace Bauer, it’s...
Fiction Review: Hoaxes and Other Stories
Hoaxes and Other Stories by Brian Dinuzzo. Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, 2022. 161 pages. $17.95, paperback. Right away, this book pulled me in. The titular Hoax, the leading story of the collection by Dinuzzo, is about a budding actor who keeps dying, found the victim of a number of terrible accidents, though each one reported...
Fiction Review: The Red-Headed Pilgrim by Kevin Maloney
The Red-Headed Pilgrim by Kevin Maloney. Columbus, OH, FORTHCOMING with Two Dollar Radio. 242 pages. $18.95, paperback. Many may fantasize about writing the Great American Novel, never working a nine-to-five job, and having constant unprotected sex without producing a child, but Kevin, the protagonist in The Red-Headed Pilgrim, fails in all of these respects. As...
Poetry Review: A Cluster of Noisy Planets
A Cluster of Noisy Planets by Charles Rafferty. Rochester, NY, BOA Editions, Ltd. 2001, 80 pages. $17.00, paperback. A Cluster of Noisy Planets by Charles Rafferty is an account of the melancholic passing of time, expressed through lovely observations of our world. Reading these prose poems aloud, one can sense the soft drumming of Rafferty’s...
Book Review: I Know What’s Best for You: Stories on Reproductive Freedom
I Know What’s Best for You: Stories on Reproductive Freedom, edited by Shelly Oria. San Francisco, California: McSweeney’s, 2022. 480 pages. $21.99, paperback. In the months since SCOTUS’s overturning of Roe v. Wade it’s been incredibly difficult to feel like the voices of women and gender minorities are being listened to. While it’s easy to...