Book Reviews… Lyrical Edginess, a Review of Jake Skeets’ “Eyes Bottle Dark with a Mouthful of Flowers” 25 Mar 2022 This review is not online... "Lyrical Edginess, a Review of Jake Skeets' Eyes Bottle Dark with a Mouthful of Flowers in Tar River Poetry, Volume 61, Number 1, fall 2021,…
Book Reviews… Review of Diana Marie Delgado’s “Tracing the Horse” 4 Feb 2021 https://coloradoreview.colostate.edu/reviews/tracing-the-horse/ (Review published in The Colorado Review, July 2020) In her strong, debut poetry collection, Tracing the Horse, Diana Marie Delgado comes to terms with cultural forces that limit her,…
Book Reviews… Review of Ashley Toliver’s “Spectra” 26 Apr 2020 https://www.massreview.org/node/7490/ (Review published in The Massachusetts Review, July 2019) "Kinesis," the first poem in Ashley Toliver's powerful first book Spectra, frames the collection's primary strength: that of movement through trauma…
Book Reviews… Review of Anna Maria Hong’s “Age of Glass” 26 Apr 2020 https://coloradoreview.colostate.edu/reviews/age-of-glass/ (Review published in Colorado Review, May 2019) The speaker in “A Parable” concludes, “It was our time to savage.” Thus begins Anna Maria Hong’s vision in her first poetry…
Book Reviews… Review of Josephine Yu’s “Prayer Book of the Anxious” 26 Apr 2020 https://www.neworleansreview.org/prayer-book-of-the-anxious/ (Review published in New Orleans Review, October 2018) In the middle of Josephine Yu’s Prayer Book of the Anxious, the speaker in “Prayer to Saint Joseph: For the Restless”…
Book Reviews… Review of Camille Rankine’s “Incorrect Merciful Impulses” 19 Apr 202026 Apr 2020 http://losangelesreview.org/book-review-incorrect-merciful-impulses-camille-rankine/ (Review published in The Los Angeles Review, March 2018) Camille Rankine’s compelling debut collection, Incorrect Merciful Impulses, enacts the struggles of one trying to connect broadly with society and…
Robert Manaster 