On Verse
To Revive the Lyric: Hoa Nguyen
From the technology of printing to the economy of grants and the politics of academia, literary culture exists in complete continuity with the rest of contemporary society. It is susceptible to the same virtues, biases, limitations,…
Paradise on Earth: T. J. Jarrett’s Zion
There is a body at the center of Zion, T. J. Jarrett’s new collection of poems, winner of the 2013 Crab Orchard Series in Poetry open competition. To whom this…
A Ringing Echo: The Poetry of Caitlin Doyle
Caitlin Doyle’s poems are not always what they appear to be, and this subtle shape-shifting quality is exactly what makes them so revelatory. As poet and critic Abriana Jette has…
The Glam and the Gloom: Cynthia Cruz’s Wunderkammer
Cynthia Cruz is in the midst of producing an important body of work. Wunderkammer is as much installation art as it is a book of poems, or it is as…
Text Within the Text: Rachel Blau DuPlessis
So I dismantled it. Mounted it and then dismantled it but its uncanniness its Nessie in Loch Ness-ness lurks and snuffles and sways. —Rachel Blau DuPlessis, Ledger 1 Rachel Blau DuPlessis’…
A Reluctance to Cede Ground: Age and the Writing Life
“…so blow a kiss to this drowned world. The gods have spoken: yield.” —Maxine Kumin, “Going Down” In her introduction to A Story Larger Than My Own: Women Writers Look…
The Impassive Listener: Rusty Morrison
A chainlink is an apt image for the way concepts and objects become a single edifice, the way objects and meaning create boundary and enclosure, the way perception becomes partition…
Of Grievance and Grief: Marilyn Chin
I first encountered Marilyn Chin’s poetry through a video clip from the San Diego Border Voices Poetry Festival. In the clip Chin—with her wild wavy hair and red lipstick—faces the…
Built of Voices: Kiese Laymon and Leigh Stein
Kiese Laymon and Leigh Stein do not appear to share much in the way of common experience. Laymon is a black man from Mississippi; Stein is a white half-Jewish woman…