VELVET RODEO by Kelly McQuain Bloom Books (March 2014) 42 pages reviewed by Marc Frazier This collection takes us on a journey back to our roots as individuals largely shaped by family. There are siblings here, parents, even a step-grandfather. Though the poet is gay, he is not slavishly bound to writing strictly from that […]
Reviews
Velvet Rodeo by Kelly McQuain
Adrift in a Vanishing City by Vincent Czyz
(from the preface by Samuel R. Delany)
by Vincent Czyz Rain Mountain Press (May 2015) 238 pages from the preface by Samuel R. Delany Like every one of the last three dozen MFA theses I’ve read, the following text is neither a novel nor, really, a collection of stand-alone stories. Familiar characters—Zirque (rhymes with Jerk), Blue Jean, the Duke of Pallucca—disappear or […]
On the Move with Neil Shepard’s Vermont Exit Ramps
(reviewed by Tony Whedon)
VERMONT EXIT RAMPS by Neil Shepard Big Table Publishing 50 pages reviewed by Tony Whedon Four decades ago Leo Marx defined the central conceit of the American pastoral as the steam locomotive breaking a nineteenth century forest’s silence. In his classic The Machine in the Garden Marx examined that figure’s significance to American literature as it chugged through […]
Style in John Galsworthy’s The Patrician
(reviewed by Carol Smallwood)
THE PATRICIAN by John Galsworthy Amazon Digital Services, Inc. 160 pages reviewed by Carol Smallwood Style is difficult to detect in your own writing, though it’s automatically sensed in others. The Patrician, a novel published in 1911, is the work I think of in connection with style because it fits so well Galsworthy’s definition of it […]
The Search for Conceptual Writing in Dworkin and Goldsmith’s Against Expression edited by Craig Dworkin and Kenneth Goldsmith
(reviewed by Richard Kostelanetz)
AGAINST EXPRESSION: AN ANTHOLOGY OF CONCEPTUAL WRITING edited by Craig Dworkin and Kenneth Goldsmith Northwestern Univ. Press 656 pages reviewed by Richard Kostelanetz One of the curious cultural phenomena of our time is that radical epithets developed in the rather small audience for visual art acquire a prestige that makes them glibly applicable to arts […]
My Second Favorite Writer Just Died: Elmore Leonard, Philip K. Dick, and the Weird Justice of Genre
by Michael Ennis
Long flights and waiting rooms will never be the same. Elmore Leonard is my second favorite writer, but I didn’t mourn when he died. I counted. The tally of capers and crime sprees has become finite. For years, vacation has been a pretext for devouring Leonard’s novels, seeing how many I could get through while […]
Imago for the fallen world by Matthew Cooperman and Maruis Lehene (reviewed by Brigit Kelly Young)
THE FIGHT FOR IDEALISM IN IMAGO FOR THE FALLEN WORLD by Matthew Cooperman and Maruis Lehene Jaded Ibis Press 212 pages reviewed by Brigit Kelly Young In IMAGO for the fallen world, a new collection of poems by Matthew Cooperman with accompanying images by Marius Lehene, the reader is presented with several letters to the planet. […]
A Moment in the Sun by John Sayles (reviewed by Terrance Gutberlet)
A MOMENT IN THE SUN by John Sayles McSweeney’s 968 pages reviewed by Terrance Getberlet The Spanish-American war: vehicle for John Sayles’ newest film, Amigo, and his newest novel, A Moment in the Sun. Spreading awareness of the war has become his cause du jour and he’s been seeking answers as to why it figures so dimly in the […]
An Impenetrable Screen of Purest Sky by Dan Beachy-Quick (reviewed by Jacob M. Appel)
AN IMPENETRABLE SCREEN OF PUREST SKY by Dan Beachy-Quick Coffee House Press 256 pages reviewed by Jacob M. Appel On the surface, Dan Beachy-Quick’s lyrical short novel, An Impenetrable Screen of Purest Sky, is a charming and deeply-moving fairy tale of love and loss. Beneath that romantic sheen, however, lies a subtle but trenchant challenge to […]
THE FIGHT OF THE CENTURY: ALI VS. FRAZIER, MARCH 8, 1971 by Michael Arkush (reviewed by Paul-John Ramos)
THE FIGHT OF THE CENTURY: ALI VS. FRAZIER, MARCH 8, 1971 by Michael Arkush John Wiley and Sons 272 pp. $25.95 review by Paul-John Ramos When Muhammad Ali prepared to box Joe Frazier in March 1971, few, if any, could have foreseen the worldwide admiration that surrounds him today. Ali, who turned 68 in January, […]
