Angele Ellis: “Subterranean Lovesick Clues” | Alexis Rhone Fancher’s Poetic Topography of Sex
Emotions wrestle with physicality in the twisted sheets of Erotic.
Abby Zimet: Rest In Poetry
We bid fond farewell to Lawrence Ferlinghetti, indefatigable poet, publisher, painter, pacifist, iconoclast, political activist, “heart of the Beat generation” and “legend of American letters, bookselling, rabble rousing, wild dreaming.”
Arlene Weiner: Nobody’s coming to save the children
Catherine Doty’s pitiless poems beautifully show us what we don’t want to see: children’s poverty, abuse, neglect. And their meanness. Poor children living in squalor, which Doty’s language often veils in lyrical glamor.
Ariel Dorfman: How Spanish Can Help Us Survive Viral Times
A Journey into the Heart of a Language We Need Now More Than Ever.
Vox Populi: A note from the editor
Please forgive this blatant self-promotion, but I want to share with you a link to a review of my new collection of poems American Ash in the highly regarded and popular magazine Cultural Weekly, curated by Alexis Rhone Fancher.
Frida Berrigan: ‘I Ain’t Marching Anymore’ chronicles 260 years of war resistance and conscientious objection
From the American Revolution through the Global War on Terror, author Chris Lombardi tells the inspiring stories of people who refused to kill.
Kathleen O’Toole: For Such a Time as This
The poet’s ability to inhabit the events, and actors, with King himself center stage, contribute to the power of this collection. Moreover, the questions these poems raise could not be more timely.
Tony Magistrale: When Viruses Collide: Covid-19 Meets Stephen King’s The Stand
Published in 1978, The Stand, a narrative that centers on a pandemic virus that decimates 99% of the world’s population, has perhaps hit a bit too close to home.
Lyndsey Stonebridge: The plague novel you need to read is by Bachmann, not Camus
What does it mean to live in the plague – every day, across generations and without an exit strategy?
Mike Schneider: Against Walls | John le Carré (1931-2020)
Among reasons we’ll remember le Carré, not least is his 1963 breakthrough novel, The Spy Who Came In from the Cold. Set in Cold War Berlin, it’s a classic story of love and espionage centered on the Berlin Wall, both as physical reality and symbol of separation between people — a wall that resonates with 21st-century politics.
S. Brent Rodriguez-Plate: Here’s why Christmas movies are so appealing this holiday season
Holiday movies are popular not simply because they are “escapes.” Rather, these films offer viewers a glimpse into the world as it could be.
Michael Simms: André Breton and the Birth of Surrealism
The Poem was worried. He’d heard rumors of Rondels in other lands being infested with illogic, and there was no known cure.
Michael Simms: Blue Notes
I think of Fats Waller whose left hand leaped down the keys, showing the path for every jazz pianist who followed, including the great Art Tatum and the minor Billy Joel.
