Lo Que Sera, Ya Pasó
Itzel I: A Tlatelolco Awakening and Itzel II: A Three Knives Tale, Sarah Xerar Murphy. Guernica Editions 2019 & 2020.
Battered and Bruised, but Not Down and Out
Boy With a Problem: Short Stories, Chris Benjamin. Pottersfield Press, 2020.
What is your Emergency?
The Waiting Hours, Shandi Mitchell. Viking, 2019.
This very accomplished novel is by a Maritime writer I had never run into before, although she has written another, Under This Unbroken Sky, which I intend to read now.
The Waiting Hours is about emergency workers, and the “waiting hours” of the title, is the period during the depths of the night when, if anything happens, it is usually terrible.
Secret Signature: The Quiet Revolution of Berthe Morisot
One Madder Woman, Dede Crane. Freehand Books 2020
It is not the poem which closes
A Tent, A Lantern, An Empty Bowl and Keeping Count, M. Travis Lane. Gordon Hill Press, 2020
Let’s begin with rocks and mud.
The poem “May Rocks,” which appears nearly midway through Keeping Count, M. Travis Lane’s most recent collection, begins with a single-word sentence: “Spring.” This is followed by rocks that “butt and push” in a lawn “jagged with dragon’s teeth.” It continues: