reviews

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

Boundaries

Gold Rush, Claire Caldwell. Invisible Publishing 2020

Making a Difference

Reaching Mithymna, Steven Heighton. Biblioasis, 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:

“Accept this rock, its odd love”

. . . careful, layered creation

“Tronno Hijabi”

Kumquats and Eclipses

You Don’t Want It Darker