Jack Remick reviews "Slow Now With Clear Skies" by Julene Tripp Weaver

There are moments in this volume, dominated by sickness of time and virus, when Weaver transcends the “easy way of death” to land in profound instants of insight. Those moments grace this collection, not with the expected lamentations of loss and death, but a greater depth—perhaps, even, grace beyond death.

Here the verse is clean, sharp and pure as the poet uses ordinary language to say extraordinary things. There is much Imagism in Weaver’s poetry—Imagism : “saying what you mean in the fewest and clearest words.”

While Weaver never fully abandons the purely experiential—and this volume is built on the personal—she leads us past the lyric of lamentations and into the epic of our own battles as humans to survive.

Nina Burokas Reviews "How to Be a Good Savage and Other Poems" by Mikeas Sánchez

It was with this awareness that I celebrate Milkweed Edition’s Seedbank Series, and, in this review, Mikeas Sánchez’s How to Be a Good Savage and Other Poems. The thirty-eight poems in this collection are drawn from the author’s six prior publications, dating from 2006-2019. The author both wrote and translated the poems in those bilingual—Zoque and Spanish—publication. How to Be a Good Savage is trilingual, making the poems accessible to English readers for the first time.

Sánchez is a member of the Mokaya people, Indigenous to the state of Chiapas, Mexico. Her native language, Zoque, is a branch of the Mixe-Zoquean languages of Southern Mexico. Translators Wendy Call and Shook note that Sánchez now writes primarily in Zoque; specifically, the regional Copainalá variant of Zoque, an endangered language. The author states that “[being] an Indigenous writer in Mexico is an act of protest, an act of cultural and linguistic resistance.” Indeed, Sánchez’s activism—as a poet, as a radio producer, as a translator and developer of elementary school curricula—has been a significant contributor to the survival of her native language and the associated culture.

Nina Burokas Reviews "Lesser Known Monsters of the 21st Century" by Kim Fu

In Lesser Known Monsters of the 21st Century, Kim Fu imagines worlds that are both familiar and fantastic, characters that are flawed, as all human beings are (monsters no exception) and examines the way we respond to life’s stresses. Days after finishing a story, the images still reverberate: Liddy standing, “her legs forming an inverted V…. The wings spread to a majestic span”; Miki veiling her intent in an oversized patterned scarf and exaggerated gestures; the surrealism of the Sandman; the mysterious smile on Connie’s face, “gone and back from somewhere I could never truly know, all her secrets her own, fascinating again”; and the experience of a classic French boule. These stories play out at the edges of our consciousness: not quite real and yet universal, relevant in proportion to one’s experience and imagination.

book reviewsPhoebe BoscheMarch 18, 2024Raven Chronicles Pressraven chronicles, book reviews, Nina Burokas, kim fu, tin houseComment

Nina Burokas Reviews "Leaning Toward Light" Edited by Tess Taylor

“We live in a divided society. We live inside climate change, ecosystem loss, mass extinction, and racial violence, in a global community gripped by famine, hunger, and war. The heaviest days are excruciating. Yet sometimes, in the face of huge pain, the things of the earth . . . can help reroute any of us toward awe and fascination. They can reconnect us—if just for a moment—with the life-giving energy we need to go on.”

The above excerpt from editor/poet Tess Taylor’s introductory essay, “Gardening in Public,” captures what it means to garden in these times. Reading this anthology is an immersion in a source of positive energy that is accessible to all of us, whether we tend a single plant or manage a production garden. Leaning Toward Light: Poems for Gardens & the Hands That Tend Them collects the experiences of ninety poets, testifying for gardening and its potential for renewal. As Mariana Goycoechea’s mother says in “Palm Sunday:” “La luna renews itself / & so can you.” In the depths of the pandemic, Taylor observed that as she tended the garden, it tended back. And being outside, in pickup conversations with neighbors, she saw “how gardens help us nourish both the soil and one another.”

Nina Burokas Reviews "Northwest Know-How: Beaches" by Rena Priest

One of Seattle-based publisher Sasquatch Books “educational, entertaining and highly giftable” Northwest Know-How series, Northwest Know-How: Beaches is a “sleeper” (aka “sneaker”) wave. On the surface, it’s a packable, concise reference, with evocative illustrations by Jake Stoumbus. In it, Priest highlights thirty-four of the most notable beach destinations in Oregon and Washington, including the Wreck of the Peter Iredale and Heceta Head Lighthouse. Listings are arranged by region—coastal sites from Semiahmoo in northwest Washington to Sunset Bay State Park on the Oregon Coast, and from the San Juan Islands to Seattle. The Olympic Peninsula and Washington Coast are also covered. A section in the back of the book notes activities by area; for example, the best camping, best kite flying, best lighthouses, best paddling, best sandcastle beaches, and best whale watching. A Safety and Guidelines section provides general planning hints and a reminder of safety and stewardship protocols.

Natalie Pascale Boisseau Reviews Where the Language Lives, Vi Hilbert and the Gift of Lushootseed

With her book, Where the Language Lives, Vi Hilbert and the Gift of Lushootseed, published in 2022, author Janet Yoder explores the world of Vi taqʷšəblu Hilbert—an Upper Skagit Indian Tribal Elder in Washington state. We discover her life, her humor, her traditional wisdom as a guide to navigate an everchanging reality, and her life purpose which was to uplift the human spirit.

With a broad stroke of her brush and intimate storytelling, Janet Yoder writes about Vi Hilbert’s contribution to safeguarding and preserving the Lushootseed language; how the language of the people of the Salish Coast is connected with culture, a deep sense of belonging to the land, and to spiritual life. Through Vi’s life story Yoder documents how the stories are kept alive and connected to Spirit, which pervades the human experience, the animal realm, and nature and places.

Steve Potter Reviews Purr and Yowl: An Anthology of Poetry About Cats

Cats are the stars of most poems in Purr and Yowl: An Anthology of Poetry About Cats. In a few, though, a cat is a character actor in a supporting role or merely passes through for a brief cameo. The anthology includes work from more than one hundred poets selected by editor David D. Horowitz. It includes poems in a wide array of styles, including haiku, tanka, sonnets, free verse, and more.

Purr and Yowl is full of reminders of why so many of us are fascinated and enamored of felines. It's a perfect gift for the cat and / or poetry lover in your life.

book reviewsPhoebe BoscheDecember 23, 2023Raven Chronicles Pressraven chronicles, book reviews, steve potter, poetryComment

Steve Potter Reviews Heller Levinson's SHIFT GRISTLE & QUERY CABOODLE

Heller Levinson continues his Hinge Theory-fueled explorations of life and language in two new collections of poetry from Black Widow Press. He includes four epigraphs at the beginning of Shift Gristle which give an indication of the concerns he will engage with, and the modes of engagement in the book. They include quotes from Walter Benjamin, John Gardner, Walt Whitman, and this one from Matthew Prichard, writing in regard to the paintings of his friend Henri Matisse: “There are certain truths which transcend the power of the intellect to grasp, which can only be conveyed by evocation.”

The Orphic, epistemologically inquisitive poems in Query Caboodle put me in mind of Zen koans and Pablo Neruda's The Book of Questions. The questions in the book are not questions to be answered so much as they are questions to be dwelt on and lived with in order to deepen one's awareness of how language operates.

Christine Runyon Reviews Man Alone: The Dark Book by Jack Remick

In Man Alone: The Dark Book, Jack Remick, Seattle’s treasure emeritus, invented a new genre—pulp literature, in this latest of his twenty-two books. He delivers lines with the deadpan understatement of Raymond Chandler. He lays down fresh images, without a trace of hackney. This is a book anyone can read because, to its virtue, it doesn’t stink of high literature. In this story, as in life, the questions come easier than the answers. Foremost, I find myself wondering about the transactional nature of relationships. What happens to people who can’t meet the price that a high-rise city requires of them? When is the cost of a relationship, whether with alcohol or with a dangerous woman, too high to bear? Remick has come into a new super power in Man Alone.

book reviewsPhoebe BoscheNovember 20, 2023Raven Chronicles Pressraven chronicles, book reviews, jack remick, christine runyon, fic, anti-heroComment

Bethany Reid Reviews What Water Holds by Tele Aadsen

What Water Holds is, as are all of Empty Bowl Press’s books, beautifully made. The cover, by Sitka artist Lisa Teas Conaway, features a floating bird feather and rippling salmon, and so many blues: blue sky giving way to a surface panoply of blues giving way to water’s aquamarines giving way to depths of blue-black. In twenty-six essays organized into five sections, Aadsen takes readers on a journey from when she is a “an underdressed three-year-old” admiring a king salmon caught by her grandfather, to when that child is a deckhand and co-owner / operator of a fishing vessel, and old enough to be measuring how much longer she can physically keep up with the work. Aadsen celebrates the fish, and the industry, while refusing to flinch from the conundrum they present for a person of conscience . . .

book reviewsPhoebe BoscheNovember 9, 2023Raven Chronicles Pressraven chronicles, book reviews, bethany reid, essays, fisherpoetsComment

Steve Potter Reviews I Never Dreamed You'd Leave In Summer by Robert Lashley

An epistolary novel, the story is told via a series of letters the protagonist, Albert, writes to Professor Thompson, a counselor at the college where Albert is a freshman. A few letters written by Thompson addressed to Albert are also included. Albert expresses his opinions on social issues in his letters to Professor Thompson but always in relation to events in the story. He never goes off into rhetorical generalizations.

Albert is a former member of the Crips who spent time in juvie for running drugs and robbing old ladies. He gets a second chance at life thanks to the intervention of some community leaders and mentors. I Never Dreamed You'd Leave in Summer is, among other things, a redemption story. It's also a grief-driven tragedy, a love story, and a work of social realism with some of the qualities of a picaresque novel.

book reviewsPhoebe BoscheNovember 3, 2023Raven Chronicles Pressraven chronicles, book reviews, steve potter, robert lashley, novelComment

Anna Bálint Reviews Wandering Star by J.M. G. Le Clézio

Set against the backdrop of WW2 and the founding of the state of Israel, Wandering Star is a remarkable novel. Written with deep compassion and in sumptuous language, it encompasses the stories and viewpoints of two adolescent girls: Esther, who is Jewish, and Nejma, who is Palestinian. It is also a story about the land, the earth on which we live, and the ways in which landscapes and the natural world are a part of human identity, both who we are and who we become. “Does the sun not shine for us all?” the novel asks.

None of this is presented simplistically. There are no neat parallel stories, no back and forth chapters, or a book divided into halves, one for Esther, the other for Nejma. A master storyteller, Le Clézio’s structure is both more subtle and complex than that, with Nejma’s story literally imbedded within Esther’s, breaking it open at a critical point, and ultimately changing it.

Nina Burokas Reviews I Sing the Salmon Home, Poems from Washington State

You don’t need to be a salmon aficionado to appreciate this anthology. What drew me in was a love of place, and a curiosity about what makes this bioregion unique. I was not aware that salmon is a keystone species. In her preface, Priest explains “everything relies on [salmon]; if we want to be okay, the salmon must thrive.” What’s at risk? According to the Wild Salmon Center, “From grizzly bears to orca whales, at least 137 different species rely on the marine-rich nutrients that wild salmon provide.”

Natalie Pascale Boisseau reviews Marilyn Stablein's THE COMPANY OF CROWS

This book of arts and crafts is an intimate meeting with the author who has lived in the Himalayas and written essays on climate and bestiary. As a new reader of Marilyn Stablein’s work, The Company of Crows is a magnificent first entry point. For readers who already follow her work, this book gives new moments of discovery coming home to roost with new images, elusive memories, and pleasures.

Steve Potter reviews Larry Laurence's THOUGHT DESPAIRIMENTS

If one were to devise a big feels vs. deep thoughts metric for works of literature, one might be tempted to place Larry Laurence's collection Thought Despairiments on the deep thoughts end of the spectrum, but it actually straddles the entire range . . . Thought Despairiments is a collection both thoughtful and despairing, full of experiments and explorations that will reward you with thoughts of your own.

book reviewsPhoebe BoscheSeptember 23, 2023Raven Chronicles Pressraven chronicles, poetry, steve potter, book reviews, larry laurenceComment

Donna Miscolta reviews "Take a Stand, Art Against Hate Anthology"

“Arriving in time for this election season is a vital anthology of poems, stories, and art from Raven Chronicles that directly responds to the hatred inflamed by the racist, incompetent, narcissist currently munching “hamberders” and tweeting twaddle from the Oval Office while crises rage. I spoke to Anna Bálint, one of the editors of Take a Stand: Art Against Hate about the inspiration, or perhaps provocation, for compiling the anthology. “

Corrina Wycoff Reviews Crysta Casey’s “Rules for Walking Out”

Rules for Walking Out—Crysta Casey’s second posthumously released poetry collection—chronicles Casey’s life during and after military service. Her poems stretch from the Parris Island boot camp where her enlistment began in 1978, to the Seattle Veteran’s Hospital where her life ended thirty years later. She rarely editorializes. Instead, with journalistic distance, Casey juxtaposes her experiences, revealing their complexity, and creating a deeply authentic, poignant memoir in verse.

Thomas Hubbard reviews Jed Myers' "Watching the Perseids"

My stepfather wept often during Mum’s last year. Fear and shock shone from way back in her eyes, behind the blank stare. Her knowledge of who and where she was had already left. Dementia had stolen her brain, and after a final year of total helplessness, she passed — Mom was gone and it was finished. Dementia took her away from us, then killed her, and her long dying deeply scarred both my stepfather and myself.

If only Jed Myers’ book, Watching the Perseids, could have come fifteen years ago, the pain could have been far more bearable.

book reviewsSarah SalcedoJune 25, 2016thomas hubbard, Watching the Perseids, jed myers, book reviews

Thomas Hubbard reviews Jeanetta C. Mish's "What I Learned at the War"

As a child who spent countless days in company of a river — swimming, catching crawdads, fishing, trapping muskrats, hunting rabbits — I learned how to cut small, tinder-dry grapevine twigs and smoke them like cigarettes, exhaling the mild smoke to drive away clouds of river gnats. And so when I opened Jeanetta Calhoun Mish’s What I Learned at the War for the first time and read the lede stanza of her “Pastoral for My Brother,” I was immediately hooked. She wrote,

Today, I remember
prowling the woods with you
smashing wild grapes
into our haunted mouths,
smoking the vines.

Reading on, I discovered a writer whose work evokes the America that birthed “new” southerners, urban mixed-blood NDNs, midwest greasers, and the legions of lost travelers who, like Kerouac in the fifties, cross the continent endlessly, searching for their lives. This collection of poems displays a distinctive attitude, established most succinctly in the poem, “Sometimes there was an armistice.”

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