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

Into The Woods: Michael Magee reviews Lana Hechtman Ayers' OVERTURES

If you look down into the corner on the cover of Lana Ayer's latest book, you will see her peeking out into nature through a window we can also see into. Loss—including the natural world, personal and self-inflicted pain—is a major theme in her new collection of poems, Overtures. But there is also joy, as in “Balm,” in which she writes “Purple ink flows from the tip of my tongue.” Her poetic tendrils reach out into the world trying to find a handhold or foothold for her own poetic nature.

Lana Ayers' Overtures combines her personal history with a sense of wonder and irony, invoking her own muses and a sense of self-discovery. “Limitless” is the title of Section 1, but it is also rooted in the everyday and sounds her credo. “Plums” is a good opener, full of colors and close observation and a refusal to sentimentalize or trivialize the everyday.

book reviewsPhoebe BoscheSeptember 14, 2023Raven Chronicles Pressraven chronicles, poetry, michael magee, lana hectman ayers, OverturesComment

Steve Potter Looks at 5 Poetry Collections from Charles Potts’ Hand to Mouth Books

The varied terrain of the Pacific Northwest—from the Salish Sea/Pacific Ocean to the Olympic/Cascade Mountains—is a common point-of-focus among four of five poetry collections from Walla Walla, Washington's Hand to Mouth Books. They feature poems with titles such as; "The Snake River, June 2nd, 2012” (Joshua Lew McDermott), “Cannon Beach” (Teri Zipf), “The View from Manashtash Ridge” (Stephen Thomas), and “Walking Along a Nature Trail in Wenatchee, Washington, the Poets Speak of Unimportant Matters” (Dennis Held).

Kudos to poet, editor, and publisher Charles Potts for creating Hand to Mouth Books centered in Walla Walla, Washington. He is doing a commendable job presenting poetry from our northwestern corner of the nation to the world.

Steve Potter Reviews 2 Books of Poems by Jeremy Springsteed

The poems in the first two sections of Jeremy Springsteed's collection Salt, Weasel, Corpse, and Other made me think I'd like to declare the existence of a heretofore unacknowledged genre of English language poetry and edit a selection of them along the lines of Carolyne Forché and Duncan Wu's seminal anthology Poetry of Witness. I would classify these poems of Springsteed's as belonging to the tradition of the poetry of fascination. Whereas the poems in Poetry of Witness deal with firsthand accounts of cruelty, oppression, religious persecution, war, and slavery, the poetry of fascination is about wondrous and mysterious people, places, and events usually seen from a greater distance than firsthand.

“Seven Strikes,” in Springsteed's collection A Guide To Getting Lost, is a darker example of the poetry of fascination. The source of fascination there is lightning. The poem weaves personal reminiscences of his childhood fascination with those astonishing bolts of electricity from the sky and strange historical incidents of the phenomenon.

Nina Burokas Reviews The Madrona Project, Volume III, Number 2, April 2023: The Universe is a Forest

Edited by Michael Daley and Finn Wilcox, and published by Empty Bowl Press, The Universe is a Forest is the second anthology in the Volume III series, preceded by Art in a Public Voice.

The Universe is a Forest is a lush, immersive experience, a collection of poetry, prose and illustrations from over 70 artists. The breadth and stature of the artists speaks abundance. I was initially daunted by the sheer number of poets represented, but it’s a compilation that flows whether you read sequentially or opportunistically, based on title or author.

book reviewsPhoebe BoscheJuly 13, 2023Raven Chronicles Pressraven chronicles, poetry, Nina BurokasComment

Steve Potter reviews Poetica Dystopia and I Feel Your Doughnut Pain by Stephen Roxborough

Where do poems exist? I thought about that and about reading versus listening and writing for the page versus writing for the stage while simultaneously reading and listening to poems by Stephen Roxborough. Fourteen poems on his fine new cd, Poetica Dystopia, also appear in his book, I Feel Your Doughnut Pain. I've heard people say they like poetry that lives on the page, marking a distinction between sit-and-read-silently-to-yourself poetry and performance poetry. I get that and would classify myself with poetry on the page over poetry on the stage if I really had to choose once and for all, but, in the end, no poem actually exists on the page or stage. They all only truly live in human minds. A poem comes to life in the mind of one human, the sort of human we, therefore, call a poet and is then transferred into the minds of other humans via written and/or spoken word. I think it was Charles Simic who opined that no poem is complete until it is read by someone other than the poet himself. It's the 21st Century, though, so let's change that to her/him/themself lest we exclude anyone. Furthermore, I'd add or heard after read.

Cynthia R. Pratt reviews Bill Yake's WAYMAKING BY MOONLIGHT, New and Selected Poems

Bill Yake’s latest book of poems starts with the title poem, “Waymaking by Moonlight,” which sets the tone for, and brings us along with him, on his journey of language and metaphor. It is a trip over sometimes difficult terrain but allows the traveler to see what crosses our path at night, that which we often miss in the light. Looking up the definition of Waymaking, most dictionaries define it as providing a way, means, or solution (Yourdictionary.com). It’s important to keep this in mind since the title poem invites us on this journey. His bookend poem, “Heart Poem,” brings us back home, and recognizes we don’t have to be stepping on unstable rocks to be vulnerable.

Frances McCue reviews Sati Mookherjee's EYE

Some poetry books lay out poems as if they were little fossils slotted into display drawers where a reader can marvel at them—opening and shutting pages—viewing poems in or out of order. Lyrics shape their own encounters. But I’m a reader who loves momentum. I relish connections that riff and shimmer, and encourage readers to piece together stories. Sati Mookherjee’s new poetry book, EYE, offers that sweet shimmer of beautiful lyrics and the riff and pacing of a poetic narrative. I am smitten by how readable the book is, how compelling the story is, and how beautifully crafted the individual poems are. To construct poems within a narrative arc, without overloading the freight of exposition onto individual lyrics, is really challenging. Mookherjee works magic here.

Book Reviews