Posts tagged Frances McCue
Frances McCue reviews Sati Mookherjee's EYE
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.

Read More
book reviewsPhoebe BoscheRaven Chronicles Pressraven chronicles, poetry, Frances McCue, Sati Mookherjee, Ravena PressComment
No Sorting Grief: A Review of Lily is Leaving by Frances McCue
No Sorting Grief: A Review of Lily is Leaving by Frances McCue

Thankfully, we have Lily is Leaving, Leslie Fried’s first poetry collection. The book displays an authentic and generous submersion into grief, personal history, shared tragedy and longing. Fried, who is Steven Jesse Bernstein’s widow (Bernstein was the poet, punk rock hero and spoken word performer before there was spoken word who died by his own hand thirty years ago this year), began her own arts career as a set designer. For thirty years, she worked in plaster and paint depicting scenery for film and theater. She came to poetry later, after her life with Bernstein, and she took to it with both humility and gusto, taking courses at Hugo House, reaching out to other writers and editors, and going back and back to her verse, recalibrating it.

Read More
book reviewsPhoebe BoscheRaven Chronicles Pressraven chronicles, poetry, Leslie A. Fried, Frances McCueComment