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 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.

Charles Goodrich reviews Mike O'Connor's OLD GROWTH: NEW AND SELECTED POEMS

In the photo on the cover of Old Growth: New and Selected Poems by Mike O’Connor, the poet stands beside the trunk of a massive Douglas fir tree in a Whitmanesque pose of ease and delight. Hiking boots, long pants and shirt, a wide-brim hat, a white-barked, hand-carved walking stick: he’s ready for a day in the woods. On his left wrist, a surprising combo: a woven Buddhist bracelet and a big wrist watch. And the man’s face: open, aglow, so plainly at home here. Is he smiling for the camera, or at the friend taking his photograph, or could that radiant delight be his default emotional state?

The testimony of the poems suggests that O’Connor lived a charmed life, an outdoor and outward-facing life. His poems are exoteric; plain-spoken illuminations of significant moments along his path

Sibyl James reviews Benjamin Schmitt's THE SAINTS OF CAPITALISM

Benjamin Schmitt’s latest poetry collection is really two quite different books: a witty political/social satire of 21st century United States wrapped around a lush center of lyric poems filled with understanding and affection for the places and people inhabiting that country. Despite the humor, this is a real dystopia wending its way toward totalitarianism. Schmitt doesn’t name names but there’s a man “who audaciously believes / we’re not racist enough to vote against him,” and another who strode down a “golden escalator,” promising “a world that only he could bring back.”

Steve Potter reviews Steven Creson's BIG DAY, NEW AND SELECTED POEMS

Steve Creson's collection of thoughtful, introspective poems, Big Day, is arranged into five sections presented in reverse chronological order from 2020 back to 1988. The book ends with an afterword by Creson's long-time friend, the poet and multimedia artist, Jim Jones. Jones writes that:

Creson's lifelong project is to imagine how his past determines the quality of the unfolding present. As Kierkegaard remarked in his journal, 'Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards.' The attentive reader, then, will not be surprised to find so many references to dates, days, and even specific hours and minutes. The poet tries to pinpoint experiences that have some bearing on what he is living as he writes each poem. The result is a kind of bilocation, a feeling conveyed to the reader of being in two places at the same time.

Laura Lee Bennett reviews Carolyne Wright's Masquerade: A Memoir in Poetry

Carolyne Wright is a force of nature in these parts. Celebrated poet, essayist, “scholar gypsy,” teacher, editor, translator, and reader, she has traversed continents, cultures, and political landscapes. With Masquerade: A Memoir in Poetry, we have a gift of the poet at the peak of her powers looking back on her youth, incorporating the carnival culture of Mardi Gras and the jazz scene of New Orleans with her observations of local characters—the roller-skating, wedding veil-wearing Ruthie the Duck Lady, for example, “tough as a folded bird” in “Endecasyllabics: About the Women (Ruthie)”—as well as visits to her home state and the placid white culture there. She shares the story of a lost love with all the attendant sighs and confessions and pheromones.

Michael Daley reviews Gary Thompson's Broken by Water, Salish Sea Years

The more I read Broken by Water the more I find myself stopping after one or two poems, putting down the book and saying, sometimes out loud—wow, these are really great poems! (I know, I know—I can hear you saying along with my old teachers: “What the hell kind of a way is that to start a review? Tone it down already.”) Still—one after another these poems carve out a masterpiece of praise. Each one slides neatly inside its columnar sheath—the form is at one and the same time action and observation which delivers real experience as each swing of a line brings its own tension, ships us out onto the wave pattern of the Salish Sea. The best “praise of place” poems give poets a chance to step out of the poem or to be a minor character. Yet the praises here deliver a poet’s range between joy in the paradise of the sea and terror in unexpectedly striking land.

Diane Urbani de la Paz reviews "The Madrona Project, Volume II, Number 1"

Shaped like a coloring book, The Madrona Project, Volume II, Number 1, invites the reader to open it up at a random spot. Found inside are vivid poems, stories and reflections—scenes from one strange and lonesome year. We have before us some five dozen writers, unfurling their thoughts, without fear, across these spacious 123 pages.

“I hope our songs will spark your imagination, rekindle, and breathe life into these embers of hope,” Hughes writes. “Together, may we envision a future that hears and honors all our voices.”

Jim Bodeen reviews Ann Spiers' & Bolinas Frank's "Rain Violent"

Rain Violent: This is a book of poems that fits into your hands. Small poems crafted.

Ann Spiers. Prophet and reporter. An elder poet now. It seems odd to say that, but I have had her White Train broadside hanging in my house since 1986. “The white cars / racketing past / bending migrants / paralyzed / over asparagus shoots.”

Spiers walking trails. Her practice over time. Touching earth and sky. Polarities and white space. There is no ego in the poems, not a smidgen of ‘look what I can do,’ Practice and how to practice. That sky overcast.

Thomas Hubbard reviews Larry Crist's "Alibi for the Scapegoat"

We all want to be understood. It’s a basic human need, transcending differences of race, geography, sexual orientation, even religion or lack thereof. We want people to understand why we do what we do, why we love those we love, why we make the decisions we make, why we are the way we are. Unconsciously or deliberately, we manage our appearance, our speech, information we include or exclude, and our actions of the moment, in order to shape how others understand us . . . and to provide an alibi for any aspect they might find unseemly. Larry Crist’s new collection of autobiographical poems and short stories, Alibi for the Scapegoat, exemplifies pursuit of this human need most eloquently. His conversationally-acerbic writing style fits the reality in which he grew up.

Sibyl James reviews Maryna Ajaja's "In Deep"

Like the masked deep sea diver on the cover, this collection of poems goes deep and its waters are international, ranging from Port Townsend to Moscow with many stops in between. Everywhere Ajaja brings up pithy bits of wisdom from the deeps, what Alexander Pope knew as epigrams, only this poet’s are far more original and striking: “Grief is a short word for a long phenomenon” or “Returning is like the horse that gallops forward frame by frame.” Or the one that for a time became the message on my phone answering machine: “History runs in one door and out the other / without being useful.”

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.

Larry Crist reviews The Madrona Project Vol. I: A Festschrift for Clemens Starck

A Festschrift for Clemens Starck is a wonderful tribute and introduction to this long under-recognized poet and craftsman, and I’m looking forward to tracking down more of his work in the near future.

Book Reviews