Reviews
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Elinor Nauen: Two Poems
Elinor Nauen was born & raised in South Dakota and currently lives in New York City. Her books include CARS & Other Poems, American Guys, So Late into the Night, Now That I Know Where I’m Going, My Marriage A to Z, and, as editor, Ladies, Start Your Engines: Women writers on cars & the road and Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend: Women writers on baseball. She has been published in many magazines & anthologies.
A powerful concentration of meaning : Mark Mahemoff reviews Heard-Hoard by Atsuro Riley
The tile of his new book Heard-Hoard, derived from the phrase “word-hoard” which appears in the poem ‘North’ in a book of the same name by Seamus Heaney (North, Faber and Faber, 1975) is perfectly coined. It positions Riley as a recorder and hoarder of words but also of stories, place and sounds.
Dreamy and bold: Heather Taylor-Johnson reviews ‘Ismene’s Survivable Resistance’ by Claire Gaskin
Texas Fontanella – Erasure 4
Texas Fontanella lives in the broader Sydney area and erases texts to make new poems from them. Along with Brandstifter he published Black Shores (Text collage on photography) with Redfox Press in 2018
The tensions of hyperreality and ancestry: Leila Lois reviews ‘about: blank’ by Tracy Fuad
A poetic exploration of the dual experiences of extrication and loss; youth and survivor guilt; connection and dissipation, Tracy Fuad’s debut poetry collection about: blank—so titled as this is the URL for a blank web page—problematises belonging, as a concept and a practice. While remaining loyal to her diasporic experience as a woman of mixed heritage (Kurdish-American), the book has universal scope.
Poems of embodiment: Kerri Shying launches ‘in the same breath’ by Alan Jefferies
Alan is what Judy Johnson would call ‘a meaning poet’ – someone who writes for understanding and clarity rather than stylistic effect. Alan’s work is simply worded; but never light. Adjectives are sparing, metaphors few. Emotions are, as they should be, of the air.
Mark Young: Four Poems
Mark Young’s most recent books are The Toast, from Luna Bisonte Prods, & The Sasquatch Walks Among Us, from Sandy Press. Songs to Come for the Salamander, Poems 2013-2021, selected & introduced by Thomas Fink, is due out in October, co-published by Meritage Press & Sandy Press in California.
Rochford Street Review 