Author: Kristina Kopić

  • I Have To Tell You

    I Have To Tell YouVictoria Hetherington0s&1s, 201469,000 words$6.00 Buy: ebook While reading Victoria Hetherington’s novel, I Have To Tell You, I occasionally found myself wanting to shake one or two of the characters for a host of self-destructive behaviors and dysfunctional relationships. And just as my frustration rose, inevitably one of Hetherington’s precisely crafted sentences…

  • The Winged Seed

    The Winged SeedLi-Young LeeBOA Editions, April 2013200 pages$16.00 Reading Li-Young Lee’s The Winged Seed reminded me of an argument by economist Tyler Cowen. Cowen cautions against our propensity to impose narrative on everything. He claims that life is not a story but a mess, and that in insisting on making sense by giving it a…

  • The Declarable Future

    The Declarable Future Jennifer Boyden University of Wisconsin Press, May 2013 112 pages $16.95 When I teach poetry, I often turn to Jennifer Boyden‘s work for startling images, masterfully paced tension and complicated, big subjects rendered accessible. The Declarable Future—Boyden’s second book of poems—not only showcases this signature voice I’d expected from it, but it…

  • The Shelter of Neighbours

    The Shelter of NeighboursEilis Ni DhuibhneBlackstaff Press, September 2012288 pages$27.95 One page into Eilis Ni Dhuibhne’s The Shelter of Neighbours I laughed out loud. And then, two stories later, with a carload of train passengers glancing my way, another audible chuckle. My laughing and grinning continued throughout the collection, but each time I was asked…