Review

George Garrett recommends A Word in Your Ear, poems by Monroe Spears: “The late Monroe Spears (1916-1998) was one of the major critics and editors (The Sewanee Review) of our time. That he also wrote first-rate poetry was sometimes overlooked. As Daniel Hoffman has written about this volume: ‘Those who know Monroe Spears through his…

Marilyn Hacker recommends Forms of Gone, poems by Yerra Sugarman: ” Forms of Gone is a powerful first book by a poet mature in experience and worldview, whose strength is drawn at once from a unique perspective and a multilayered engagement with the counterpoint of syntax and poetic measure. Sugarman is the daughter of Shoah…

Frank Bidart recommends Notes from the Divided Country, poems by Suji Kwock Kim: "This is a brilliant, unerasable book, one of the most remarkable debuts I’ve ever read. It begins with the descent of the soul into flesh, which is also the descent into the catastrophic, tormenting history of family and nation. The poems as…

Philip Levine recommends Fire, poems by Wesley McNair: “Is there any poet around who can catch the singular qualities of American voices better than Wesley McNair? If so, I haven’t found her. In this, his fifth book of poetry-and for me his most beautiful and moving-he reunites a dismal collection of people (what we call…

Philip Levine recommends Season of the Body, essays by Brenda Miller: “Personal essays that explore the relationships between the self and the other, the other being the creator, the world, the social order, the clan, the beloved, and more intimately the reader, the body, the soul. The writing is graceful and rich but never ornate…

Maxine Kumin also recommends Fire by Wesley McNair: “Poems personal yet universal by a master craftsman with a remarkable ear and memory.” (Godine)

Mark Strand recommends Flame Tree, poems by Kevin Hart: “For me, Kevin Hart is the best Australian poet of the past twenty-five years. Elegant, deeply philosophical, and utterly without pomposity.” (Paper Bark)