Alphabet by Inger Christensen
C. D. Wright recommends Alphabet, poems by Inger Christensen: “A book to break up the psychic mumbo jumbo within, and to help you fight the actual threats from without. A true singer of the syllables.” (New Directions)
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Secret Frequencies: A New York Education by John Skoyles
Margot Livesey recommends Secret Frequencies: A New York Education, a memoir by John Skoyles: "No one who reads this delightful, absorbing account of a teenage boy’s summer of initiation will ever forget the brilliant characters or the remarkable city—New York in the sixties—which John Skoyles brings so eloquently to life." (Nebraska)
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Blue Hour by Carolyn Forché
Carolyn Forché, Blue Hour, poems: Forché’s lyrical fourth collection, her first since the tour de force The Angel of History, ranges from personal memories of childhood and childrearing to stark images of atrocity, with the centerpiece, the forty-seven-page “On Earth,” brilliantly modeled after “gnostic abecedarians.” (HarperCollins)
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Ten Little Indians by Sherman Alexie
Sherman Alexie, Ten Little Indians, stories: In this powerful, exuberant new collection, Alexie presents stories about Native Americans who find themselves at personal and cultural crossroads that test their notions of who they are and who they love. (Grove)
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rev. of The King of Limbo by Adrianne Harun
The King of Limbo Stories by Adrianne Harun. Mariner, $12.00 paper. Reviewed by Don Lee. The ten stories in Harun’s first collection, The King of Limbo, tend toward the elliptical — tinged with mystery and occasionally fable, populated by loners who are estranged from loved ones. Haunted, grieving, the characters fitfully reach for solace, sometimes…
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Southern Excursions by George Garrett
George Garrett, Southern Excursions, essays: This volume collects more than fifty of Garrett’s essays, reviews, and introductions-all concerning Southern letters in our time, delivered with his characteristic wit and charm. (LSU)
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Willow Temple by Donald Hall
Donald Hall, Willow Temple, stories: There are twelve stories here—five from The Ideal Bakery and six collected for the first time, as well as one new tale—and the volume attests to Hall’s mastery as a storyteller, the prose lyrical and elegiac as he movingly unfolds each character’s frailties. (Houghton Mifflin)
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rev. of Waiting for the Paraclete by Lise Goett
Waiting for the Paraclete Poems by Lise Goett. Beacon, $15.00 paper. Reviewed by Susan Conley. Lise Goett’s first book is a lush investigation of a life that is never pedestrian and often wildly dramatic — each poetic image as if bejeweled in gorgeous language. Goett’s lyrical narratives ride violent, ever-changing currents of emotion. The entire…
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The Land Between by Cathryn Hankla
George Garrett recommends The Land Between, a novel by Cathryn Hankla: “Hankla’s second novel (and her ninth title) is coming out almost simultaneously with her latest book of poems, Poems for the Pardoned, from LSU. She writes as well as anybody alive about the earth and the environment. It’s a well-plotted, strong story, alive with…