Review

I Want This World by Margaret Szumowsky

Madeline DeFrees recommends I Want This World, poems by Margaret Szumowsky: “Margaret Szumowsky’s poems embody a global consciousness. In her first full-length collection, she reveals a lively energy, a sharp eye for the triumphs and the foibles of the human condition, and a wide-ranging empathy. These are poems the reader will return to again and…

Vortex of Indian Fevers by Adrian C. Louis

Chase Twichell recommends Vortex of Indian Fevers, poems by Adrian C. Louis (TriQuarterly): “More passionate, funny, dead-serious poems from one of the most overlooked poets in America.”

rev. of Winged Words: American Indian Writers Speak by Laura Coltelli

Professor Laura Coltelli of the University of Pisa has devoted many years to the oral and written literature, and the varied culture, of American Indians. She now brings us a revealing volume of interviews with eleven contemporary Indian writers. Six are women: Paula Gunn Allen, Louise Erdrich, Joy Harjo, Linda Hogan, Wendy Rose, and Leslie…

Chester Stubbs by Craig Miles Miller

Maxine Kumin recommends Chester Stubbs, a novel by Craig Miles Miller: “This vibrant first novel set in Pensacola is about a reformed redneck trying to reconnect with humanity. An adventure story with heart.” (Dennis McMillan)

rev. of Waking by Tom Sleigh

Tom Sleigh's new book is introduced by the title poem, his translation from Dante's "Purgatorio," in which the speaker wakes from a dream of his own destruction. The brilliant long poem which follows it, "Endings," is a ranging philosophical narrative whose speaker has received a deadly medical prognosis and wills himself to penetrate and renew…

rev. of Winning the City by Theodore Weesner

Winning the City by Theodore Weesner. Summit Books. $17.95 cloth. Winning the City is a fine novel, a crisply written story about a young boy's struggle to define himself. Dale Wheeler's position on the school basketball team is unjustly taken from him, and what Dale does in response gives the novel its drive and theme….

Heroin by Charlie Smith

Jane Shore recommends Heroin, poems by Charlie Smith: “A brilliant book by a poet whose work I have recently discovered. The ease and yet surprise of the language and the passion are compelling. Where have I been for his other four books?” (Norton)

rev. of The Long Home by Christian Wiman

The Long Home Poems by Christian Wiman. Story Line Press, $12.95 paper. Reviewed by H. L. Hix. Poets’ voices seldom emerge fully formed: first books more often air promise than plenitude, recklessness than resonance. But Christian Wiman’s The Long Home, winner of the 1998 Nicholas Roerich Prize, speaks with mature authority. The Long Home…

rev. of The Question of Bruno by Aleksander Hemon

The Question of Bruno Stories by Aleksander Hemon. Nan A. Talese/Doubleday, $22.95 cloth. Reviewed by Peter Ho Davies. The stunning stories in this first collection by Bosnian exile Aleksander Hemon achieve the remarkable and delicate feat of being at once strikingly diverse in setting, style, and period, and subtly and sinuously intertwined. They range in…