Jane Kenyon is apparently transplated to New England from Michigan; New England suits her well. Its depressive terrain and weather fit her gusty, solitary moods. Its Puritan heritage, still lived by in those towns, sparks her to spare meditations on the nature of the body, and on living this life. Her first book, From Room…
George Garrett recommends Hockey Sur Glace, stories by Peter LaSalle: “It may sound crazy, but seven stories and four poems, all involving ice hockey, really work. Why? Because LaSalle is a wonderful writer and knows more about hockey than anyone.” (Breakaway)
Through over twenty years of publication, William Corbett's books have steadily and thoroughly documented a life examined through art, offering a series of poems which, as the poet explains in Don't Think: Look, "enable the feeling eye to enact in words what it has seen." What's seen is rarely spectacle; rather, Corbett pursues the illuminating…
Susan Snively's poems share their predicament with Anne Sexton's. Considering Sexton's life and career, such a comparison can only be made with trepidation. But genuine similarities bring it to mind. Both are attracted to legends, myths, fairy tales (what Snively calls "Mysteries"). Both are interested in dreams, visions, the problems of illusion and reality (Snively…
Maxine Kumin recommends Hope Is the Thing with Feathers, essays by Christopher Cokinos: “The vividly researched story of six extinct birds of the U.S.A. written by a Kansas State professor and ardent birder/environmentalist. This book deserves a wide readership and distribution. Is it possible for an author to exalt and depress his audience at…
All-American Girl Poems by Robin Becker. Univ. of Pittsburgh Press, $10.95 paper. Reviewed by Joyce Peseroff. Gathered at the edge of each poem in Robin Becker’s moving fourth collection, palpable and terrible, wait the forces of chaos. Love affairs end, families dissolve, the kingdoms of childhood are lost. All-American Girl, despite its insouciant title, is…
Jane Hirshfield recommends Below Cold Mountain, poems by Joseph Stroud: “One of the finest collections of poems I’ve read in years-intelligent, sensuous, moving, full of human insight.” (Copper Canyon)
Don Lee recommends Burning Down the House: Essays on Fiction, nonfiction by Charles Baxter: “In nine brilliant essays, Baxter displays his characteristic wit and intelligence as he muses about the influences of culture and politics on the art of storytelling.” (Graywolf)
Dark Sky Question Poems by Larissa Szporluk. Beacon Press, $12.00 paper. Reviewed by Susan Conley. In Larissa Szporluk’s startling first collection of poems, Dark Sky Question, winner of the 1997 Barnard New Women Poets Prize, one finds a fiercely independent voice mapping the geography of longing. Here the backdrop of a darkening sky is just…
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