Book Review

Controvertibles by Quan Berry

Controvertibles, poems by Quan Barry (Pittsburgh): The poems in Barry’s second book springboard from a wealth of subjects as the speaker seeks to close the gulf between the concrete and the abstract; whether interrogating the Shroud of Turin, meditating on seahorses with "fused jaws & stalked eyes argentine," or revisiting the murder of Emmett Till,…

The Birthdays by Heidi Pitlor

The Birthdays, a novel by Heidi Pitlor (Norton): This debut traces a family reunion precipitated by Joe Miller’s seventy-fifth birthday and complicated by his wife Vera’s contemplation of an affair and the three different pregnancies involving their three different children. The kaleidoscopic effect of the roving third-person intimate point of view creates a crystalline portrait…

Mosquito by Alex Lemon

Mosquito, poems by Alex Lemon (Tin House): The poems in Alex Lemon’s striking first book document the experience of undergoing brain surgery, an agonizing recovery, and the sudden discovery of Eros, who finally emerges as the ultimate emblem of survival. Careful yet raw, the fresh sutures that comprise the lines in many of these poems…