Review: Ana Castillo Traverses Loss, Grief, and Politics in My Book of the Dead
My Book of the Dead By Ana Castillo University of New Mexico Press We are caught in a time of collective mourning, moving through yet another year of the ongoing […]
Review: Poetry Collection Darkness on the Face of the Deep Takes Risks with Emotional Depths
Darkness on the Face of the Deep by Patrick T. Reardon Kelsay Books Review by Renny Golden In Darkness on the Face of the Deep, Third Coast Review writer Patrick […]
Review: Complex, Dynamic, and Unruly, Fleeting Monuments for the Wall of Respect, edited by Romi Crawford
Fleeting Monuments for the Wall of Respect Edited by Romi Crawford Green Lantern Press Performance artist Jefferson Pinder offers, as a fleeting monument to the long-gone Wall of Respect, a […]
Dialogs: Joy Harjo and Layli Long Soldier Discuss Mapping, Decoloniality, and the Wind in CHF Panel
What if you could build a holographic map, in which all America’s Indigenous poets, from the beginning of time until now, were mapped, linking out to their works and their […]
Interview: Don Evans, Sandra Cisneros, and the Chicago Literary Hall of Fame
Even via Zoom, Don Evans is passionate about Chicago’s relationship with the written word. A writer, editor, and teacher, Evans is also the executive director of the Chicago Literary Hall […]
Poem for Winter
An homage to Lou Rawls and to the St. Louis poet who became a Brit. February is the cruelest month. Where did T.S. Eliot get that April business? […]
Read Amanda Gorman’s Inaugural Poem, “The Hill We Climb”
Eight years ago, I wrote a post about Richard Blanco’s poem, “One Today,” presented by the poet at Barack Obama’s second inaugural. I was so moved by Amanda Gorman’s poem […]
Thus Spake Utah
Towards the end of the plague year we learned that someone somehow transported a ten-foot high silvery metal object to a remote canyon in the Utah desert drilling […]
Dialogs: Margaret Atwood Talks About Writing, Reading, Werewolves and Truth
What year were you born:? If you are lucky enough to meet Margaret Atwood, she might ask you that. Knowing when someone was born tells her what happened to them, […]
Review: “They Saved My Life”—Taught by Women: Poems as Resistance Language, New and Selected, by Haki R. Madhubuti
Taught by Women: Poems as Resistance Language, New and Selected by Haki R. Madhubuti Third World Press One of my favorite poems in Haki R. Madhubuti’s new, career-spanning collection Taught […]
Poem: The Queen of Brooklyn—R.B.G. (1933–2020)
She was the queen of Brooklyn although she wore no gold crown except in the public’s imagination and on t-shirts. Instead her apparel of choice was a white frilly lace […]
Poem for a Pandemic: Blessed
Blessed Blessed are the dead and the dying. Blessed, the mourn-filled good-byes to loves behind glass, behind walls. Blessed, neighborhoods of pain, grief communities, lightning-struck homes, annunciations […]