Sugar Suggests—Mini Reviews from Sugar House Review Staff
by Corey Van Landingham
(Tupelo Press, 2022)
This book meets the moment with prodigious intelligence but, more importantly, with the biggest heart. Drone warfare, long-distance romance, divinity, and art all meet Van Landingham’s eye.
—Katherine Indermaur
by Steve Langan
(Littoral Books, 2024)
Langan's poems are an embattled form of mindfulness in the age of too much. These poems address the ceaseless noise with self-awareness—that we are all an active part of one problem or another. The book is built from lines that are a form of moving forward, and the knowledge that sentiments such as “life will never be as good / as it is right now” are both a distress call and a prayer.
—Nano Taggart
by Matthew Zapruder
(Copper Canyon Press, 2010)
Zapruder is a man who (famously) believes that when you want to say a thing, say it how it is; don’t slather it in unnecessary metaphor. Digression, unvarnished memory, and an ability to step into the lives of strangers are all to be had in a collection that occasionally left me floored—as in the poem “Journey to the Past.”
—Neil Flatman
by Vidhu Aggarwal
(The Operating System, 2021)
Daughter Isotope is like teleporting into an alternate universe. These poems contain everything an alt world should: pop culture, action-packed language and lines, fast
food, innuendo, grief, mythical and religious story, science, space, tech—and let's not forget the rainbows and unicorns. “As stars blow apart so do our virtual mutualities, so do our mutual virtualities, so do our visceral / municipalities, so do our muchacho virilities.”
—Natalie Padilla Young
by Richie Hofmann
(Alice James Books, 2015)
The lyricism here is astonishing. This collection’s jewel-like poems interweave incisive observation—of urban and natural landscapes—with confessions and epiphanies alike.
—Katherine Indermaur
by Maggie Nelson
(Graywolf Press, 2024)
Poet and critical essayist Maggie Nelson draws from twenty years of a writing life in Like Love: Essays and Conversations. Each chapter, set chronologically, includes
reviews; conversations; and—what Nelson does best—razor-sharp reflections on queer issues, art, and love. There exist only a few, Nelson being one, who can use the word love without issuing a single cliché.
—Shari Zollinger
No comments:
Post a Comment