by Michael Stephens Lina ramona Vitkauskas is a Chicago poet from an Eastern European background. Though her poems derive from the Midwest, where she grew up and was educated, her sensibility is inspired by Surrealism (both French and Eastern European), contemporary American poetry, and those stories of resistance that originate in the former Soviet colonies […]

Rushing Pittman Another New Calligraphy ($16) by Rebecca Valley The short, staccato poems that make up Rushing Pittman's There is one crow that will not stop cawing are built on the kind of frank, vulnerable statements about desire and identity not often heard outside a therapist's office. These poems, which have the same weight and […]

Cathy Eisenhower Ugly Duckling Presse ($16) by Isaac Pickell In picking distance decay from a shelf, one might imagine that Cathy Eisenhower spends her third collection of poetry meditating on geography. And yet, enclosed within the cover’s aerial photograph of a pacifying beach scene are testaments to violence. In this collection, the poet splinters the […]

Paul Tremblay William Morrow ($25.99) by Bryan Miller Often the horror genre implores its readers to embrace some level of delightful hokum. Fantastical events become the fulcrum around which the story pivots. The supernatural turns toward metaphor, provides a shocking contrast to reality, or at worst becomes an end in itself. For Paul Tremblay, the […]

Eric Bennett University of Iowa Press ($22.50) by Rebecca Weaver For a long time, I took Flannery O’Connor’s quip about universities and writers (when asked if universities stifle writers, she responded: “not enough of them”) to be an elitist view of the gatekeeping function performed by big-name MFA programs such as her alma mater, the […]

INTERVIEWS Feminism, Spirituality, and Changing Mores: An Interview with Alicia Suskin Ostriker A poet of emotional depth and psychological wisdom, Alicia Suskin Ostriker discusses the great range of her life’s work and concerns in this freewheeling conversation with a friend.  Interviewed by Daniela Gioseffi CLOSE READING: An Interview with Derek Walcott A chance meeting with […]

Jes Lee graduated in 2003 from the University of Minnesota with a Bachelor’s of Fine Arts. Through the mediums of photography and book arts she explores location, landscape, and collective memory. She has exhibited in many venues around Minnesota and Wisconsin, and has an upcoming exhibition scheduled for July 2017 in Iowa. Jes Lee can […]