Bruce Bond Louisiana State University Press ($18.95) by James Naiden Three masters of beautiful but abstruse language came to mind as I read this eighth collection of verse by Bruce Bond, born in 1954 and now a professor of English at the University of North Texas: Wallace Stevens, who died in 1955, and two now-elderly […]
Edward Dorn edited by Jennifer Dunbar Dorn Carcanet Press ($39.95) by Charles Alexander While on the surface the varying period works of poet Edward Dorn (1929-1999) appear vastly different, a tone in Dorn’s work marks it as recognizably his throughout his career. This tone is marked by fierce intelligence, grace, and speed, and can easily […]
Jeffrey DeLotto Lamar University Press ($15.95) by Anne Whitehouse History and nature in tooth and claw haunt Voices Writ in Sand, Jeffrey DeLotto’s collection of poems and dramatic monologues representing more than two decades of writing. DeLotto’s landscape is primarily the American South, especially the Gulf Coast before it became a tourist mecca, although the poems […]
Lenore Kandel North Atlantic Books ($35) by Patrick James Dunagan “Poetry is never compromise” says Lenore Kandel in the Introduction to her second collection of poems, 1967’sWord Alchemy. Don’t doubt her sincerity. Kandel’s poems display her dedication to keeping her writing as honest and straightforward as the lifestyle she pursued. Sex runs throughout the poems […]
John F. Buckley and Martin Ott Brooklyn Arts Press (14.95) by Rachel Trousdale Poets’ Guide to America, a poetry collection by the writing team of John F. Buckley and Martin Ott, is a good book to have with you on a train or in the back seat of a friend’s car, preferably on a long […]
edited and translated by Gilbert C. F. Fong, Shelby K. Y. Chan, Lucas Klein, Amy Ho Kit Yin, and Bei Dao The Chinese University Press ($39) by Kevin Carollo Now your planet, that small territory where your name collected the weight of the chosen, is strange. Be dazzled by the seagull’s cry. —María Baranda, “Letters […]
edited by Ammiel Alcalay The Center for the Humanities, The Graduate Center, CUNY by Patrick James Dunagan Archival and obscure in nature, the Lost & Found series is one of those rare, eventful joys in publishing history. There is no doubt that decades from now readers coming across these pamphlets will enviously wonder what it was like […]
Camille Paglia Pantheon ($30) by John Pistelli Connoisseurs of controversy will remember the sentence that made Camille Paglia infamous: “If civilization had been left in female hands, we would still be living in grass huts.” This judgment sums up the theory of human nature informing Paglia’s first book,Sexual Personae: Art and Decadence from Nefertiti to […]
Edited by Crag Hill and Nico Vassilakis Fantagraphics Books ($39.99) by Chris Funkhouser Encountering The Last Vispo Anthology, one is struck by its graphical beauty, richness, and immensity. With 250 pages of illustrations and sixty-five pages of artistic and critical commentary, this collection will certainly join the small pantheon of essential literary arts anthologies focusing on […]
Edited by Lisa Robertson and Matthew Stadler Paraguay Press / Publication Studio ($28) by Elisabeth Workman As the incessant, hyperactive global mediascape flickers and flashes with images of mass destruction, total annihilation, and pandemic, and institutions embrace zombie-ism as a kind of MO, all feeding a zeitgeist of Impending Doom, it’s difficult not to feel a sense […]