“The combination of narrative overall story and flexible form makes this an important book for all poetry readers.”
Read the full review at Mom Egg Review
Shira Dentz’s “door of thin skins” in zoran rosko vacuum player
Plunges into the visceral, the sensual, are indispensable anchors in Dentz’s text. Sight—and not just sight, but visual texture—engages you at a bodily level.
Read more at zoran rosko vacuum player
East Hampton Star reviews “Orphans”
The second half of Orphans is most notable. It is at once laconic, conversational, and rambling, yet empathetic to generational decay. No one is exempt from the conflict. Absence affects us in ways we cannot comprehend. Accidents and injuries dictate our existence in the end. Most of us would like to forget, or at least move on from, the collective fear of death. But here we remember our mother and father.
Read the full review
Poets and Artists reviews “Eating Moors and Christians”
Eating Moors and Christians is an excavation of the past, one that captures a sense of loss experienced by many in the Cuban exile community. However, the collection speaks to anyone who has been separated from loved ones or who feels displaced.
Read the full review at Poets and Artists
“door of thin skins” reviewed in Fourth Genre: Explorations in Nonfiction
This is not one of those books you read in order to find out what happened; knowing the end doesn’t spoil one single thing that comes before, because suspense about the plot is never the point. Surprise here comes from ways the narrator weaves the story, from the insights, images and sounds that emerge as she juxtaposes its elements, as we watch her
think about things he said. They run through my mind, a piece of yarn
unwinding so far until gnarled at a knot. I sit and ponder the knot.
At the knot is a feeling. I try to loosen it.
I can’t know what was in his mind….
The way it was on the outside and the way it was on the inside.
I want to take myself for granted. (16)
–“Based on a True Story: Young Tambling by Kate Greenstreet and door of thin skins by Shira Dentz” by Holly Welker
Read the full piece here
Alabama Literary Review reviews “Places I Was Dreaming”
Since the publication of Mose in 1994, Loren Graham has been one of my favorite poets. His poems have a way of drawing one in completely-I read Mose twice in one sitting-because Graham’s mastery of narrative and his amazing talent for creating authentic voices.
Read the full review here.
"Orphans" spotlighted in ForeWord Review
“Orphans” spotlighted in ForeWord Review
“Orphans” in Irish American Mom
As you my readers know, I love poetry and all the nuance, paradox and emotion conveyed by the magical manipulation of words. When I heard from Joan, a native of the Bronx, raised in an Irish family, I was captivated by the idea of a memoir in verse.
Read the full feature at Irish American Mom
"Orphans" in Irish American Mom
Read the full feature at Irish American Mom
Women’s Review of Books reviews “Esther”
“The twelve verse-chapters function seamlessly to move readers in literal and emotional time, just as chapters in a prose novel do. Visually appealing, two, three, four, and five-line stanzas give the page plenty of white space. Bernard understands that a clean, inviting text will ease readers into the unfamiliar genre, and to that end, she employs asterisks to indicate temporal pauses and changes in point of view.”
Read the Esther review
Loren Graham and Brent Newsom: 2016 Oklahoma Book Award Finalists
Congrats to Loren Graham (Places I Was Dreaming) and Brent Newsom (Love’s Labors) on being named 2016 Oklahoma Book Award Finalists in poetry!
Finalists will be announced at the 27th Annual Oklahoma Book Awards on Saturday, April 9th.
Cutbank reviews “Love’s Labors”
To labor at what we love—whether that is tinkering away at the car in our garage or carrying our first child to life—is a process of concentrated intensity just as it is a painful, lengthy, and arduous journey. To labor, then, implies paradox: the flash-flickering moments of strenuous human effort and the dull understanding that relief is a long road ahead. Brent Newsom’s debut poetry collection Love’s Labors captures such a paradox. In Newsom’s poems, we encounter an intricate growing narrative of the poet’s becoming a father just as others around him lose their own loved ones. Life and death, grief and shame, flare up with equal intensity, just as a complicated consolation slowly cools the senses.
Read the full review at Cutbank
The Independent reviews “Unidentified Sighing Objects”
“Baron Wormser was once Maine’s Poet Laureate and there’s a definite feel and reference for that place. He writes of unheroic people, slurping tea, leafing through Year Books. Pop culture is also part of his style—colloquial, humorous—creating synergy that means he’s really writing about his readers.”
Grab the Lapels reviews “door of thin skins”
This is the painful and unrelenting tale of Dr. Abe, psychologist and psychic vampire, and his patient/victim, a poet (poetess, he states sibilantly, beginning the process of her dismantling on their first meeting, page 3) who uses language as instinct, as tool and finally as weapon in this masterful textual project.
Read the full review at Grab the Lapel
Susan Jett reviews “The Baby Book” by Robin Silbergleid
What I didn’t expect was the emotional punch it would carry. Having been through a lot of what she writes about, having witnessed much of her journey-to-motherhood as it happened, the book was stunning, both in its beauty and in its devastating ability to bring me back to a time in my life I thought I’d pretty much blocked from my mind.
This is not a complaint. Just a testament to the power of her words.
Read the full review here
The Baby Book will be released in November. More details on how to purchase coming soon
Italian Americana reviews “The Laundress Catches Her Breath”
This charming, poignant collection, winner of the 2012 Tillie Olsen Award for Creative Writing from the Working Class Association, paints a haunting portrait of working-class Pittsburgh as experienced by Corso’s protagonist known only as the laundress.
Read the full review here
Windhover Journal reviews Brent Newsom’s “Love’s Labors”
Given this strong debut, readers can hope that Brent Newsom’s future poems will continue to develop more of these individuals (and himself), focusing on the confusing and confounding wonder of the human condition(s).
Read the full review here
The American Literary Review on "door of thin skins"
A smart, and often fearless,
discussion of the relationship between language and power.
Read more at American Literary Review
The American Literary Review on “door of thin skins”
A smart, and often fearless,
Read more at American Literary Review
Brevity's Nonfiction Blog reviews "My Mother's Funeral"
Páramo shares her shock and grief with such honesty and originality that one can’t help but read on.
Read the full review at Brevity
Brevity’s Nonfiction Blog reviews “My Mother’s Funeral”
Páramo shares her shock and grief with such honesty and originality that one can’t help but read on.
Read the full review at Brevity
Salamander reviews "door of thin skins"
These lines are a relief, but are also an example of how layout and letters work together in this collection to recreate the experience of the speaker. The layout shows both the writer’s visual aptitude and her awareness of how music makes a world. It is this understanding of the sounds of silence, and the look of it, that elevates this collection from therapy to art.
Read the full review at Salamander
Salamander reviews “door of thin skins”
Read the full review at Salamander
Chronogram Reviews "door of thin skins"
Chronogram Reviews “door of thin skins”
The Phoenix Reviews "Same Old Story"
The Phoenix Reviews “Same Old Story”
"Primary Lessons" and Black History Month
Women Around Town has included Primary Lessons on their “Best Books For Celebrating Black History Month” list.
Congrats Sarah Bracey White!
“Primary Lessons” and Black History Month
Women Around Town has included Primary Lessons on their “Best Books For Celebrating Black History Month” list.
Congrats Sarah Bracey White!
CutBank reviews "door of thin skins"
This book shatters […] It complicates the label of confessional poetry or memoir with its formal agility and its conceptual demands of its reader. It is a welcome addition to those books that teach us how to read a poem and those that teach us how to translate and interpret trauma.
Read the full review at CutBank
CutBank reviews “door of thin skins”
Read the full review at CutBank
The Rumpus reviews “door of thin skins”
Visit The Rumpus for the full review
The Rumpus reviews "door of thin skins"
Visit The Rumpus for the full review
