Theophylline: A Poetic Migration via the Modernisms of Rukeyser, Bishop, Grimké (de Castro, Vallejo)
By ErĂn Moure
House of Anansi Press 2023
Reviewed by Bill Neumire
INTERVIEW WITH ROSIE LONG DECTER AND VALLUM CHAPBOOK-WINNER MAYA CLUBINE
From the Immediate to the Timeless: A Conversation with Maya Clubine
Life Cycle of a Mayfly chronicles more than the life of a river bug. Maya Clubine’s collection, winner of the 2023 Vallum Chapbook Award, takes mayflies as a departure point for thinking about ecosystems, interdependence, and the lessons that we pass down through generations. Clubine considers the growth of a fly from nymph to imago alongside changing seasons, bird migrations, a father’s passing, a daughter’s return. Along the way, cycles tangle like a fishing line. In this interview, critic Rosie Long Decter talks with Clubine about structure, repetition, and the relationship between the cosmic and the minute.  Â
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Conyer Clayton | BEFORE AND AFTER
in the first photo
the apple is whole
Blaine Marchand | SYNTAX
my sister is dying at times she states it
her life parsed
phrases/phases terms/terminal …
House Within a House by Nicholas Dawson | Review by Katia Grubisic
“Intellectual curiosity about one’s own illness is certainly born of a desire for mastery,”: so writes the American poet, novelist, and essayist Siri Hustvedt. So quotes the Chilean-born Québécois poet, novelist, and essayist Nicholas Dawson as he investigates his own illness, pushing through the multiple layered skins of depression, turning it over to examine it in this light and that, as a prism that might allow some strand of light into the complex, ailing self.
Shapeshifters by DĂ©lani Valin | Review by Nyla Matuk
“The problem is that I’m a stranger to myself,” DĂ©lani Valin writes halfway through her dĂ©but collection Shapeshifters, in “What are the Ethics of Picking a Stinging Plant?” The third paragraph of this clever, subtle prose poem continues…
Gravitas / Poèmes deep: An Interview with Amy Berkowitz
Interview by Lauren Turner A contemporary study of the institution, Gravitas boldly explores academia’s tendency to tolerate gendered abuse. Amy Berkowitz lifts the veil on the ordinary violence that female students are subjected to — violence that goes so far as to interrupt their writing practices and distort their relationships to words and literature. Illuminated […]
Dream of Me As Water: Catching Up with David Ly
Jake Byrne interviewed David about his new book, Dream of Me as Water, in late 2022. They spoke for an hour. This is an excerpt of their conversation.
The Most Charming Creatures by Gary Barwin | Review by Bill Neumire
Thus, with the poem “Everything,” begins Gary Barwin’s latest poetry collection, The Most Charming Creatures. Barwin, who has written 26 books, is also a composer (he earned his PhD in music composition) and multidisciplinary artist. Progressing in four sections, The Most Charming Creatures—follow-up to Barwin’s recent 2019 Selected Poems: For It Is a Pleasure and a Surprise to Breathe—takes its title from a science monograph. Explaining the title in an interview with Open Books, Barwin said: