PETITE SPHINXES ERMITE …….At the Tate, (Modern not Britain), Leonor Finiâs Petite sphinx ermite answers all …….my unborn riddles: broken eggshells, birdâs skull, âa pretty pinkâ human lung …….swings âat the entrance of its dilapidated lairâ as though through years she viewed …….me, remotely, lying here stillborn, slugging masticated slurry through a silicone straw. …….One […]
Waking to WAKING TO SNOW by Robert MacLean | Review by Jami Macarty
Waking to WAKING TO SNOW by Robert MacLean Review by Jami Macarty In mid-December, 2020, Eleni Zisimatos, the poetry editor and factotum at Vallum, asked me if I would be interested in reviewing Robert MacLeanâs Waking to Snow (Isobar Press, 2020). Based on my experience that writing a readerâs response to a book Iâm not […]
THE FOOL by Jessie Jones | Review by Bill Neumire
THE FOOL by Jessie Jones Review by Bill Neumire The foolâs manifestation in Jessie Jonesâs debut full-length poetry collection comes as the speaker centers herself as an isolated sovereign, as an I fortifying itself against the world, which comes out at times as lonely, and at times as powerfully self-confident. According to the book cover, […]
PHILLIS by Alison Clarke | Review by Bill Neumire
PHILLIS by Alison Clarke Review by Bill Neumire In 1773 with her book Poems on Various Subjects, Phillis Wheatley became the first African American to publish a book of poetry. Hailed from New England to England as âthe African Genius,â Wheatley, who was a slave, led a complex spiritual, aesthetic, and intellectual life, inspiring generations […]
Robert Hirschfield | ROBERT LAX: HOLLYWOOD’S CONTEMPLATIVE POET
ROBERT LAX: HOLLYWOOD’S CONTEMPLATIVE POET What kind of a mystic was Robert Lax? One who could make the dictionary sound otherworldly. He was once asked what advice he could give young writers. He advised studying the dictionary occasionally: âInside are the seeds youâre going to plant in your field.â Lax was also the kind of […]
A Conversation with Canisia Lubrin, Author of THE DYZGRAPHXST | Interview by Rosie Long Decter
A Conversation with Canisia Lubrin Author of THE DYZGRAPHXST Interview by Rosie Long Decter Canisia Lubrinâs debut book of poetry, Voodoo Hypothesis, was longlisted for the Gerald Lambert Award and the Pat Lowther Award. Last year, she released her follow-up collection, The Dyzgraphxst, a lyrical and cyclical exploration of the self as collective. Structured in […]
Mary Trafford | BORDER CROSSINGS, 2nd Place Winner of the 2020 Vallum Award for Poetry
BORDER CROSSINGS Crossing the border used to be fun, sort of, hide & seek, little white lies, us trying not to laugh, Mum swatting us from the front seat, crossing from rural Maine back to rural New Brunswick, the Presque Isle River barely a creek alongside the one-hut customs office: it was all small-potatoes. […]
j tate barlow | WALKING INTO AUGUST IN EAST-END TORONTO 2020, 1st Place Winner of the 2020 Vallum Award for Poetry
WALKING INTO AUGUST IN EAST-END TORONTO 2020 Is it how spruce donât think, just doâarrange their boughs for things withwings to dip andglide on through? Or how the yellowcrane loomsâstrange arabesque-sur-bleu, distraction-dance, wide arcs boom-swung and slowâdwarfing all thatgrows nearby? Stow yourthrone in a box on high look down waydown to read whatâs spelled below […]
Christopher Levenson | MR SCHLESINGER
MR SCHLESINGER A Jewish refugee, he probably came just before the war to our North London suburb, and stayed in our house for a while till the authorities took him away to an internment camp, maybe the Isle of Man, as an âenemy alienâ alongside captured Nazis, We never heard of him again. […]