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Highland Park Poetry began in 2007. Wow! Amazing! Together with the support of friends and followers, we have created poetry opportunities, experiments, publications, contests, readings, open-mics, pentathlons, and more to bring poetry to the community and beyond the 60035 zip code. Thanks to everyone who has contributed time, energy, talent and cash to this endeavor. Here's to many more years of celebrating words in poetry!Thanks to Highland Park Poetry's contributors in 2025 & 2026: Anonymous Anonymous #2 Lois Baer Barr Anne Bell jacob erin-cilberto Joseph Kuhn Carey The Poets Club of Chicago Phil Cozzi Jennifer Dotson Michael Escoubas Mark Fleisher Cynthia T. Hahn Julie Isaacson Richard V. Kaufman Arlyn Miller & Poetic License Lakshmy Nair Marjorie Rissman Janet Hale Tabin John Yeo
Thanks to the Highland Park Poetry Events Team: Mary Beth Bretzlauf, William Carey, Jen Meyer, and Marjorie Rissman. They keep our events humming and much more behind the scenes magic! Thanks to Secret World Books for providing Highland Park Poetry with a welcoming venue for our 2026 reading series as well as hosting other events for us. Congratulations to Secret World Books for receiving the 2026 Mayor's Award for the Arts in recognition of their support of authors and poets! Thanks to the District 112 Education Foundation and the North Shore School District 112 for their support of our 2026 Poetry Challenge for elementary students. If you have enjoyed the website, the poetry programs or you just want to keep poetry around and accessible in the community, please make a donation to Highland Park Poetry. Send your gift to: Highland Park Poetry c/o Jennifer Dotson 1690 Midland Avenue Highland Park, IL 60035

Recalibrations by Monty Mittleman

Finishing Line Press, 202632 pages ISBN-13: 979-8899906039 Review by Michael Escoubas, reprinted with kind permission from Quill & Parchment Monty Mittleman’s title stopped me cold. It carried me back to my days in the United States Navy during Vietnam. I had gotten involved with a foreign girl and betrayed my fiancé. I jeopardized not only my future but seriously compromised other people. I had arrived at a crossroads with what to do next. It was time to recalibrate. Monty Mittleman’s debut collection is aptly named. By means of three minimalist poetry forms: Cinquain, Haibun, and Nonet, Monty bids me to walk with him through the seasons of his life.
Definitions:Cinquain is a five-line form that features syllabic values of: 2/4/6/8/2.Haibun is a minimalist Japanese form which combines prose and haiku. This form allows the poet to be both expansive and concise within the creative process.Nonet is a nine-line poem composed of descending syllable counts of nine through one.
I like all these forms because they force poets to be reductionist . . . making challenging decisions about lineage and, in the end, producing uniquely beautiful poetry. Recalibrations takes on traditional themes of love, suffering, grief, and loss in ways that are unique and provocative.
Using language drawn from mythology, “Fusion” depicts joy early in Monty’s marriage:
Fending off jackals and moving in the tall grass at midnight, two elysian stars, longed for a place among the constellations. We were Virgo and Pisces on the move. Rule by Neptune, Pisces had been reborn in the ferocious cold of the Bering Sea. Virgo wandered as Mercury, sending messages, but found little solace in return. Fallen, these two rare earth metals, magnetized. It was a Goldilocks moment on hypersonic fuel; I never did catch up to her shooting star. So, a good journey to us, my love. As we climb this blessed life, allow me to carry your water and you can tell us stories by firelight. Our stars, finally aligned and gathering mass. From this union: comets.
softening eyesunder September starsChinese lanterns
This opening pathos of love is supported by a series of cinquains:
 “Nueces”
 Spring smell of blue bonnets overhanging deep pools. Around the bend? Armadillos, Jackrabbits.
 “Buffalo River”
 Three days Paddling cliffsides. Handfasted by water. Moonlights opal hue; our maiden Chuppah.
 “Our Time”
 First light. Red winged blackbirds, Blushed Golden Rod, trilling. Soundlessly breaking the surface: tail fins.
This tenderness, exquisitely captured, leads naturally into maturity in: “Green Fields”:
 My soul, light are the lips I have kissed and soft the skin I have lain on. Your lucent light bringing hope, a guide through thorn bushes. I am a forest, you my shepherd. Hew a path to green fields
Unexpectedly, “Diagnosis” opens the door to life-defining and life-changing health con-cerns:
The warren smelled of dandelions and fresh cut grass. An American smell, in those sweet corn years before the leaves started dropping. How we hated windy days, when you couldn’t help notice the bare places. The air tastes husky and coyotes howl from the wind breaks.
fearless ladsinks up to his neckin the Passchendaele mud
Editor’s note: Passchendaele refers to a village in Belgium and the site of the Third Battle of Ypres during World War I, symbolizing the extreme suffering and futility of the conflict.
“Chemotherapy” adds texture to his wife’s illness as well as Monty’s profound commitment to caregiving:
Weakened, we laid your crescent-moon crown aside. Rabbits gathered, frogs held their song, Samara seeds paused mid-flight. When you have rested, my Artemis, unfurl from beneath your cloak: the Red Amaranth will light the way. A hunter never looks back at yesterday’s shadows, so I’ll wipe the blood from your lip and take up your bow and quiver.carry your burdenover the crest of the mountainslipping in the scree
Illness or not, “Honey Do” reminded me that life’s ordinary tasks cry out for attention:
 Porch light is out, she says. Flashlight, stool, steady now. From the safety of the foyer, “don’t fall”.
With titles like “Coma,” “Hospital Room,” and “She sleeps,” Monty guided me down a path I had traveled before within my own family. Recalibrations proves once again that poetry contains the breath of life. I felt spiritually renewed as Monty’s sensitive pen revealed an equally tender heart. I mentioned at the beginning that Monty invited me [and you] to walk with him. These poems will change your life. We have come full circle:
Let’s take a walkI’ll bring: spring rainYou bring: you ABOUT THE REVIEWER: Michael Escoubas is Senior Editor, Contributing Poet, and Staff Book Reviewer for Quill and Parchment, a 24-year-old literary and cultural arts online journal. This review is republished with kind permission from Quill and Parchment. Posted September 1, 2026

Joyful Annotations to the World Outside by Carol Sadtler

Kelsay Books, 202544 pages ISBN-13: 978-1639807587 Review by Carol Parris Krauss When I received my copy of Joyful Annotations To the World Outside by Carol Sadtler, one look at the cover convinced me that this collection of poetry was going to speak to me. The cool, still ripples of the ocean in various shades of aqua whispered to me and invited me to open the cover, and stay for a while. I was not disappointed. Sadtler, with bounds of imagery, often from nature, takes the reader from pond to shore and from mother to daughter as she reminds her readers to pay attention to and care for what is around you, and to embrace the many roles you may play.
“Loggerheads” reminds us to cherish what is precious. To watch for the dangers in order to not “be undone by condos and chemicals.” This ancient, gorgeous beast has been “guided by the tides and an ancient algorithm” for 60 million years while “ we pretend our children’s children will not miss this.” In addition to warnings about the extinction of possible creatures and mistreatment of nature, in the very next poem, “Walking Latham Road,” the audience can glance around, appreciate, and watch as “Blackbird flashes through the bright green cornstalks.” We should stop and listen to “his piercing, full-throated trill.” In “Last One Standing” the tenacity of Mother Earth is explored. Though “We blame a history of profiteers…farmers and miners…and builders working the land to death,” the ancient hickory tree still stands tall and keeps watch over her valley. These themes of honoring and respecting nature are sprinkled throughout the 25 poems.
Self. Father. Mother. All of them are visited in this collection. “Retouch”, a photo of a mother, or a mother’s mother, or someone’s mother inspires Sadtler to reflect on her mother. To sift through her grief. In “My Father the Lifeguard” remembrance and respect for her father takes place at the country club pool and at the high school basketball court , where young people “trust his wide-spead hand.” She honors his steady influence on the community. The reader also meets the poet at age 10. When she is “...a pilot, adventurer, explorer” and she has “ a watch and a new bike.” Ready to see and conquer the world. The message of recognizing, celebrating, and embracing your many roles, and the impacts family has on these roles, in this world is profound.
Joyful Annotations To the World Outside, published by Kelsay in 2025, takes the reader to an infinity pool, the National Art Gallery, and Lake Shore Drive among other places to tell a story; deliver a message, or relay a warning. Poems unfold that are part lesson and part lyrical exploration. Look around you, notice the corn field, walk in the tidal pool, embrace who you are, and treasure both the land and its inhabitants. ABOUT THE REVIEWER: Carol Parris Krauss is the author of Mountain. Memory. Marsh. This most recent poetry collection was recently published by Fernwood Press. Posted September 1, 2026

Poets Respond to the American Revolution: The US250 Persona Poem Project edited by Jennifer Dotson & Mary Beth Bretzlauf

Highland Park Poetry Press, 2026101 Poems / 184 pages / 63 Participating Poets Cover Illustration: Cheryl Steiger ISBN-13: 979-8-9880919-9-8 Review by Michael Escoubas I identify as a child of the turbulent 1960s. This decade included the assassinations of John F. Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy, and Martin Luther King, civil rights violence throughout the South, President Lyndon Johnson’s landmark social legislation The Great Society, and the Vietnam War. Memories of the war linger: a nation fractured by dissent, the rise of so-called flower children and the “Hippie” generation. Many folks questioned the stability of the American experiment. Our democracy survived the test. Fast forward to the present moment. America finds herself in turbulence again; this time it is the turbulent ’20s. America is divided by vitriolic political rhetoric, hate speech, so called “fake news,” violence over immigration policy, allegations of social service fraud, and much more. Many question once again the sinew of the Declaration and the U.S. Constitution.
In this pivotal moment, Highland Park Poetry gets into the conversation with its US250 Persona Poem Project, Poets Respond to the American Revolution. In this remarkable anthology, sixty-three poets assume the personas of period characters. These real people express what they are thinking and suffering as they shepherd a fledgling nation through her birth contractions.
The collection opens appropriately enough with “Trouble Brewing: 1765—1775.” Seeds of rebellion have been planted, and roots of unrest reach deep into the colonies’ soil. Poet Jill Spealman becomes Boston’s “Tree of Liberty.” Hear her voice ringing in these excerpts:
 I’m stately, yes, and I touch the sky. I’m an elm, ulnus americana. My roots run deep, I’m a native here, I shade citizens and beasts. For over a century I’ve stood in this grove in the growing town of Boston.
This important stage-setting poem points to early causes of American unrest. These included populist anger over suppressed liberty, unfair and unrepresented taxation, divided loyalties between those who back the king and those who didn’t. People gather under the “Tree of Liberty,” hang lanterns on its branches, shout their opposition while perched on its branches. Spealman’s poem ends portending what is to come:
 Everyone can speak and it’s obvious that the people have the power. Through grit, through sweat, through confidence the people have the power.
Kim Reed, assumes the person of George Robert Twelves Hewes, whose impassioned voice unveils the colonists’ determination to resist British imposition of taxation without representation:
 The British said the taxes and tariffs paid for our defense. But now, as patriots, we organized to defend ourselves against the tyranny of that taxing crown that burdened our lives, like a crown of thorns on every cup and bowl of tea poured.
As the poem develops, Hewes spews forth his heightened conviction of their righteous cause. Dressed as Indians he declares:
 We cut and split every chest of tea in three holds, open spilling, leaving no ounce safe from the ruinous salty water. Tomahawks swung high, surrounded by British iron clad ships, Yet no effort was made to resist these wild assaults in the mist.
One of the lesser-known themes of the Revolutionary period was its vociferous anti-slavery movement. Janea D. Harris channels the heart of The Pennsylvania Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery. Formed in 1774, this group helped pass the first anti-slavery legislation of the United States. She writes with undiminished conviction in her poem “Ally”:
 No longer can my eyes pretend not to see, The burgundy hued flesh bulging from deep beneath the layers of your decadent brown skin. No longer can I pretend not to hear, The gut-wrenching cries of the enslaved woman as she labors the entirety of 22 hours. Eventually birthing a child that she will never be allowed to hold, Whose love she will never be allowed to know. No longer will I fail to support your right to freedom, your right to exist, Your right to birth and love your children as I love mine. My God directs me to love my fellow man, without judgement. I am called, I am moved, I am dedicated to advocating on your behalf, I am your ally.
Mary Beth Bretlauf is Rachel Walker Revere, the second wife of Paul Revere. She stands straight and tall as a woman of action in her poem “Secrets and Silence”:
 No man can ever understand what we women do to keep our families functioning and together
 . . . . . .
 Dripping candle wax seals secrets, midnight knocks on our door, welcome whispered warnings, notes slipped into my hand while on my errands, my husband running messages under the inkiness of many nights
The collection, taken as a whole, is like walking along a giant panorama. Even the titles suggest suffering and privation for the cause of freedom. “Brown Beauty,” by Elaine Person, is about the horse borrowed by Paul Revere for his midnight ride. “My nostrils flared as I ran that night.” Julie Isaacson’s “Building Heart, Building Home,” captures Polish immigrant Haym Salomon’s love of America. He takes bold actions and bold risks to join America’s struggle. There are poems about spies. Jan Chronister’s “The Capture of Nathan Hale,” takes readers into the very tavern where the traitor betrays his mission. There are epistolary poems, intimate writings about sufferings and heartache of war. These poems visit ordinary things recovered amid the violence of war. Terry L. Slaney’s “All My Earthly Love,” is an emotion-filled letter leaving a few items as reminders of his love: brass buttons, small lead musket balls, a powder horn, his blood-stained uniform. On it goes in panoramic splendor, the experiences of people, places, objects of endearment, the simplest things from which a nation was forged.
Mary Beth Davis Ashley’s poem, “I, the Bell,” fittingly, the last poem in the collection, sums up the heroic, yet complex themes that characterized America’s birth and her yet-to-be-fulfilled legacy. This poem is worth the modest asking price. The Liberty Bell, herself knows that what began 250 years ago, was imperfect. It challenges those of us in its posterity to never stop striving toward its ideals.
Editors Dotson and Breztlauf are to be congratulated for their astute gathering of poems. Their selections exemplify what it took to build a nation and a legacy worth living for . . . worth dying for. The sixty-three contributing poets, likewise, deserve praise for their literary acumen in writing persona poems. Were this reviewer teaching a college-level course on either the persona form or the period’s history, The US250 Persona Poem Project would be a required text.
ABOUT THE REVIEWER: Michael Escoubas is Senior Editor, Contributing Poet, and Staff Book Reviewer for Quill and Parchment, a 24-year-old literary and cultural arts online journal. This review is republished with kind permission from Quill and Parchment. Posted September 1, 2026

The Wanderers by Barbara Krasner

Shanti Arts, LLC, 2026102 pages ISBN-13: 978-1971191164 Review by jacob erin-cilberto Let us go wandering through this marvelous volume of poetry. Whether of Jewish descent or not, the poems in this book will remind the readers of own life experiences.So many of us had grandparents or great grandparents who immigrated to this country and made the United States home. She speaks of a homeland in “I and the Village”:
 “The markplats bears the memory of shuffling boots to get to work the scurry of boys’ feet to hurry to kheder, the shtetl (a small Jewish town) remains alive.”
There is something so special about heritage lived by past relatives. We are formed from that heritage. This poet later advises us, “my palette knife cuts deep angles to tuck us in for the night as we plan to flee.”
Krasner writes: “The SS Rotterdam steams into New York Harbor from Rotterdam. Mendel rushes to the deck from steerage to view ‘The Lady’ and her torch.”
My paternal grandfather came to America, a young orphan from Sicily. He “wandered” here, was naturalized and had his last name changed from Cilberto to Gilbert. A more American name would fit in more easily. He came here in the late 1800’s, same as in “My Grandfather’s Arrival, 1899,” in which Barbara expresses that Mendel wants to be American, too/ He chooses a new name, / Max.” The wanderer has a new beginning, a baptism of sorts.
Krasner, in “We, the Immigrants,” claims that “We’re risen above the wheatfields/ in our multistory tenements. at least/ that’s what we say when we long/ for the familiar across the ocean.”
It is not easy to leave the familiar. I lived my early childhood in Bronx, NY. We often drove by the New York harbor and past the Statue of Liberty. We lived in a five-story walkup on the fifth floor with the Harlem River right beside us. I was used to tall buildings, city life, and then we moved to Illinois. We passed from skyscrapers and mountains to a table flat landscape. A different and strange country, or it seemed so. Barbara’s speaker in this poem expresses how “We are here to stay on the Lower East Side. “For one who, in my 76 years, has gone from high rises to living in the woods, this reader relates to being that “wanderer.” And now I am here to stay.
In this poetic wandering, Krasner reminds us of how we always have the opportunities for a fresh start. In “Tashlich at Bath Beach, Brooklyn, 1910,” she relates: “She sweeps her arms across my chest snatching all the things I did wrong--- pulling my sister’s hair” etc. etc. etc. “
She delves further saying, “I take all your sins onto me/ folding my burdens into her chest.”There are always those who will forgive us and/or show us how to forgive ourselves. And she also shows how forgiving others unburdens us. “She wades into the water mumbles memorized Hebrew. She returns to me, empty handed, relieved.”
This poem reminds me a bit of “Cross” by Langston Hughes, which also hints of how forgiveness can be letting loose of a heavy weight. I believe if we are human at all, we can relate to that feeling. In “The Simple Life,” Krasner writes: “The city folk scorn us for our dirt, our seed. They condemn us for lack of dreams. But we have purpose, we have talent, we know how to grab bits of life to savor---
I live in a small town. Coming from the city, from that hectic, get ahead of everyone else mentality and style of life, I feel this poem. Friends were always trying to talk me into escaping this town and doing something better with my life, being in a better place. But at 76, this is my better place. Has been and will continue to be. I believe this poet is telling us that living as we choose is not a lack of dreams, nor a lack of ambition, but is sticking to traditions that we grasp hard and hold onto fiercely.
In “The Peddler,” the poet writes of a woman’s dream to marry a good man, raise children and have a home of her own. But, instead, she marries into the opposite situation. And at the end of her poem, she writes: “The wagon filled with wares she barks; Pots, pans, knives. Everything for your household and not her own.”
It is so tragic when we do not belong to ourselves, and when we do not have our own life.
In another poem, Barbara writes: “I can craft myself as my own composition.”
Yes, yes, yes, this book The Wanderers shows how we might wander from country to country, city to small town or vice-versa, one life to another, but when we “break from/ the name of my birth/ erase empty letters/ with white paint” we begin to write the real poem of our life.
Barbara Krasner’s book The Wanderers shows how we may wander through changes in our lives but keep our real identity intact. I feel so lucky to have had my interaction with this insanely good volume of poetic wandering, being a wanderer myself. ABOUT THE REVIEWER: jacob erin-cilberto is author of 27 books of poetry, his most recent being 27: a book of poems (Praying Mantis Press, 2026). He teaches at John Logan College and conducts workshops at Heartland Writers Guild, Southern Illinois Writers Guild and Union County Writers Guild. Posted September 1, 2026

Mutterings of an Unsettled Mind: Poems by Dan Fitzgerald

Blue Jade Press, 202665 Poems ~ 67 pages ISBN-13: 978-1-061-1-043-1-69 Review by Michael Escoubas In his poem, “The Well Dress Man With a Beard,” Wallace Stevens wrestles with his own unsettled mind:
 If the rejected things, the things denied, Slid over the western cataract, yet one, One only, one thing that was firm, even No greater than a cricket’s horn . . .
 It can never be satisfied, the mind, never.
I do not know if Dan Fitzgerald has read Stevens extensively, let alone, read the excerpt cited above. What I do know, is that mature poets go through seasons of dealing with the “unsettled” nature of life. Poets are particularly sensitive here. Fitzgerald’s third collection, Mutterings of An Unsettled Mind, tackles head on, the meaning of his poetic journey.
This volume, however, is not just for writers or poets alone. Whoever you are, whatever you have spent your life doing, this volume contains a treasure of insights.
Mutterings is not structured in sections. The poet guides the reader to contemplate life as on a walk on a summer evening. Or musing with one’s spouse over coffee in the kitchen. Or with a friend with whom one can say anything and know acceptance. I felt welcome dwelling within Fitzgerald’s habitat.
Not surprisingly, the lead poem is entitled “Unsettled”:
 I have sat in this chair a long time, sometimes with music playing, sometimes in silence; always watching alone the world outside. Seasons have passed; My face has grown wrinkled. The room around me Has become my comfort, my refuge, my place to let my mind do its wanderings: traveling, visiting, exploring all the places I have been afraid to go. Over the years it has thought so many things but it has never found a way of settling down.
A note about the poet’s style is in order. Many poems make unique usage of indentations. There is no strict pattern here. It is as if the poet desires the reader to linger a touch longer, rather than rush through the thought-experience. This technique drew me in; I was glad to remain in his company.
Key words stand out to me: he has sat in his chair “a long time,” there is “music;” there is “silence.” I think of a kaleidoscope in which images move quickly through the mind, “seasons” pass, the mind “wanders,” “travels, “visits,” “explores,” yet never finds its longed-for rest.
Fitzgerald’s titles are a kind of precursor to the journey: “Gift of Night,” “Secret,” “Hard Truth,” “Falling Away in a Wind,” “Odd Life,” and many more. I found myself skipping around according to titles that drew me back to my youth. “Listening to Old Records,” is an example:
 Staring at the floor vent near the stereo, words and music scratch through the seldom used speakers. Vinyl crackles around the room. I sit with the album covers spread out before me, listening like these sound were new and the memories that go with them were things yet to happen.
This poem mirrors my friends and me, aspiring teenage guitar players who dreamed of forming a rock band. We couldn’t get enough of Lonnie Mack, the Beatles, Elvis, and Dave Clark Five. Records and record covers lay strewn about everywhere. Fortunately, for me, my unsettled mind had to settle for a more realistic future. I was only marginal on the guitar.
Throughout Mutterings, I sense a thread of sadness. It is a healthy sadness. “Courage” reveals the intensity the poet feels as his journey penetrates his being. With a companion, no doubt his muse, Fitzgerald summons what he needs:
 Your eyes hide the telling of roads taken and abandoned, memories searching deep in vision. Paths can be followed, though, in the creases wandering around the bright colors dancing in your smile. Tell me, someday if you wish, about all your journeys and how they were taken. Maybe then, I will get the courage to tell of my own.
I noted in the beginning that Mutterings of an Unsettled Mind is not just for writers or poets alone. I’m more convinced than ever that this volume contains a treasure of insights for all thoughtful people. Many of these reside in a “Land of Echoes”:
“I live in a land of echoes, / I catch them in dreams / and in passing winds; / so familiar, so far away, / so close, I feel them in my heart.” ABOUT THE REVIEWER: Michael Escoubas is Senior Editor, Contributing Poet, and Staff Book Reviewer for Quill and Parchment, a 24-year-old literary and cultural arts online journal. This review is republished with kind permission from Quill and Parchment. Posted September 1, 2026

Oil in Water: A Journey from Survival to Restoration by Sarah Raganyi

Independently published, 2026166 pages ISBN-13: 979-8257298158 Review by jacob erin-cilberto Some of the Beat poets from the fifties and sixties such as Levertov, Plath, Sexton and others wrote confessional poetry. This poet bares her soul, showing us how she lost faith at a young age but got it back for keeps later in life. And how she had an assist from someone up above.
There exists a myriad of reasons for poets to write. It could be like a hobby; it could be more of a calling, but it could also be a necessity. Sarah Raganyi is a poet who shares the raw bones of her life. No topic is untouchable. She just tells it like it was up to how it is. This poet’s plight might be compared to one of the ducks caught in the Exxon oil spill so many years back. She is hardly breathing; feathers blackened with the thick oil of circumstance and psychologically deranged humans. We watched as human hands saved the ducks; in this book of poems, God’s hands saved the human.
In “Peanut Butter Sandwiches she writes, “The room smells like old urine, The television blares, too loud to escape, too loud to sleep.”
And she continues: “Hunger sharpens the darkness. Sleep encircles me, but never lands.”
The poet’s life continues to get darker. How can one believe in God when a young girl trusts in humans and suffers for that trust? In “Pinky Promise” she writes: “I looked to adults, Believing they would protect me, love me, teach me how to be human. Instead, I was handed a crooked mirror, a warped sense of self, of love, of sex, of what a body was for when no one guards it.”
Later in the poem, Sarah says: “My first pinky promise, tight, childish fingers sealing a lie. ‘Our secret,’ you said. And I became very good at being invisible.”
In “Locked Doors, “the poet continues to illuminate the abuse she suffered when she recalls that she had,
 “Hummingbirds trapped in my throat, a thousand boulders crushing my chest I watch myself from somewhere outside my body, Hovering, helpless.
 Just make it stop. My mind whispers I am trapped Worthless, a story that I will never become anything.”
Even though she claims that “The words circle louder than the truth,” later in life she will find that words can circle silently and truth become something not only bearable but also wondrously joyful.
But before restoration can happen, more survival revisits the poet: “A blade once hidden, a door once locked, a moment where pain felt smaller than staying. And with one quick cut, it all stopped.”
These lines from “Locked Doors” show her period of self-harm “also known as non-suicidal self-injury.” We hurt our own bodies to cope with emotional distress. She says, “the behavior has nothing to do with wanting to die. Instead, it is a desperate attempt to manage emotions that feel unbearable.
Readers of this poetry book who have been through anything like this poet’s experience may just find a better understanding of how to manage their own emotions, which seem unbearable. She writes “The truth is that self-harm was not where my story started; it was only when the pain began to show.”
In further poems, she talks about a father leaving and then feeling alone: “All I had left was myself, And I didn’t know who she was, Only that she felt like nothing without her parents. Nothing but a child watch her father close his briefcase and walk away.”
Can time really heal wounds? Maybe, maybe not. Through everything up to that time, then marriage and children, the abuse followed her like a car tailgating so closely the crash is inevitable.
The poet prepares for another fall---and then the poet finds something other than a human to fear and loathe. Epilepsy. Her son has an episode, and it is both life changing and soul changing for her. She thought she was losing her son and yelled, prayed for the seizure to stop and suddenly it did.
All the abuse the poet had suffered over her entire lifetime had drained her of belief in God. But that moment of her son’s survival let her know that God was not “absent, silent or uninterested.” He had been there all along. I guess like Job, some folks need to suffer more than others.
Sarah writes: “My rebirth came in December 2025. I did not find God. He found me. I wasn’t seeking. I wasn’t ready. But he came anyway.”
Forgiveness is so important to achieving peace. The poet describes this journey: “I feel Him leading me toward forgiveness, Not by excusing what was done, but by releasing me from the burden of being the judge of my abusers.”
The poetry in Oil and Water made me feel so much overwhelming emotion. I experienced anger, rage at the abusers, those who cause self-loathing, self-harm, and disbelief in a benevolent God. The honesty in these poems is incredible; Sarah’s wording is amazing. These are gutsy poems. This volume exposes untruths and truth. We turn from booing against all who abuse (no matter what form) to cheering at the gumption and fortitude of this poet not only to survive but to find restoration and love of self and others on her journey. This is a very important read. ABOUT THE REVIEWER: jacob erin-cilberto is author of 27 books of poetry, his most recent being 27: a book of poems (Praying Mantis Press, 2026). He teaches at John Logan College and conducts workshops at Heartland Writers Guild, Southern Illinois Writers Guild and Union County Writers Guild. Posted September 1, 2026

równoległości parallelism by Anna Maria Mickiewicz

Independently published, 2026104 pages Language: Polish & English ISBN-13: 979-8281600880 Review by Carol L. Gloor with special thanks to friend Mona Brewer Parallelism, by Anna Maria Mickiewicz ( I call her “Anna” to avoid dealing with the difficult last name}, a well-known Polish poet, is two books in one: first, a series of poems in Polish, then another series of poems all in English with only two listed as translated. Through a friendship with a Polish-American neighbor, who reads both languages, I was able to confirm they are the same poems, first in Polish, then in English.
The poems all share a fluid, dream-like quality. One of the continuing themes is that of a couple moving through a life together, mixed with several poems about Anna’s family life. In “secret of the manuscript,” (Anna does not always use caps in her titles), the young couple rises “clothed in clouds/lavender, roses, fountains.” Then changing to the third person in “Regent’s Park,” “he proposed to/invisible clouds” and she “walked through the glass door.” And in “the sky above California,” “our hands intertwine/ in a sky-high embrace.” But this love affair is not all linear, and is interspersed with Anna’s remembrances of her own son who died from Covid in 2023. In “morning,” he is remembered as a “guardian angel [who] put on his shoes,” and in “a morning wing,” he is again remembered as angelic, “a wing, wounded, that fell ashore.” And in the last poem, “was it worth it, ?” the imagined couple and the personal merge: in one line “there’s this little one inside” and in another “the grandchildren ask the particle of grass and wind” if it was worth it and the poet affirms it was.
These poems also shift easily between place and time. Anna identifies several poems as written in London, France and California. But the specificity of the images always defines the place. In “Another Alexandra Palace Spring” London is “spring brings the sun, /sweeping away the puddles.” In ‘heart in France,” France is “
 …where eucalyptus trees grew rustling this is where that cold tea smelled of milk this is where everything climbed high
The California sierras are “red-green graffiti: in “the sky above California.”
And time is always fluid, shifting between present, a past including ancient Greek people and gods, and a spiritual future that is often ominous. Angels appear regularly. In “A Polish Angel in London,” an angel is “selling carrots, tomatoes and strawberries,” and in “Socrates faces hot weather, angels “pave the memory cells” of the philosopher to help him clarify his own thoughts which have been “lost in anxiety .because of hot weather.” And at times the anxiety becomes fear and almost nightmare. In “the mystery of time” Socrates dreams that “the lid of eternity /is forged with/fragile cobwebs.” And finally language itself is interrogated; in “My Victorian house” the English always ask “how are you?’ and the Polish always ask “Do you want to go back to Poland” or “Will you stay here?”
I am honored to have had the opportunity to read this challenging and lovely book. ABOUT THE REVIEWER: Carol L. Gloor’s poetry chapbook, Assisted Living, was published by Finishing Line Press in 2013, and her full-length poetry collection, Falling Back, was published by WordPoetry in 2018. Her poems have been published in many journals and anthologies, and she is a member of the Chicago poetry collective Egg Money Poets. Posted August 1, 2026

Jersey Baked by Laura Daniels

Four Feathers Press, 2026To purchase this chapbook, contact editor Don Kingfisher Campbell - donkingfishercampbell@gmail.com Review by jacob erin-cilberto If you are looking to consume some poetry that is like eating comfort food, this is the book for you. It will whet your appetite and give you plenty of fun verse to digest.In “Savory Sweet Morsels,” we get the onset of the metaphorical nature of this offering of poems. Much of the food imagery is of secondary nature. At the table sit several implications that the poet is really talking about family and relationships. Daniels writes: “mix in bite-sized morsels Until sweet elements blend flavor with family and relationships to capture and chronicle culture.”
She also adds, “Portion out what is what was, what will be until mind nourishment makes the body whole.”
In “Mom’s Kitchen Pantry,” Daniels lists a plethora of foods and spices we will find there. And she writes, “Mom used these prized pantry staples to express love through the meals she created.”
In “Memories,” she has priceless lines that appear much deeper than mere images of a family sharing a meal. “we eat around the kitchen table Covered in old newspaper.”
That newspaper for a tablecloth could represent the past news stories, perhaps of war, and that makes us think of what a tablecloth of newspaper would read like now. Would we even be able to sup or would we be too upset to touch just one morsel.
In the title poem “Jersey Baked,” Laura lists some of the best eateries in New Jersey. And this poem is sensory and has us smelling and tasting different foods that put our taste buds in a trance. She brings it all together with the last line.”
 “The cinnamon scent embraced you at the door”
I love being greeted with savory smells. I worked in two different Italian restaurants, and half the battle was engaging customers with the inviting smells.
In “Comfort Food,” the poet speaks of eating Campbell’s Pork and Beans “no need to heat.” Just open the can, get some “mustard and a spoon, easy peasy.” And Laura ends her poem thusly, “Comfort food Always is, always will be M’m! M’m! Good!”
In “Deliciousness ReDesigned,” Daniels speaks of chips left on a counter which the significant other might have been counting on for a late-night snack. But the speaker in the poem can not resist and then apologizes, claiming they were “so salty/ and so crisp.” It just seems to me that the allusions here are very sensual. My love and desire, my hunger for you just could not wait. I am sorry, but not really. I feel sated.
In “Coffee-Flavored Form,” she speaks of sitting in a coffee shop listening to conversations that inspire her to “put sculptured movement/into my composition.”
Being a tennis player myself, I appreciated “City Gardening.” The poet shows a really good use of an “abandoned tennis court” and “brought the soil back to life” and planting all kinds of fruits and vegetables.
In “Wild Weed,” Laura speaks of weeds in a garden that could represent people who create conflicts, either bad ones or perhaps needed ones to help people to “co-exist despite each other’s efforts and myopic visions of what should be able to thrive on Mother Earth.”
The speaker in this poem claims it is possible to co-exist just fine, no matter how different we are from one another.
In “Cherry Tree,” the speaker notes, “The tree in their yard appeared deserted, neglected its succulent offerings called my name.”
I feel this poetry book called my name. I love food; I love poetry. Carefully digesting either one is a blessing. It is sustenance, it is life. Jersey Baked is a very tasty morsel, indeed.
ABOUT THE REVIEWER: jacob erin-cilberto is author of 26 books of poetry, his most recent being A Jersey Shore in Ryegate. He teaches at John Logan College and conducts workshops at Heartland Writers Guild, Southern Illinois Writers Guild and Union County Writers Guild. Posted August 1, 2026

Soliloquy to the Night Sky by Kathleen Gregg

accents publishing, 202643 pages Price: $19 ISBN-13: 978-1-961127-23-4 Review by Michael Escoubas Preparing to write this review has been a challenge. I note this because I witnessed my younger brother’s slow decline from brilliance to the dark night of total loss. My heart is enveloped in Kathleen Gregg’s poetic cocoon of loss and the dilemma it presents for the meaning of life. Soliloquy to the Night Sky will resonate with thousands who have witnessed a loved one’s final monolog with whom they once were and will never be again.
“No False Hope,” appears half-way through the collection. Nancy, Kathleen’s older sister, is in the latter stages of Alzheimer’s:
 When I visit now, I am faced with a body emptied of you.
 Your heart still beats its rhythm, lungs push air in and out.
 If a nurse lifts a spoon to your lips, you open, chew and swallow.
 Sometimes, the aides park you in front of the common room TV.
 You stare at the screen with eyes devoid of awareness. This is
 how I find you today. I squat in front of your wheelchair, smile,
 say Hi, Nancy, it’s me, your sister, and you turn those blank eyes on me.
The poem continues describing the poet’s longing that her efforts to love, comfort, and amuse her beloved will somehow reach Nancy’s awareness. Notice how this poem is a series of declarative sentences, stark, rational. Nancy’s life-situation has become exactly that, descriptive rather than engaging.
How did we get here?
Kathleen opens her collection with “No Off Ramp,” a poem perfectly placed as Nancy is, “sobbing and / sobbing and / begging for her life / to make sense again.” Kathleen is trying to comfort her panicked sister over the speaker phone while driving in traffic. “relentless traffic / is the only thing keeping me grounded / from the jolt / of my sister’s distress.” Indeed, in the moment and in the larger life-setting, Kathleen knows there is no “off ramp” for this. There is “just enough awareness / to split us down the middle.”
“Nancy is Never the Same,” is an early clue of what is ahead:
 After her year of breast cancer therapy, she knows it. Chemo Brain is real. I’m not as sharp as I used to be. Still, we believe surely, with time, her fogginess will clear up. Surely.
 Then, for the first time ever, she forgets my birthday. No card, no phone call. I let it go.
However, these are just the first fruits of Nancy’s decline; the inability to work through things that in times past were not problematic for her sister’s keen mind. From there telling incidents build one upon the other. The poem “I Ignore the Signs,” portrays my own experience with my brother’s decline. I consistently told myself This isn’t really happening. It was trivial things that Kathleen and I ignored:
my sister needs a dress for her granddaughter’s wedding tells me she dreads the search (my cue to offer help) I jump at the chance to do such a girl thing with her
This poignant poem chronicles a series of “little things” that tell a big story in retrospect: Nancy has never heard of Marshalls, where they will shop; inside the store Nancy loses her sense of place, looks “defeated” as she browses the racks and tries on dresses; she asks, “What’s the name of this store again?” All of this and more return to Kathleen as she mourns and ponders Nancy slow, irreversible decline. “The End of Pretending” ties a bow around the phase of denial:
 I feel Nancy hunt and hunt for words, as if she is rifling through a box of loose photos.
 Mostly she just gives up, spits out a laugh, Well it’s gone. I try to make light of it, fill in
 the blanks, fall back on our inside jokes. That lifeline is fraying (face it) from the weight of my furious grip.
 Today, I attempt to reminisce about our cousins, the big family gatherings. Her flat voice admits,
 I don’t know who they are. And I hear the first goodbye.
From this seed that captures Nancy’s steady decline, there are moments of light. “What a Difference the Right Meds Make,” delivers momentary jubilation as Kathleen visits Nancy, now under the care of trained nurses. Nancy seems better than before. She is chatting coherently, swaying to the vibrations of Mustang Sally, joy is bubbling out of mouths encouraging her. But the joy fades, like the slow decline of a light bulb . . . “I realize my sister is still confused, / her memories jumbled, disappearing. / but her terror, my helplessness / in the face of it, has been lowered / to the bottom of the well.
Reading Soliloquy to the Night Sky, I felt the gentle prodding of a shepherd, somehow knowing that I needed time to process the roller coaster of feelings she was experiencing. I haven’t considered, in this review, all the poems that deserve treatment. But as I read each one slowly, savoring their content, I somehow felt renewed in my soul. This is a gift of poetry. Only poetry can achieve the solace one needs at such an hour. I think of my brother Tom as I offer these unforgettable lines from “Acceptance”:
 Let my sister lift up and out of her useless body. Let her feel my love rush after her.
 Let her float in an ocean of light. Warm, peaceful, safe.
 Let her memories spark within her soul, brimming and bright.
 Let her sing in a blur of joy, I am whole.
A prayer of sorts? Indeed, it is a prayer of sorts. Perhaps my brother Tom has met Nancy somewhere in heaven’s precincts . . . and with full throat they are singing, I am whole, praise God, I am whole! ABOUT THE REVIEWER: Michael Escoubas is Senior Editor, Contributing Poet, and Staff Book Reviewer for Quill and Parchment, a 24-year-old literary and cultural arts online journal. This review is republished with kind permission from Quill and Parchment. Posted August 1, 2026

Lost Leaves: Short Poems of Nature and Love by Michael Lee Johnson & Irma Kurti

Ukiyoto Publishing, 2026116 pages Price: $10.50 Paperback ISBN-13: 978-9353538385 Review by jacob erin-cilberto In an early poem, Johnson asks the question, “Why do poets die? / Linger in youth / addicted to death.” Poets most often write of death, write away from death or, as in cases like Plath, Sexton and Berryman, seem to write towards it. And those of us who write poetry often find that poets gain notoriety after they have passed on. “They travel in their minds” while living and churning out poem after poem, but in “the fall” of their lives, “they stretch their arms and embrace the readers.” In the poem “Rain,” we find “the high school dropout…he was drunk. Jack Daniels was his driving instructor…It never rains in a dry casket… no worries about cops / anymore. Do poets die in the rain? Do they die drunk? Is it a perquisite to fame?
In “I Edit my Life,” Michael writes: “I edit my life, … I turn poetic hedonistic in my early 70’s reviewing the joys and the sorrows of my journey.”
In “If You Find No Poem,” the poet says, “If you find no poem on your doorstep in the morning ... Your life is poorly edited.”
I am reminded of Melanie Safka and her song in which she expresses the following: “I am not a poet / living is the poem.” Are all poets just “works in progress,” constantly editing themselves to get right or write?
Michael relates in the poem “In my Will.” “I no longer fear death an empty vodka bottle by my bed, a dusty bible underlined Jesus’ messages in red.”
Ah! Just like a teacher correcting a paper, a revised poem edited in red ink. Then we make changes and hope to better our lives, improve our poems, make living a classic poem.
In “Reincarnation,” Johnson writes: “In the next life, I will be a little higher on the / pecking order.” And it makes this reviewer/ poet ask the question, will poets, in the next life, be higher in the pecking order? Will we ever find a life in which we aren’t thought of as being so far below the authors who write novels of fiction and non-fiction?
His answer may just be our answer: “In my grave, a cylinder beneath a willow tree, earth complete poems go, elusive, informative no big words: When I die not if I die.”
Michael Lee Johnson gives us the truth, what could be thought of as bleak but stark reality of the life and death of poets, and the struggle they go through to be heard, to be accepted and to be remembered. Now we move on to the co-author of this delicious poetry book, Italian poet Irma Kurti.
Kurti reinforces ideas of Johnson’s: “The joy writhes shakes in the air, it loses height, like a swallow without wings it falls to the ground.”
Joy and creation go hand in hand, and I would think success measured in a poet’s mind would be having our creations fly high rather than fall to the ground. If only our pen could give us those wings.Leaves don’t drop to the ground like dead birds do. When they die, they depart the tree and float.Kurti writes of lost love: “I cling to the roar of the waves; to the swallow’s chirp in the blue sky, where I find the melody of your voice; to the rustle of a leaf when it falls delicately to the ground; to find the magic I have lost.”
Even when she refers to flowers, there is loss: “A flower petal in the air is lifted by the storm, / just later, inert and hopeless, it lies on the road.” When our souls float in the air, will they go to a better place? Or will they just fall, then lie on the road discarded? In “A Few Rays of Sun,” Irma writes of “welcoming these few/ rays of sun/ they manage to/ warm my body and my soul. / But I can’t escape the night; it is dark.”
When we lose love, we have thoughts of the partner in a “long/ endless night, which, like train tracks, / Expands and stretches towards nowhere.”
Kurti writes: Here I am, a delicate leaf that the wind throws into space without a moment’s hesitation.”
Like “Lost Leaves” thrown from the tree, we have to find our way back to love, whether companion love or self-love. We are all leaves that bud, bloom, live, love and die. How we rustle in the breeze is of our own doing. We can make ourselves into foliage to be remembered like beautiful maples in autumn or a bare tree in winter with nothing to offer. These two poets, Michael Lee Johnson and Irma Kurti take stark, sometimes ugly reality and turn it into a tragic beauty to dazzle those of us lucky enough to read this book of verse. There is a mood to this book, but you will remember the poetry after reading and I would surmise the two poets who authored Lost Leaves.
ABOUT THE REVIEWER: jacob erin-cilberto is author of 27 books of poetry, his most recent being 27. He teaches at John Logan College and conducts workshops at Heartland Writers Guild, Southern Illinois Writers Guild and Union County Writers Guild. Posted August 1, 2026

Sunrise Over South Africa by Joseph Kuhn Carey

Kelsay Books, 2026120 pages Price: $23 Paperback / $9.99 Kindle ISBN-13: 978-1639809967 Review by jacob erin-cilberto This poetry collection could also be aptly titled “A Diamond in the Rough.” The poet refers to the sun with “open arms and a full heart of sparkling diamonds each day.” “This is juxtaposed to his lines in “The Average South African Has Never Seen Snow” in which he says: “What a magical moment, surrounded by a gentle cotton cloud in the cold, seeing something never seen before, white fluttering diamonds coming down from the sky.”
Carey creates magic with his imagery and metaphor. This book is so interesting because it is a day-to-day diary in poetry of a visit and exploration of South Africa by a family of four. Using poetry, Joseph puts us on a plane and lets us travel as the fifth member of the family, so that we experience what they did.
As a guide, Joseph gives us a peek at the language of the country. In “South Africanisms” he defines “Deep Fried Potatoes” as “Slap Chips.” “Robot” is Traffic Light.” “Tekkies, Takkies” are “Sneakers.” And “Jol” equals “To Have Fun.” And fun is exactly what the reader has when devouring the poetry describing this South African visit.
In “Two Lane Road,” Carey speaks of “The billboards And green-blue signs Funneling you home Like a sideways tornado Of constantly spinning time.”
Later, in the comical poem “I Blew the Fuse,” Joseph admits how he accidentally caused the electricity on an entire hotel floor to short circuit and how he and his family made their getaway on the tour bus. “It was something out of a Laurel& Hardy or Three Stooges comedy movie and I slunk out of Eswatini in disbelief with my head down.”
Nothing like comic relief even when you are already having fun.
In “Braai,” we find out how much South Africans love grilled meats “all sizzling and neat.” “That warthog is a surprisingly tasty treat (and very tender, too), but watch out for water buffalo meat, since it’s as a rough and tough and tumble as the unpredictable thick-hided animal itself.”
And we all know the water buffalo’s reputation!
We learn, as the family did, about how hippos are “taking a break and lying in the sun together as one, happy to be near each other,” like the Turtles sang, “So Happy Together.”And then the family watched elephants “splashing the red dirt and dust all over their bodies to keep bugs away. Could they tell we were watching them from the nearby hill?”
Oh, I imagine they could tell.
The ending of this poem reminds me of Hemingway’s “Hills like White Elephants” and how the girl tells the man that the hills look like white elephants which reflects the barren feeling she has from their relationship. But here, the elephants, the family, the poet describe a feeling of calmness and contentment with life.
This metaphorical poet uses common, everyday events, scenes, and backgrounds to convey life and the good we can see within it. To emphasize this point the poet writes: “the mountains of South Africa seem to be always there, like a good, trusted friend in the distance.”
Elephants are often trained and used as valuable friends for humans. They are large diamonds in the rough.
In the poem “The Knysna Fires,” the poet talks of “devastated hills; life begins again, the resilience of people, plants and trees a remarkable thing.”
Yes, we are remarkable and resilient.
In “Traveling with my Sons,” Carey discusses how important family time is, time away from internet, cell phones and other distractions to have “a quiet, thoughtful moment.”
This book is a “quiet thoughtful moment” for the reader. I loved this book from the very first poem to the very last. I got away from the internet, cell phone, television and just immersed myself in words, descriptions and very accessible poetry that defines Joseph Kuhn Carey. This is a “must read” poetry collection showing just how enticing and calming those South African hills can be.
In one poem, Carey writes that the “cattle stand by a passing fence Looking bored, as if unable to find a poker game.”
But you don’t need a poker game, just A Sunrise over South Africa. ABOUT THE REVIEWER: jacob erin-cilberto is author of 26 books of poetry, his most recent being A Jersey Shore in Ryegate. He teaches at John Logan College and conducts workshops at Heartland Writers Guild, Southern Illinois Writers Guild and Union County Writers Guild. Posted July 1, 2026

Sunrise Over South Africa by Joseph Kuhn Carey

Kelsay Books, 2026120 pages Price: $23 Paperback / $9.99 Kindle ISBN-13: 978-1639809967 Review by jacob erin-cilberto This poetry collection could also be aptly titled “A Diamond in the Rough.” The poet refers to the sun with “open arms and a full heart of sparkling diamonds each day.” “This is juxtaposed to his lines in “The Average South African Has Never Seen Snow” in which he says: “What a magical moment, surrounded by a gentle cotton cloud in the cold, seeing something never seen before, white fluttering diamonds coming down from the sky.”
Carey creates magic with his imagery and metaphor. This book is so interesting because it is a day-to-day diary in poetry of a visit and exploration of South Africa by a family of four. Using poetry, Joseph puts us on a plane and lets us travel as the fifth member of the family, so that we experience what they did.
As a guide, Joseph gives us a peek at the language of the country. In “South Africanisms” he defines “Deep Fried Potatoes” as “Slap Chips.” “Robot” is Traffic Light.” “Tekkies, Takkies” are “Sneakers.” And “Jol” equals “To Have Fun.” And fun is exactly what the reader has when devouring the poetry describing this South African visit.
In “Two Lane Road,” Carey speaks of “The billboards And green-blue signs Funneling you home Like a sideways tornado Of constantly spinning time.”
Later, in the comical poem “I Blew the Fuse,” Joseph admits how he accidentally caused the electricity on an entire hotel floor to short circuit and how he and his family made their getaway on the tour bus. “It was something out of a Laurel& Hardy or Three Stooges comedy movie and I slunk out of Eswatini in disbelief with my head down.”
Nothing like comic relief even when you are already having fun.
In “Braai,” we find out how much South Africans love grilled meats “all sizzling and neat.” “That warthog is a surprisingly tasty treat (and very tender, too), but watch out for water buffalo meat, since it’s as a rough and tough and tumble as the unpredictable thick-hided animal itself.”
And we all know the water buffalo’s reputation!
We learn, as the family did, about how hippos are “taking a break and lying in the sun together as one, happy to be near each other,” like the Turtles sang, “So Happy Together.”And then the family watched elephants “splashing the red dirt and dust all over their bodies to keep bugs away. Could they tell we were watching them from the nearby hill?”
Oh, I imagine they could tell.
The ending of this poem reminds me of Hemingway’s “Hills like White Elephants” and how the girl tells the man that the hills look like white elephants which reflects the barren feeling she has from their relationship. But here, the elephants, the family, the poet describe a feeling of calmness and contentment with life.
This metaphorical poet uses common, everyday events, scenes, and backgrounds to convey life and the good we can see within it. To emphasize this point the poet writes: “the mountains of South Africa seem to be always there, like a good, trusted friend in the distance.”
Elephants are often trained and used as valuable friends for humans. They are large diamonds in the rough.
In the poem “The Knysna Fires,” the poet talks of “devastated hills; life begins again, the resilience of people, plants and trees a remarkable thing.”
Yes, we are remarkable and resilient.
In “Traveling with my Sons,” Carey discusses how important family time is, time away from internet, cell phones and other distractions to have “a quiet, thoughtful moment.”
This book is a “quiet thoughtful moment” for the reader. I loved this book from the very first poem to the very last. I got away from the internet, cell phone, television and just immersed myself in words, descriptions and very accessible poetry that defines Joseph Kuhn Carey. This is a “must read” poetry collection showing just how enticing and calming those South African hills can be.
In one poem, Carey writes that the “cattle stand by a passing fence Looking bored, as if unable to find a poker game.”
But you don’t need a poker game, just A Sunrise over South Africa. ABOUT THE REVIEWER: jacob erin-cilberto is author of 26 books of poetry, his most recent being A Jersey Shore in Ryegate. He teaches at John Logan College and conducts workshops at Heartland Writers Guild, Southern Illinois Writers Guild and Union County Writers Guild. Posted July 1, 2026

Rays Were Never So Near As Now: Collected Poems 2020 - 2024 by David Dephy

Westbrae Literary Group, 202588 pages Price: $10.99 ISBN-13: 979-8-9917199-7-1 Review by Michael Escoubas David Dephy’s remarkable collection is framed by a haunting question: In a world scarred by past wars, how do we navigate the path to peace and understanding? This basic question frames the whole. As one of Dephy’s endorsers says:
The way David’s poetry cuts fantasy with reality and highlights the relief of arriving is beautifully done. It truly pushes the boundaries of art, humanity, and beauty. (Fevers of the Mind Magazine)
David Dephy knows about war. Exiled from his native Georgia (a country in the Caucasus region on the coast of the Black Sea) in 2017, Dephy, now a U.S. citizen, has lived through war-torn times. His experiences, beautifully captured in this collection, share lessons of encouragement for many in America who are concerned about the future of our own country.
A Word About the Title and Cover
The cover displays a series of light rays which Dephy refers to as “The Three Rays” concept. In a helpful preface he explains the relationship between the different light forms: Convex, Focal, and Central rays. Note the telescopic cover art. As the title implies the Rays range in visual proximity from infinitesimal to large. This brilliant metaphor exudes with the poet’s attitude about life: In a world torn by strife, there is light, there is hope.
David Dephy understands the role of the poet and does not shrink from it. My goal is to demonstrate Dephy’s commitment to his twin themes of light and hope.
A Word About Organic Continuity
The collection is organized into three chapters which mirror the cover: One: The Convex Function of Parallel Ray, Two: The Definition of Focal Ray, and Three: The Structure of Central Ray. While the chapter titles are a bit intimidating, this feeling was mitigated when I focused on the quality of the poems. I’m not a scientist (I was awful at it in school), but when poetry reaches my heart and mind, I feel light’s intensity entering my soul.
Light and Hope Extrapolated
“The Gift” is the first poem I met. In it, I savored hope and light:
 In my childhood I have had an ability of saying words in a very different way.
 If I was saying “Rose,” people were feeling the smell of the rose, immediately,
 by saying “Coffee” people were feeling the smell of fresh hot coffee. I lost that gift when I grew up,
 but I found it once again when I was miserable, left alone, left for dead. I said: “Hope,”
 and you appeared, sitting right next to me in the empty subway station waiting for a train.
While I may be mistaken, I’m interpreting the “you” in the last stanza as a reference to Dephy’s muse. In my own experience as a poet, I have from time-to-time, felt dead and alone in my writing, until at length, the all-important “you” returned to me.
Throughout the collection, I felt a distinct journey motif. Continuing in chapter one, “Hope” takes centerstage:
 Listening to your voice on the other side of silence gives me courage to lose sight and swim there, your voice is hope trusting the flow. It calls me now: we are what we hear, doubt is deadlier, but fear cuts deeper than air, and I am not moving toward revenge, I forgive myself my own loneliness. It’s hard to form.
What I like about journeying with David Dephy is the latitude he gives to individual life applications. We are all different and come to poetry with our own stories. Dephy refrains from arcane pigeonholing. In this regard, I related to the simplicity and beauty of “Before Dawn”:
 A stillness broken before dawn,
 in the name of all that’s hailed,
 in the name of our very present,
 in the face of it all— the remaining past
 unclaimed, driven forth by faith.
Moving into Chapter Two, the poem “Fog,” signals a change in tone. “Fog lies low over the land. / Rain drives soft across the fields. / Comatose landscape.” As the poem continues Dephy creates a seeming antithesis to hope. “There is nothing immediate we can hope for, / now we have nothing to do but breathe, / until something better shows up.” This is a poem not to miss, because Dephy uses his fog metaphor to create an impactful ending that spoke to my heart.
Throughout chapters two and three, Dephy creates then breaks tensions. Darkness imposes itself on life. Then, after setting the scene locking it in as one thing, surprise occurs accenting life and hope, often with a touch of irony. These poems strike me personally as linking me to life, my life, my burdens, my unique experiences in fog. But Dephy doesn’t allow me to stay there. In “The Sky Is Clear Tonight,” the poet avers:
 This endless journey keeps me turning back to something forgotten, to something misplaced, keeps me turning back
 toward you, and the clouds above you form as the moon rises, and we still try to give them a sense of purpose.
Ah yes, a sense of purpose. Without a doubt, David Dephy has traversed a long and arduous journey, baptized by poetry and sanctified by a muse who continues to work in and through his spirit. This collection is a must have for all who aspire to walk in Light and Hope.
ABOUT THE REVIEWER: Michael Escoubas is Senior Editor, Contributing Poet, and Staff Book Reviewer for Quill and Parchment, a 24-year-old literary and cultural arts online journal. This review is republished with kind permission from Quill and Parchment. Posted July 1, 2026

Political Prisoners USA and Other Poems by James Madigan

Broadstone Books, 202598 pages Price: $25 ISBN-13: 978-1-966677-16-1 Review by Henry Kranz Jim Madigan’s poems join a tradition of American resistance poetry found in the writings of Whitman, Langston Hughes, Woody Guthrie, Alan Ginsburg, Lorna Dee Cervantes, Bob Dylan and many more. In this tradition, the author’s personal experiences highlight broader societal issues, share voices from marginalized communities and depict historical events to raise awareness. As an American reared in the last century and living in this one, the resistance he depicts carries with it the weight of our country’s own repressive history. Repression and bad faith must be met with hopeful resistance. He writes:
 Every night I read my country’s history I am choking on it
Then, too, the author has an ancestral history of Ireland, land of repression and resistance long into its past. His gentle and observant approach comes from a deep and abiding sense of that history. His language brings attention to the essential connection between resistance and hope, hope for freedom, for safety, for clean air and water. He identifies himself in many of the poems, experiencing conditions that must be changed, his concerns laid bare, with the possibility of a better future.
Some scenes are of the natural world. In “Fire Season “he says,
 Toxic ash on contrails over the Rockies, Visibility a quarter mile. Adjust your goggles … The market moves to adapt: Fire Season street celebrations
West Coast Mardi Gras, another masked holiday.
Some describe inhumane behaviors. In “Ghosts of Ludlow Heard of the Uprising,”
 Rockefeller’s hired thugs and National Guard killed them in their camp, killed them setting dozens of tents aflame.
Some focus on the camaraderie of resistance. In “Rivers of Rebellion:
 We march into the center of the city, meet with other streams of marchers to create a mighty river of rebellion
The book is arranged in three sections each one beginning with “Political Prisoners USA.” This title headlines various letters and poems which are interspersed throughout the book. Some of these signposts are quotes from correspondence about, or with political prisoners, others are longer poems reflecting on how people have been treated. The prisoners are not alone in their isolation, but have people caring about them that they encounter in these missives.
In each section, the poems are uncluttered and unhurried in their depictions and cadence. This rhythm offers great depth and nuance in the plain speaking of the voices heard. This structure gives each poem in this book a role beyond its very words, composing a more complete picture of what has caused the poet to share his stance against repression. Together, they create an atmosphere of empathy, of recognition of the human cost, and of the connection we have to one another.
ABOUT THE REVIEWER: Henry Kranz is a publisher and editor. His Erie Street Press published Lucky Star, A Magazine of Poetry and Poetics as well as sixteen books of poetry in the last quarter of the 20th century. In 2025 the Press published Idiom of The American Boy by Rick Duffey, and in 2026, A Lucky Star Retrospective. His poems have appeared in RHINO, Salamander, Live Writers, Xavier Review, Moraine II, Cache Review, Sidewalks. Posted July 1, 2026

Young Santa by Joe Deany-Braun

Independently Published, 202588 pages Price: $16 ISBN-13: 9780996793315 Review by jacoberin-cilberto Santa? Saint? Or a combination of? Santa brings hope to young kids on Christmas Eve; a saint is someone adults might pray to for hope to secure a better life. Or maybe the saint is someone we all look up to and we might think of as having a perfect life. But the reality is that saint or Santa (the myth), neither has that. This poetry book is filled with hard reality which is presented in sequential lunes or eleven-word tercets. We know from haiku and senryu how powerful three lines of poetry can be but imagine when all these tercets are combined. The beauty and power can knock our stockings off the fireplace ---and these stockings are filled with words, words and more words that paint pictures of humanness, humility and the reality of a totally imperfectly perfect world. In his first poem, Deany-Braun talks about Santa holding our invisible hand: “You fill me so full of the unseen that I grieve
 The dark land sleeps our little bodies like rain coming down?”
We think of manna raining down to feed our souls. For little children who hold onto the myth of Santa Claus---he is the invisible hand who brings toys and joy for the little hearts to open on Christmas morning.
For adults, the invisible hand might be that saint touching our shoulder and keeping us safe.
In “Santa Almost Dies of Exposure,” the poet writes this:
 “thousands of bones away the wonder-bird wheels
 like fire on
 a string. Who is the Wonder bird? Who is the string?”
Might this mean that we are the birds on a string, exposed to the elements of life? Ones that will eventually beat us down to “nothingness” unless we snap that string and float to freedom like a released kite. In “In Santa Learns How to Fly,” Some lines express how “and the tree/ rattled and the trees rattled/ in shocked spots.” And later in the poem he says: “Tree was one tree and the one tree was one singing
 Cone of swung Green and cones of ink on the hill”
With “cones of ink” I think of poets and their “cones of ink” used to express feelings and reactions to life. The trees get very old and when there is a strong breeze, they sing and whistle and speak to us. And if we listen closely, perhaps we can hear Santa fly or maybe we are hearing the saints flying as angels speaking to us in a language we may not understand perfectly but we do feel. As Archibald MacLeish wrote in “Ars Poetica,” “a poem should not mean/ but be.” No meaning is pinned on it; poetry lives and breathes with its own freedom of feeling.
In another poem, Joe shares,
 “As it is my body is small and I have no
 real calling, except what shakes in the shell of my chest.”
And for poets, what shakes in their chest is poetry. That is their calling.
In “Santa Does not Know What He Does not Know,” Deany-Braun admits Santa or even saints are not infallible; they are not omniscient but human. There is much they do not know but hope to discover. Reading Deany-Braun’s poetry in this book reflects much about ourselves when he writes:
 “Every song is the song of my family trying to live.
 So precious to Spend even three minutes with a strange warmth.”
We could spend three minutes with a strange warmth and possibly learn something new; we find out something new about family we did not know. Even just a few minutes can give us that warmth of new knowledge.In a later poem, Joe shares these words:
 “Contractions are instinctual in birth and in speech A dying boy
 might have contractions of the spirit and write like fire
Perhaps this reference could be to the birth of a poem. Real poets “write like fire” and “some/ ghost pulling his/ body back into the womb/ no, you say/ not possible.”
I get a feeling here of how once we write a poem, we cannot take it back---once born, its existence cannot be denied or erased.
In “Santa Tries to Be a Gracious Host,” The poet says, “Big thoughts visit/ me like foreign dignitaries at/ an all-night/ diner. / they spend/ restless nights on the fleabitten/ beds of my/ cheap-hostel brain.”
As readers, we do not have to be dignitaries to appreciate real poetry. We could be homeless and begging on the streets and still get the gift of poetry. Thank you, Santa; thank you saints and thank you Joe Deany-Braun for this marvelous collection of sequential lunes, or eleven-word tercets and being such a gracious host. Like a “can’t miss movie,” this is a “can’t miss book of poetry.
ABOUT THE REVIEWER: jacob erin-cilberto is author of 27 books of poetry, his most recent being 27. He teaches at John Logan College and conducts workshops at Heartland Writers Guild, Southern Illinois Writers Guild and Union County Writers Guild.
Posted July 1, 2026

Sinkhole: The Sister Pantoums by Alexis Rhone Fancher

Macq, 202646 pages Price: $20 ISBN-13: 9798349570209 Review by Toti O'Brien Alexis Rhone Fancher’s new collection—Sinkhole—is gorgeously designed, deceptively wrapped by a cover image (the author’s own street photography) fringed with palm trees, kissed by porcelain skies, soft with golden sand, and emblazoned by the icon of a young girl wearing turquoise—a sweet aqua shade, echoed by the beach house in the background.
The girl is climbing out of a hole dug deep into the sand. The book, though, as soon as we open it, shifts gears, leading the reader (as the title forecast) straight into the cave—underground, where our collective soul usually stores the dead.
Sinkhole is a tribute to the author’s sister, recently and untimely passed. For this compact elegy—tightly woven and skillfully stitched, like the drawstring pouch inside which ashes are returned to the family—Fancher sticks to a single layout: all the poems are pantoums and the form, truly owned and flexibly plied, is so fit, it ultimately morphs with its contents—rather a product of necessity, than an esthetic choice or a matter of style.
Grief—a theme from which Fancher never recoiled—is a hyper-focused state, the epitome of concentration. From verse one, we zoom onto the subject and we stay there, close-up, eyes wide-open, until the last line. Here’s what matters: the passing, like a black dot, a period. Rather, like a colon splitting the narrative in two halves: the preceding precipice and the aftermath, so undetermined, so still a duration, it amounts to zero.
It’s the same, sad dream every night. I awake at dawn, bolt upright. Find a text message from my niece. Mom has just passed away. Please pray.
 I awake at dawn, bolt upright. I can’t shake this feeling of dread. Please pray. Mom has just passed away. Yes, I text back. I dreamed it.
Truly, the poet tries to encapsulate the very hinge between slippery ante and terrifying post, and consequently digs into the crack as deeply as she can. Over and over, right? That is how mourning works. Grief, by definition, revisits. Stubbornly, it circles back, turns around, draws spirals and loops. Each poem deals with a small, single moment, single image or thought—first spelled out, ripped open, unblinkingly taken apart, and then sewn back together. Or not.
Lines repeating (or else echoing each other, upside-down, inside-out, slightly twisted, a little askew) hammer feelings and images under the skin, penetrating the flesh like a crown of thorns. In order to do so, they drop all rhetoric and artifice. Sticking to the core (in plain clothes, as if nothing were—deceptive, like the bluish beach vignette on the cover) Fancher’s frank, unforgiving verses deliver and strike. Their poignancy sprouts from their sheer honesty—such a sharp weapon, cutting through, no matter how frigid a surface.
And yet, nothing is screamed. No complaints, no laments. No one cries, not visibly so. No one asks for consolation. No one offers sympathy or relief. That would be redundant, while these poems are bare. Naked, I mean.
The recurring lines (the peculiar melody of the pantoum) evoke chanting, instead—of an intimate kind, like a lullaby the poet would sing in private, sotto voce, like the rocking motion our body unconsciously adopts in order to self-shelter, cradling pain within a ghost womb.
[...] What’s your name? my niece asks on repeat. But my sister no longer speaks. So I speak for her.
 Who are you? my niece asks on repeat. I think my sister’s thoughts. I speak for her. I’m Debra Lynn, I say. [...]
The pantoum’s circular economy, cycling and recycling, sweeps away superfluity: what remains on the page is a handful of poems clean like stones washed ashore by the tide. Lava rocks—that porous, that smooth—each, the size of our palm.
This is what’s left of her life. A fistful of ashes. A soft beige color, like sand
ABOUT THE REVIEWER: Toti O’Brien is the Italian Accordionist with the Irish Last Name. She is the author of four books of poetry and three of prose. Her most recent short story collection, Alter Alter, was released by Elyssar Press in 2024. Posted July 1, 2026

Glimpsing Benevolence: Poems that Reverence the Ordinary by Gloria Jean Viglione

The Instruments of Peace Press, 2026Cover Image and Interior Images by Jennifer Thomson40 Poems ~ 82 pagesPrice: $17.00ISBN #: 979-8-245-445243Review by Michael Escoubas
The epigraph to Gloria Viglione’s debut collection suggests a lot about Glimpsing Benevolence: Poems that Reverence the Ordinary. She chooses:
Above the clouds, the sky is always blue.by St. Therese of Lisieux
St. Therese was a French Carmelite nun, known simply as the “Little Flower.” In her brief life of twenty-four years, she lived simply and joyfully performing acts of kindness without notice, credit, or fanfare. Her life portrayed the spirit of Viglione’s poems.
For this reviewer, the times we are living through cry out for a glimpse of benevolence. Our times seek a respite from caustic speech, violence, and intolerance. This collection speaks to my heart in this sense.
The collection is structured into four chapters consisting of ten poems each: “Winter Light,” “Transitions,” “Bloom,” and “Angels.” Each chapter title is also the title of a painting by Jennifer Thomson. These lovely creations, examples of a form known as “Watercolor Veil Painting,” beautifully represent the interior qualities of the work. “Adagio,” is the lead poem. Adagio is a musical term describing a slow, leisurely pace to the composition. This is exactly what the poet seeks to achieve in this lovely poem about her mother. The poem is written from the perspective of a little girl observing her mother going about her day.
I glimpse my mother from the hall,bright in early sunlight, leaning,the round of her upper back a perfect domeas she conducts the making of her bed.
The poet continues with details about “her Jergens-lotioned hands reaching / folding, and smoothing the lightly wrinkled / remnants of last night’s sleep, turning pages / on this, her musical score.”
Clearly, Viglione’s poetic inspiration is rooted in a relationship which anchored her life in love and in life-satisfactions derived from “Ordinary” things. “Adagio” concludes:
when I risein the gentle wake of her ways—
moving smooth as night cloudscrossing over the moon,
gradual as honey making its wayto the mouth of the jar,
subtle as the dissolve of a French hornin the final nocturne’s passage.
Stylistically, the poet treats her readers to a variety of stanza presentations including couplets, tercets, quatrains, and combinations of each within the same poem. She makes unique and original usage of the em dash, italics, and wide word spacing within the same line. Viglione delighted me with skillfully contrived indentations; some I had never encountered. For a chiastic sequence, don’t miss “Glimpsing Benevolence,” on page 35.
Additionally, her titles kept me turning the page: “An Open Window,” “At the Well I Drink,” “Becoming Gold,” and “ego Inflation,” to name but a few. None of this is about showing off. Viglione is all substance. Each poem supports her premise: “Poems that Reverence the Ordinary.” This refreshing approach channels her muse, St. Therese of Lisieux.” Following are a few highlights that resonate with this reviewer.
“ego Inflation,” noted above, illustrates the poet’s personal meditative life:
when my ego is spenton cheap exchanges,inner double-talkand misguided advertisements
it sometimes needs to siton sunny floor-spotswhere the cat goes to nap
bask for a spell on smooth pine planksand take in the warmth—something great than itself—
and wait,that is all,
no even knowingthat it—is notreally me
This excerpt from “Like Praying” sets the stage for an absorbing love poem:
The way you love me is like the unraveling of pressed silkfrom neatly rolled skeins, the setting free of ivory dovesthrough the cage’s open door—like a soft breezethat envelops yet suspends me—like the meltingof chocolate over a slow and steady flame.
Moving into “Bloom,” the emphasis shifts to poems about flowers, plants, meadows and examples showing how Nature corresponds to human experience. I sensed summer’s aromas in “Meadow,” where:
Down a hillpast the footbridgeand old willow trunk
lies a meadowrich in august beesand grasshoppersbusy for the noon sun.
Growing up, I lived on a farm in Central Illinois . . . how sweet were those years seldom thought about until these tender “ordinary” lines brought my childhood roaring back to me. “On Waking from a Dream,” is a shape poem that reinforces her conviction that everything, in some sense bears a relationship to God, and all things are from God and ultimately return to God. This poem is wonderfully thought out and will be worth at least three readings to take it all in.
Gloria Viglione succeeded with this reviewer in showing profound “glimpses” of benevolence . . . it would be better or more accurate to say, she overwhelmed me with food for a banquet of spirit-filled feasting. For the modest asking price of $17.00 buy two copies and gift a friend. If you do, you will enter the poet’s “Blessing Realm”:
Some morningsI look at my reflectionto see who I am
but today I am retracing thebecomings of the words—forwardandbackward,that fall from the mirrorthat is my soul.
I call it the Blessing Realm—thatplace that presses the fragrancefrom the Source,unedited.
This morningI awokeafter a pre-dawn poetry episodeto find tiger lily petalsfloatinginthefishbowl.
ABOUT THE REVIEWER: Michael Escoubas is Senior Editor, Contributing Poet, and Staff Book Reviewer for Quill and Parchment, a 24-year-old literary and cultural arts online journal. This review is republished with kind permission from Quill and Parchment.
Posted July 1, 2026

Anthropomorphizing at the Wharf: New Poems by Colleen McManus Hein

Independently Published, 202588 pages Price: $4.60 Paperback / $2.99 Kindle ISBN-13: 979-8277552179 Review by Michael Escoubas Of the more than 250 poetry collections I have reviewed, Colleen Hein’s latest project has the distinction of: Most Interesting Title! To anthropomorphize is to attribute human characteristics to nonhuman subjects. Hein’s fascinating cover art sets the mind spinning as she dwells at pier’s end contemplating a world populated by ducks swirling, paddling, dipping and living in their world.
Poet Colleen MacManus Hein shows a heightened facility for bringing her imaginative world up front and personal in a way we “average” readers can see ourselves in the mirror of everyday life. This quality is evidenced in these excerpts from her title poem:

 The ducks came because we laughed, Paddling at us from both Ends of the harbor like Tugboats to a beacon.
 My husband said later They were just hoping for crusts— And people mean crusts— But I knew They were showing off, Wanted us to see the way they could Stand on the rope, A feat when your feet Are rubbered webs.
The poem continues, describing how the little duck family entertains their human audience, as if purposely showing off . . .
 Charging like speedboats Investigating the ruckus; They looked grand as their necks Rose, feathered periscopes Commanding respect When moments before We’d watched their rears upend In wide white splays of rump As they dove for salad, then fish.
Hein’s vivid use of language permeates her work. Her diction is smooth and fluid. I like her use of homonyms “feat” and “feet.” Subtlety hallmarks her work throughout. It is as if one is standing with her on the pier as she muses about the ducks. By extension, the poet invites her readers to join her as she shares observations that we often take for granted. Their necks become feathered periscopes. Who would have thought of that?
My mind went back in time to Lewis Carroll’s famous fantasy, Alice in Wonderland, when I encountered “Madderscut: An Ode to Lewis Carroll.” Here is a tasty morsel:
 “Twas shininess, and the furgid measts Did dooze and furple by the fleer” Most thicky sat the cornerbats, And the bim plocks grocket.
 Avoid the Madderscut, my friend! The lips that scream, the nails that point! Take care the Gakgak crow, ignore The gurglious Snivyscrunch!
 She brought her doopal phone to mouth: Forever did she stalk this sneet— So squatted she by the Punpun pine And lay a beat in a dream.
You won’t want to miss the rest of this lexicological gem.
In one of his poems, 20th century modernist poet Wallace Stevens wrote, “The imperfect is our paradise.” Hein captures this sentiment in “This is Home, So Imperfect”:
 A throw rug from The big box store Covers where the dog Stole olive oil Off the counter.
 There’s a crooked chunk Missing from The faux-fake Frank Lloyd Wright, Ugly sight.
 The cuckoo clock, Cuckoo Christmas gift, Is silent since 2021.
 Too much work To pull those chains; Waltzing lovers Stalled mid-step.
 Hoisted steins Frozen in time; No cuckoo bird Sings the hour’s chime.
 This is home, So imperfect. This is home, His and mine.
Stylistically, Hein’s work shows variety. She writes in couplets, tercets, quatrains, stanzas of varying lengths, narrative works appear throughout the volume. An excellent sestina highlights Hein’s facility with formal verse. She is good with rhyme, especially interlinear rhyme. Overall, this is an accomplished poet who is never satisfied with where she is. She grows with each succeeding poem and with each new collection.
I think of Colleen Hein as a hard working blue collar poet. This excerpt from “I Left My Notebook At Work,” bears witness:
 The muse I use is a workman’s glove, hardened corduroy dirtied leather, left behind from a job well-done.
Anthropomorphizing at the Wharf: New Poems truly is an achievement . . . a job well-done indeed.
ABOUT THE REVIEWER: Michael Escoubas is Senior Editor, Contributing Poet, and Staff Book Reviewer for Quill and Parchment, a 24-year-old literary and cultural arts online journal. This review is republished with kind permission from Quill and Parchment. Posted June 1, 2026

Haiku for the Journey by Cynthia T. Hahn

Finishing Line Press, 202629 pages Illustrated by Monique Loubet ISBN-13: 979-8-89990-390-8 Review by Thomas H. Chockley In her brief introduction Cynthia T. Hahn clarifies that she has chosen to write her haiku in the classic five syllables by seven syllables by five syllables, three-line poem format. She uses English grammar and punctuation conventions.
English-language haiku, both classic and contemporary, honor the Japanese tradition of poem construction: two images, seemingly unrelated, that are placed together in one poem. The construction engages the reader not just to read a beautiful description but to seek the connection between the two images. In this way, poet invites the reader to walk a mile in her shoes.
Cynthia Hahn excels at innovative and vivid descriptors in her haiku. For example, this haiku: “Cleaving the pewter, / misted cloud breaks into rings… / my oar, a paintbrush.” (p. 20-III) The reader views the first image of misty gray clouds breaking into rings. This image leaves the reader wondering how clouds can break into rings. The second image, “my oar, a paintbrush,” resolves the mystery for the reader. The haiku captures a boating moment, perhaps on a lake beneath a cloudy sky, in which the rower’s oar does more than propel the boat forward.
Another lovely example is this haiku: “My steps chase the slick / rain from mirrored stones, storm / shimmers found and lost.” (p. 4-I) The reader can enjoy the descriptors of “slick rain” and “mirrored stones” in the first image of poem. The second image, “storm shimmers found and lost” shifts the poem reminding the reader how fleeting the beauty of a walk after the rain can be.
Occasionally, Hahn’s elaborate descriptors make the haiku confusing. This one seems composed of three different images: “Full snow fiesta / morning blooms in bright, white gold. / Origami stars.” (p. 12-I) The reader is confronted with a snow celebration, a white-gold morning, and origami stars.
Cynthia Hahn has arranged her forty-two poems into four groups; Autumnal Quickening, Lightening Up, Threading Summer Song, and Tidal Pull. Each group is further indexed by page headers that set a more specific topic for the poems on that page. The first three sections are filled with a mix of different seasonal references and nature images, as well as with observation of animals, weather, and landscapes. The fourth set of poems are more specifically linked to oceans, beaches, and woodlands.
Cynthia Hahn has done an excellent job of selecting haiku that group well under the topic named in the page header. This allows the reader to explore the page topic as seen in different poems. Her haiku clearly show her love and enjoyment of nature. Hence, her poem organization reads as a diary of the scenes and events that caught her attention and elicited her dramatic descriptions.
Monique Loubet’s ten illustrations, a mix of abstract shapes and pastel colors, pair well with Hahn’s haiku in each of the four sections. Her cover illustration, in particular, looks very much like a Japanese sumi-e painting.
Overall, Cynthia T. Hahn’s wonder and enjoyment of nature shine throughout the book. Readers familiar with classic, nature-centered haiku will enjoy Hahn’s celebration of life and nature, and they will appreciate her eye for the fresh depictions that are to be found in her poems.
ABOUT THE REVIEWER: Thomas H. Chockley is a journeyman haiku poet and facilitator of the ISPS-HSA Haiku Chapter. He is the author of two books of haiku poetry: Personal Myths: Born in Mystery and Personal Myths: Numbers 2, 3, and 4. Tom has published haiku, haiga, and haibun in print and online journals including Acorn Haiku Journal, Modern Haiku, Frogpond, and Prune Juice. Posted June 1, 2026

Idiom of the American Boy by Rick Duffey

The Erie Street Press, 2026 73 pages ISBN 13: 979-8218-74125-9 Review by Bill Cushing One might have the audacity to say that Idiom of the American Boy is a message for younger readers from a Boomer whose perspective warrants attention. However, it might be more appropriate to label this collection a time capsule for even later generations. And that is somewhat comforting—to see someone of my generation leave some collective memories behind. After all, we are on the way out.
The tone and perspective here remind me of the writing of one of my own past mentors, Pat Rushin. The only difference here being that Rushin worked in short stories while Duffey uses the poem as his chosen device to convey his interpretation, memories, and perspective of childhood, growing up in an age of the Howdy Doody Show, then the Civil Rights movement, and finally reaching a sort of wisdom. All this comes from a writer who confesses in the title poem, that he is only an ungrateful SOB seven generations removed from Thomas Jefferson’s failed utopia.
Remembering his younger days as part of “the local high profile losers” he notesour numbers decline by marriage by prisonor premature death or simple maturation,
Duffey seems too much like myself. For instance, in “50th Year Class Reunion,” he encountersFaces all stuffed with creasesNeck tendons & lariatsJocks who never made TVas well as observing how “The pom-pom squad [has] gone to fat.”
However, Duffey speaks for all in attendance as they realize that they may (or may not) have ended up ahead of those who never even made itTheir urns on mantelpiecesForwarding their best regards.
Later, he ponders on growing up “At 18th and Michigan,” and while I may have grown up on the East Coast, I can certainly connect with memories being witness tourban decay like rotten foodthemes of experience
here pedestriansstep quick time
here the walls close inward,and the whole scene is decorated withthe occasional sad graffiti.
“Poem for a Meatless Friday’ delves into his Roman Catholic lineage while in “A Sort of Testament,” Duffey, as “a Buddhist Catholic” (readers can contend with that coupling and figure it out on their own), puts in a personal request should reincarnation be an offered option.
“Behind the Curtain” dissects the cultural psyche of the United States using iconic comic characters metaphorically mixed with Milton’s “Paradise Lost.” Thene there is the mad and cyclic journey of “Karaoke Night at the OK Corral.”
Anyone who’s stood in line can feel his pain when waiting for persnickety customers “After Mass at the Butcher’s Case,” and there are many of our own generation who can identify with the narrator “Drinking Schlitz and Smoking Camels.” Okay, for me it’d be Schaefer.
The title “At the Intersection of Saint Charles” leads one to believe it will be about a place when it’s actually about the people of a place as we navigate our way through the coming century.
“The Gravity Machine” notes how This whole steeplechase has been rigged. Like I’m not involved actively in my own doom.That poem concludes I’m tired of mysituation, my immense losing streak.It’s the politics of lies & cable newsthat make me want to rename my body.
Everything seems anchored by “Digging Up Cadavers,” a nine-part, nine-page that occupies the center point of the book, anchors the Duffey’s writing here. The poem walks readers through the deceased and the mythical to learn that Your life is a recurring trainwreck.This voyage into memory understands that Even the best tomes history & religion Are filled to overflowing with obvious omissions.His Catholic background also returns to bubble up throughout this piece.
Diving into Idiom of the American Boy proves to be both deeply personal for some and a telescopic view of those who followed the Lost Generation for others. Taken as either a deep dive or a recollection, readers get to join Duffey and come out understanding what it’s like to be Like a tortoise trying to escape its own shell.
ABOUT THE REVIEWER: Called the “blue collar poet” by classmates after serving in the Navy and later working on commercial vessels before returning to school at 35, Bill Cushing’s work has appeared both in print and online. Now retired after over 20 years, he continues teaching part time. Bill has five previous poetry collections: A Former Life (Kops-Fetherling International Award), Music Speaks (San Gabriel Valley Poetry Festival Award; New York City Book Award), “. . .this just in. . .”, and Just a Little Cage of Bone (American Writing Award finalist). His most recent release in 2025 was The Beast Inside. Posted June 1, 2026
Click to purchase This review is reprinted with kind permission from Quill & Parchment

Untamed Arabesque: Poems by Marianne Peel

Laverne Zabielski and Act of Power Press89 pages To order: https://lavernezabielski.com/actofpowerpress Review by Michael Escoubas Let’s begin with a definition. According to the best dictionaries, Arabesque means:
An ornament or style that employs flower, foliage, or fruit and sometimes animal and figural outlines to produce an intricate pattern of interlaced lines.
This stunning collection caught me by the nape of neck and drew me in from the start. With interesting titles such as “Po’ Monkey’s Juke Joint: Merigold, Mississippi,” “Happy Hour at Stoney’s Honky Tonk,” “Invitation to a Dead Man,” and many others, this poet Had me from hello. “Love Letter to My Beloved,” which is an ode to the incomparable Walt Whiteman, sets an irresistible tone. About Whiteman, Peel imagines:
 I invoke the temporary, lure you into the benediction of the sea and sand and sky. With the salty sea, I anoint our foreheads, the slope of our shoulders, the soft slide of our necks, the vibrations emanating from our hips.
Keeping in mind our definition that Arabesque features interlacing patterns, ornaments if you will, experiences of the spirit, often as serendipitous and untranslatable as Whitman himself, this excerpt is an hors d’oeuvre that previews the banquet.
Stylistically, Marianne Peel writes in a variety of line lengths. I sense a penchant for long narrative lines, perhaps channeling Whitman. Never tedious, she features couplets, quatrains, stanzas of varied lengths, and excellent end-line decisions. These features, in concert with unforced dictional freedom, delighted me throughout the work. Two excerpts follow:
 Mother and Child, 1967
 Mama grabbed my hand and tugged me to autumn picnics. Went up to the tar roof of our apartment where hugging chimneys sputtered, the rooftop garden a tangle of chokeberries and shriveling clematis vines.
 Mama would lay down the blanket made of Papa’s old neckties. She’d tell me stories of each tie. The ones he wore to Sunday service. Called them his Sacred Ties. Always a monogrammed handkerchief in his lapel pocket. His compassion socks matched his tie.
I appreciate Peel’s use of enjambment here. She needs the reader to catch the experiential flow of hugging chimneys . . . that sputter. The roof is sealed with tar . . . tar that I can smell because of enjambed lines that picture mother and child mingling together.
 A Brief History of My Lips
 I leave behind breadcrumbs of places my lips have been: in the chant and scat over the hinges and speedbumps of a flautist’s chromatic scale; behind that pulsating space just below my beloved’s left earlobe; on the malleable spot still throbbing on a newborn Kate’s baby scalp; on the starched shirt collar tepid blue buttoned down and fastidious; on Aunt Mary’s hairnet saturated with Aqua Net, a baker’s dozen of bobby pins contorted into pincurls; on Uncle Harry’s forehead as he lay buttoned-up and sober, the Greek Orthodox incense infusing the silk folds of his casket.
In this poem, Peel shows an affinity for including interesting details as well as internal rhyming which adds an element of musicality to the poem. I heard long “a” sounds: places, scales, spaces, Kate. I liked the more subdued short “a” of chant and scant. I related to the cryptic “starched shirt collar / tepid blue / buttoned down / and fastidious.”
The collection is peppered with color and black/white illustrations which fit in nicely juxtaposed on facing pages. These enhance the whole. “Drunk on Bourbon and Cicadas,” is illustrated by a cicada on a summer branch. The companion poem describes the difference between the fortunes of cicadas compared to the ant:
 Aesop reminds us that the cicada spends the summer singing, while his counterpart, the ant, stockpiles food in a fury of labor.
 Come bitterness of winter, the ant feasts on her stores. The cicada has only memory of song to devour.
What a treasure! I’ve never thought about this “quirk” of nature. Marianne Peel has, and now I’m thinking about a life comparison . . . which is better? Singing one’s way through summer or preparing for winter?
A reviewer has only so many words available to make his point. I need more words to cover all the good things Untamed Arabesque has to offer. However, I appeal to Marianne’s preface as fitting closure and tribute to this remarkable volume:
For Uncle Harry, who made every encounter with Him magical. He showed me how to navigate the soft shoe, almost floating above the floor with his gentle rhythm,his cotton-candy promises, his year to love and be loved.
ABOUT THE REVIEWER: Michael Escoubas is Senior Editor, Contributing Poet, and Staff Book Reviewer for Quill and Parchment, a 24-year-old literary and cultural arts online journal. This review is republished with kind permission from Quill and Parchment.
Posted June 1, 2026

Her Dress Does a Flip by Lynn Fitzgerald

dancing girl press & studio, 2025 55 pages https://dulcetshop.myshopify.com/products/of-bourbon-and-kids-lynn-fitzgerald Review by Donita Ries For years, when our paths have crossed in generative poetry workshops, I have admired Lynn Fitzgerald’s ability to conjure an image and send the listener’s mind, memory, heart and senses into a swirl. The 27 poems in her recent collection, Her Dress Does a Flip, are examples of exactly that talent for bringing strands of truth and sensuality to the reader and tugging at his or her own threads to braid them into unique, powerful experiences.
We see this from her very first poem, “il-logic”, when she states “Love is a deprivation of sorts/ Some logic lost, an interruption of integrity./“ and moves from that mental/emotional observation to very physical images of how a partner walks or wears their hair or glasses, of how grasping hands feel, of how “The arm reaches with the fingers for the pen/ The wrist supports the words./“. The juxtapositions in the third and final stanza are rich in imagery as well as prompts for thought and emotion:
 Is this a poem or is it life? The man stretches his dark coat across His shoulders, walks through the doorway Into his world and the woman steps Inside her life, silent as a leaf falling to the ground.
The poet’s use of alliteration throughout the poem strengthens the images with sound repetition—in just the few verses mentioned above: the “l” in love, logic, lost, life, silent, leaf, falling; the hard “d” and “c” of dark, coat, across, walks, doorway; the “w” of words, walks, world, woman. More “w” and “h” sounds appear in the rest of the poem—seeming to tease the reader into asking questions—how? what? why? Fitzgerald’s language supports her images—tongue and teeth and vibration and occlusion become instruments in her works.
Fitzgerald evokes James Joyce’s Molly Bloom from Ulysses in “Wound Up” with her “white thighs/ savagely Catholic”. Rebellion and sexual energy spin this poem filled with hair and color into being “shipwrecked at a hide-a-way/ gamine charms wound up/“. Penelope from Homer’s Odyssey also appears, “bound”, intertwining generations of literary figures. Authors, mythical figures and fictional characters populate many of the poems: Virgil, Dante, Dylan Thomas, Lewis Carroll, Sappho, John Keats (and probably others missed by this reader) have all joined the party.
An impressive variety of poetic forms enhances this collection. Each poem has its own structure, style and feel, adding to the interesting and moving nature of Fitzgerald’s work. Some themes repeat—loss, aging, love, family, sexual tension, celebration of life and the moment, passion for words and poetry and music and art—but the poems are fresh and untethered.
“Pas de Deux”, with its adagio, variations and coda, takes us through an adventure-filled dance in and with the water. The book’s title line surfaces here—“I watch as my dress does a flip,/ blows up like an umbrella/“—and we can see the abandoned clothing floating and imagine the task of retrieving glasses, pants, dress, and shoes as well as the thrill of what happened to have them end up there.
In “Appetite”, a cento, Fitzgerald borrows lines from eight poets to create a delightful composition. The last six verses of this sixteen line composite poem are definitely delicious:
 A cigarette smolders into smoke Over a bourbon and kids And passion is voluptuous Like a green light. I think about my body in love as I look Down on those lavish apple trees.
Many of the poems have an irresistible sumptuousness. ”Les Crudités”, though not titled as an ode, feels very much like one—or at the very least, with its sensual images, a love poem. You can smell the yeasty bread and beer, see colors and shapes of raw vegetables and plate and tablecloth, taste salt and sting and bitter, and feel the intensity of such a moment shared with another.
We find several lists in the poem “Grocery Shopping”—so appropriate for the title. Anyone who has lived in an urban area with a tiny local grocery will recognize the narrow aisles, products and maybe the butcher with his cleaver and stained apron; will remember the smell of those stores. In this poem, the speaker is shopping with her young daughter and the poem pivots and explodes or implodes on a question asked by the child (no spoiler here).
Cultural details and references abound in these poems—songs, movies, art, familiar items in a store—all contribute to those strands of images and memories that create lovely context, texture and openings for connection with her readers. Fitzgerald offers us so many gems in this collection to be discovered and enjoyed.
The poem “How My Parents Meet” is moving and breathtakingly beautiful in its vision of the speaker’s parents and the fleeting moments of their encounter. A whole history of longing and migration and union are packed into five stanzas of images of sea and prairie and the couple themselves. This vision, like all things, is only temporary:
 As the ocean flows away from the coast, the tethered boats that rise and fall with the moon, I know I may not see them again as they are, I know this will not happen again.
One poem that especially resonates for me is “Ordinary”, a single stanza of twelve verses that explores loss in the midst of everyday life. The understanding that, yes, life can have sorrow and joy and everything in-between all at once seems profoundly touching. I am moved to feel empathy toward both the speaker and myself in the movement of this poem from contemplation of loss to the “extravagance” of ordinary life, and I am reminded to appreciate that extravagance.
There are so many individual lines or stanzas that seem magical. In “East of the Mississippi”, the following is the fifth of six stanzas. For me, it could be a complete poem all by itself:
 This season is called grey hair like a silver moonbeam that dances across a dining table, diminished by light, it comes back. My life will turn without you, a sun, fixed in infinite space.
Her Dress Does a Flip is a compact marvel. Verse after verse, Lynn Fitzgerald enchants us with her rich images and words.
ABOUT THE REVIEWER: Donita Ries is a retired educator, a lover of words and languages and literature (among many other things), and an occasional poet. Her poems have been displayed in multiple locations in Highland Park and have appeared on the HPP website and in HPP collections. Posted May 1, 2026

365 Sonnets: Celebrating Each Day with a "Little Song" by Paul Buchheit

Independently Published, 2025 381 pages ISBN: 9798992339604 Review by Michael Escoubas From the earliest days of youth, my mother encouraged me to read widely and well. Her library included every volume of the Encyclopedia Britannica, (edited by Mortimer J. Adler), novels by Tolstoy and Dostoevsky, philosophy by Plato and Aristotle. She also exposed me to great American poets such as Robert Frost and T.S. Eliot. One day she said to me, “Son, do yourself a favor; read the sonnets of William Shakespeare.” I dabbled just a bit but much preferred daydreaming about becoming a Major League baseball player.
Enter on center-stage in my seventh decade, 365 Sonnets, by Paul Buchheit. Subtitled, “Celebrating Each Day with a Little Song.” My mother’s gentle encouragement resonates with tsunami force. What a treasure . . . this color-illustrated volume now occupies its own space in my library.
In his preface, Buchheit discusses the sonnet and its significance:
The sonnet, one of the most common poetic forms of the Renaissance period, has given way over the centuries to free verse (vers libre). Yet the spirit and beauty of the sonnet persists. A well-written sonnet is rhythmic, rhyming, metrical, and pleasing to read. It is the ideal poetic form for the expression of a concise message, a musical message.
Although it has been incredibly difficult, I have chosen a sampling of poems which stand out to me, and which illustrate Buchheit’s unique skills with the sonnet form. Each sonnet is inspired by a holiday attributed to that day. Buchheit has selected artistic works, (all in Public Domain), which inspired each sonnet.
Did you know that January 1 is Ring a Bell Day? Buchheit in his poem “Phones” expresses, in irrepressible humor, what I have often felt:

 I see the people with their flashy phones engaged in rantings of robotic rhyme, their voices muffled by the monotones that add an element of pantomime to every conversation. On the bus and on the street they talk and text alone, immune to nod or inquiry or cuss from someone standing there in flesh and bone.
 I see the silver, pink, and paisley phones and hear the ping, the ding, and ting-a-ling, the quaint reverberation of the tones, the tintinnabulation of the ring.
 But mostly how it chills me to the bone to see a driver looking at his phone.
I think of pompous politicians of any stripe and from any era, on January 7, which is Not Going To Take It Day.
 Can’t Take the Candidate!
 A Pompous babbler oozes with a stream of breathy poisons, damning desperate and broken enemies with infinite disdain and righteous words, his self-esteem grotesquely bloated; praising potentates as model leaders, segregationists as worthy partners; using guns and fists to cast elections to the bitter Fates.
 And those who cling to shreds of dignity (as calls for ‘freedom’ in the enterprise of greed are planted in the nation’s soul) allow this lord of stealth and vanity to spurn the social contract, to despise the synergies that make a people whole.
Early in my training as a poet I was told emphatically: “Don’t use clichés in your poetry.” Paul Buchheit will have none of that dictum in his delightful sonnet dedicated to November 4, Cliché Day:
 Small Talk
 It IS, I tell you, what it IS. Cliché or not, I’m chomping at the bit to yank your chain, to knock your socks off. If I play my cards right, push the envelope, you’ll thank your lucky stars I gave a hoot about Cliché Day! Nothing ventured, nothing gained, I say. So keep your chin up, I can shout it from the rooftop till I’m good and drained.
 I’ll talk until the cows come home. I’ll go the whole nine yards, I’ll try to think outside the box, against all odds, a one-man show. It’s clear as day, I’ll take you for a ride.
 But if I’m clear as mud, and dull, and vague, I’ll look for YOUR cliché: Go and suck an egg!
This review began with a sonnet about phones. Everyday life is about how we communicate. How we understand ourselves and the world in which we live. This sampling of sonnets ends appropriately at year’s end. December 31 is World Peace Meditation Day.
 Resolution
 A year has passed, it’s time to celebrate a new beginning. Resolutions stir the waking mind: how best to demonstrate our good intentions, to avoid the blur of creeping languor that disorients crusaders in their quests. The harbor light will guide a ship through days of turbulence if steersmen keep it faithfully in sight.
 With mind uplifted, heed the Hour of Peace before the year begins to dramatize a global need, a human need, to cease the savageness of war, to recognize that human need succumbs to human greed, that each of us feels pain when others bleed.
Dear reader . . . may these incredibly well-crafted poems speak to you in your heart-of- hearts . . . the landscape in which, (as Abraham Lincoln said), our better angels live.
ABOUT THE REVIEWER: Michael Escoubas is Senior Editor, Contributing Poet, and Staff Book Reviewer for Quill and Parchment, a 23-year-old literary and cultural arts online journal. This review is republished with kind permission from Quill and Parchment. Posted May 1, 2026

Stranger On the Shore: Poems Inspired By Jazz by Patricia Carragon

Human Error Publishing, 202684 pages ISBN: 978-1948521246 Review by Laura Daniels My journey into Patricia Carragon’s poetry collection, Stranger on the Shore, began with the stark, grayscale cover featuring the words Poems Inspired by Jazz.
The National Museum of American History defines jazz as, “… a kind of music in which improvisation is typically an important part. In most jazz performances, players play solos (that) they make up on the spot, which requires considerable skill. There is tremendous variety in jazz, but most jazz is very rhythmic, has a forward momentum called "swing," and uses "bent" or "blue" notes. You can often hear "call—and—response" patterns in jazz, in which one instrument, voice, or part of the band answers another… Jazz can express many different emotions, from pain to sheer joy.”
I found a score of jazz notes, especially the “call—and—response” in Carragon’s poems. They took me on a poetry journey of pain, love, and healing through words and music. Many of the early poems are written in the past tense and make me think of youth, ghosts, mourning, and dark rainbows, describing what was and what could have been.
These earlier poems served as a springboard for the poems in the second half of the collection, written by a more seasoned poet who now sees the world in the present tense.
Carragon dedicates her opening page to quotes about jazz:
“I’ve found you’ve got to look back at the old things and see them in a new light.”—John Coltrane
“Don’t hide your scars. They make you who you are.”—Frank Sinatra
These thoughts open the door to the poetry that is about to be shared.
“Nature Boy,” inspired by Nat King Cole, opens the collection. This was my introduction to the “call—and—response” I enjoy in Carragon's poetry.
from the opening stanza:“where pain found love / for healing to begin.” from the closing stanza:“where love sat in the corner— / her head and heart / between her legs.” (p.2)
Carragon has a gift for personifying emotions and ideas, bringing the poem to life. She makes the words come alive and grow personalities on the page. Each poem is a glimpse through a window, with the curtain pulled back so the reader can peek inside and see what happens in a hidden world.
She personifies Death: in “Moonlight Serenade”:
“Death would wear a white coat, / walk past the rooms, / make decisions on who’s to come / and who’s to stay. / But Death forgot about him— / perhaps Death’s eyesight was fading” (p.43)
She also uses repetition to give the poems a heartbeat, as in “Take Five,” inspired by the Dave Brubeck Quartet. The following lines are sprinkled throughout this poem like refrains, giving the reader a sense of push and pull, as if complex rhythmic layers are being played simultaneously.
“Her humdrum week / dies on Friday at five.”
 “But she needs to take five,”
 “Ready to take five,”
 “moves fast. / but happiness moves faster.”
 “and she must hurry.” “she forgets about her life, / takes five / for another cigarette,” “her anxiety moves fast, / but happiness moves faster. / It’s getting late, / and she must hurry.” (p.4-5)
and then the poem ends with:
“The conversation / is getting deeper, / and life slows down” (p.6)
which delivers a soft landing to the reader.
I noted this soft landing in the last stanza of many of Carragon’s poems, including the following,
“Bewitched, Bothered, and Bewildered” inspired by Ella Fitzgerald:
“She poured / a glass of brandy, / asked Alexa / to dim the lights, / play a show tune / to end the night.” (p.10)
and “Mona Lisa”:
“She finished her wine, / asked for the check, / preferred the company of takeout / later that night.” (p.12)
and “If I Could Write a Book”:
“She finished her wine, / put out her last cigarette, / said a good night to Miles and his quintet. / She ripped her unfinished page / from the Smith Corona / and turned off the light.” (p.14)
and “Stardust”:
“A daughter / was better off alone— / a lesson learned / from her mother.” (p.22)
The last stanzas of these poems are in conversation and tell of a woman who has learned to prefer her own company instead of others at the end of the day.
Carragon showed great creativity when she presented her poem “Misty,” as well as “Misty (an erasure) and “Little Things Mean a Lot,” and “Little Things Mean a Lot (an erasure).” Both work together, with the erasure version revealing the essence of the original poem.
Later in the collection, Carragon does something similar with “Birth of the Blues,” which is followed by “The Blues Haiku.” The haiku reflects on the original poem, unveiling more to the reader.
Throughout this collection, the author defines and redefines love. The definition evolves and changes upon closer examination. It’s viewed in different moods, at different times, and from different places.
“I Fall in Love Too Easily,” inspired by Sarah Vaughan, personifies the lifecycle of Love, and for me, it was the highlight of this collection. These lines are sprinkled throughout the poem:
“Love falls in love,”
“Love bounces back—”
“Love wises up—" (p.57)
“Speak Low” comes in a close second for its personification of Love:
“Love picks her favorites, / and fate sets the rules.” (p.60)
the last stanza:“In my head, / I hear Lady Day sing. /What I thought was love, / turns to ash on the shore.” (p.61)
This well-written and entertaining poetry collection, Stranger on the Shore – Poems Inspired by Jazz, belongs in every poetry lover's and music lover's library. BOUT THE REVIEWER: Laura Daniels (she/her) is a neurodivergent writer and editor of The Fringe 999 Poetry Forum. Recently curated in Gyroscope Review, One Art, and Journal of New Jersey Poets, and recipient of a 2025 Allen Ginsberg Poetry Honorable Mention Award and a 2026 Best Micro-fiction Nomination. Her book Gentle Grasp (Kelsay Books) is available on Amazon, and her saddle-stitched chapbook, Jersey Baked (Four Feather Press), is available directly from the author. She resides in Mt Arlington, NJ. Follow her at https://lauradanielswriter.wordpress.com. Posted May 1, 2026

The Presence of One Word: Poems by Andrea Potos

Fernwood Press, 2025 76 pages ISBN: 978-1594981739 Review by Michael Escoubas As I was preparing to write this review, I had emerged from a rough patch in my life. A dear friend and I had exchanged words. Hurt was delivered on both sides. As I lay back in my office chair with Andrea Potos’s latest collection, in hand . . . I happened onto her tender poem entitled “When the Consolation of a Word Comes to You.” I reproduce it here simply to illustrate the gentle, healing power in The Presence of One Word:
 Not detach, which sounds too much about the retina, and this is not about the eye
 but the heart and its gates— unlatch and allow yourself to roam
 beyond what is hurting you, further into the fields and meadows—there, find a spot
 to kneel down in the deep, fragrant grasses, make a bed for your body where the summer is still singing your name.
Ah! Yes! I could not have uttered a better prayer. A fountain of healing words tumbled from the page into my hurting heart. What came to me as a serendipitous gift, I offer as an extended metaphor to Andrea’s readers. This is what her collection is like.
As Marge Piercy has observed: In “The Presence of One Word, we find poems powerful in their well-crafted expression of love. Andrea Potos’s poems catch in the mind and shine there.”
The relative shortness of the poems appealed to me. No poem is more than one page. Many are ten lines or less. The book’s design encouraged me to keep on turning, page to page, like eating chicken and dumplings . . . comfort food for the heart.
“Late Apology” speaks to real life. In the poem, Andrea apologizes to a “fat June bug / I scrunched under my small bare foot / on my way to the Ferris wheel.” This was fifty years ago. A late realization of a much bigger issue: The recognition that it is never too late to rethink things . . . to adjust an attitude and maybe even repent.
“Daily Practice” leads the collection and mirrors what this poet (and many) actually do:
 Some mornings all I do is write down words—cistern, tribal, cached—copying them from sprawled pages of books across my desk, words call out— glimmerings, cursive, saffron, heartwood—holding me in place as if to say listen, you may need me someday, I might offer you another way toward beauty, or even beyond.
Did you notice the interlinear long “a” rhyme? “pages.” “place,” “say,” “may,” “someday,” and “way.” They occur gently, with ease, one barely notices. Good poets have their subtle tricks.
Andrea’s Greek heritage instilled an intense sense of family values and love. “Yaya’s Dresser” is a detailed tour of a small child’s fascination with her mother’s dresser which “reigned / over one half of a whole wall.” It featured curved, mahogany inlaid drawers that were so filled with ladies’ items that Andrea had to use all her strength just to heft them open. There were jewels, scented jars, and powders. All of which her “fingers would settle and sift through . . . and linger with, as long as she could.”
“Against Despair” is worth the price of the book. It is about Andrea’s indomitable grandparents. Her grandmother weeps at her kitchen sink mourning the death of her three-year-old son. Her grandfather lost all his savings in 1943, stayed in his room for weeks. Her sixteen-year-old mother “sat upstairs in the office / becoming a grown-up / typing the daily specials.” The best part is the poet’s chronicle of what they all did to overcome despair. Don’t miss this one. Have some tissues nearby.
There is unique honesty in Andrea Potos’s work. She invites you into her life. And you want to go there. No fear, no one-upmanship. Just the delight in being there. I recommend with fondness poems about the passing of Andrea’s mother and father. These resonate with a daughter’s pathos. Poetry is her path to truth and healing. Within the power of words, even one word, lies poetry’s legacy.
“When My Mother Called” is one of those “tell all” poems:
 Always the same four words to begin: Hi, it’s Mom honey, as if I could ever not recognize tenderness when it arrived, the well of kindness in a voice. And the conversations that might follow: What did you think of that article? How is the new coat working out? Oh you looked so beautiful! I am loving your book. I need to get groceries today. I’ve been thinking of when you were young, and all those years with your father, how sorry I am I was so distracted by sadness then. What time are you picking me up tomorrow? I’ll be waiting at the living room window; no, that’s okay, no need to get out of the car, I’ll be there, looking for you honey, always.
Yes, The Presence of One Word will be there, waiting as a gift to fortunate readers, always.
ABOUT THE REVIEWER: Michael Escoubas is Senior Editor, Contributing Poet, and Staff Book Reviewer for Quill and Parchment, a 23-year-old literary and cultural arts online journal. This review is republished with kind permission from Quill and Parchment. Posted May 1, 2026

You Who Are the Stanger: Collected Poems 1979-1989 by R. Bremner

Westbrae Literary Group, 2025 91 pages ISBN: 979-8991719957 Review by jacob erin-cilberto The cover shows a man in a long coat and dark hat walking away, mysteriously. It appears to be the poet himself, walking out of the 80’s. R. Bremner’s poetry hit me in the chest and took the wind out of my mind. We appear to be from similar decades. As I read his poetry, I connect on so many levels. Like Dickinson, often his poems lack titles, so the first lines become those titles.
In “A Trial of Language” the poet writes: “He and his sister were variable antonyms though both counted out their words, only he tried to spell them.”
That was I at a younger age, beginning to appreciate the language of poetry while my sister gathered her words to write essays and research papers for nursing school.
And when the poet writes: “The parents still do not understand. They seek words to trust.”
He wrote about ours. They passed on now, but it did seem they hardly understood us and we seemed miles apart, not just in actual distance but in understanding as well.
 “She will not talk to them She plans to survive”
I feel this poet wrote our family into this poem. R. Bremner seems to have interviewed us, and this poem is a reflection of that interview.
In another offering, the poet states, “But my father was so damn/ responsible.” Our engineer father was the epitome of responsibility. He defined the word. I often wonder why I could not follow in those footsteps---my path wavered so much.
The poet speaks of having a father who “indulged such calls un- Leashing his son to the ways and whims of the world.”
For many of us with responsible fathers, this scenario might have been quite interesting and very different.
Switching gears, we find a poem about poetry, specifically about writing it. “The finest poem I’ve ever written … Into that poem I invested all the joy, fear, agony, mystery, and realization of a moment in which I suddenly knew how all the pieces of life fit into me…”
The poet talks of inadvertently throwing that poem out with a stack of old newspapers and then trying to recreate it. “Several times I tried …. could not begin to re- member the words let alone the feeling.”
Yes, there is a moment when a poem is born. It comes out of a womb of creativity, out of a moment, a feeling. The poet goes on to wonder, “Who knows now if that poem truly ever existed.”
As a poet, I often ask myself the same question, and retrieving an idea is nearly impossible, when we are conduits more than make-up artists.
In “Rimbaud: last letter to Verlaine,” Bremner writes the poem in the form of a letter. Rimbaud writes about a reckoning with death. He writes “a Saviour came to raise me from/ this bed of hell, but lo! It is his face was/ yours, and I cried out / slipping through/ his grasp back into hell.”
Obviously, there is no saving for the evilest ones. Yet Rimbaud wrote beautiful poetry, such a departure from his character and how inhumanely he treated others.
I don’t know that R. Bremner writes what I would consider “beautiful poetry,” but what he writes is very real, honest, thoughtful and powerful as hell. He challenges his readers poem in and poem out, a great mental exercise.
I love baseball and relate to “the Ghost Chaser” about the 1961 season when Roger Maris and Mickey Mantle challenged Babe Ruth’s home run record. I lived two miles from Yankee Stadium in the fifties and got to see Mantle, Berra, Skowron and the rest in their prime. We all wanted Mickey to break the record, not Roger. This poem depicts perfectly the stress Maris felt as he chased the record of 61. “He caught the ghost we loved the most His prize: The stings of our whip away he ran.”
It was a hard life put into one year. Life just puts us all up against it sometimes.
In his poem, “Recipe,” R. Bremner says “Cover and shake violently till the contents come smooth and silky”
The poems in this collection are smooth and silky and flow like a mighty home run hit out of the park. In “decision against suicide,” I think of Plath and how much more she might have given us. “I can’t die now there are those three poems to type up”
Much like Plath left so much unsaid and the phone off the hook, according to Anne Sexton, and there was more for her to do, we appreciate that R. Bremner typed up all of the poems in this book and gave us the wonderful collection that he did.
ABOUT THE REVIEWER: jacob erin-cilberto is author of 27 books of poetry, his most recent being 27: a book of poems (Praying Mantis Press, 2026). He teaches at John Logan College and conducts workshops at Heartland Writers Guild, Southern Illinois Writers Guild and Union County Writers Guild.
Posted May 1, 2026

Poems of Life by Mia Williams

Independently Published, 2023 97 pages ISBN: 979-8374634464 Review by jacob erin-cilberto In her foreword, Mia writes about spending our lives “running from one thing to another without stopping and paying attention to things around us.” But this poet does stop and she writes them down, sketches them and describes them.
A major theme in poems of life is love and finding the one relationship we can count on to sustain. In “Happiness” she speaks of feeling “at home, safe, secure.” She feels at peace, calm, content: and how love “engulfs me.” True love is hard to find but if we do find it, we will feel “complete.”
One of my favorite poems in this collection is “Dorian Gray.” In both the book and film, the subject in the portrait grows old but the actual person depicted does not age at all. She plays on this idea when she writes, “then one day I turned the canvas, / I saw Dorian Gray/ it cured me, it freed me/ you were gone forever.”
She speaks of immediate desire that happens when initial contact is made with an attraction: “Anticipation and desire Blush on the cheeks, heartbeats You are so close.”
Sometimes we have no control. The feeling is so strong; it just happens with or without our consent.
Mia writes resentment so well. Her words churn with sarcasm when she writes in her song, “He was Cheating on me”: “But my man was cheating on me She made him a throwaway I surrender my man.”
She is basically saying, “You want him? You can have him.” And later in the poem she speaks of “Hidden Powers” which speaks to the strength it takes to let go. Often it takes more strength to let go than it does to fight for a lost cause. This poem is a perfect lead-in to the next one called, “I Need to Ask You One Thang.” This poem contains the line, “Could I trust you just tonight, or all my life?” So this is the most important question when committing to a relationship—will I be King or Queen just for a day? Or for all eternity? Love poses this question.
We live in such a volatile world currently, and Mia Williams’ poem “Protect Them” addresses this situation: “Endless clouds Putting their arms around you Protecting, hiding”
What comfortable expression, and yet later in the poem she speaks of “Lurking Wars/ People hurting brothers/ killing, shelling/ Beauty of the world forgotten.” She asks her readers to “open your eyes/ see the people hurting/ protect them, save them.” If only we could, if only we would. Do we hear the poet’s plea? Do we act upon it?When life is overwhelming, don’t we find ourselves in this same frame of mind? “I open my eyes I am hesitant of rolling over Delaying the reality of life.”
She revisits the strength of being able to say goodbye to a hurtful relationship as she writes: “Put on your shoes Since you’re already running, Throw on your backpack It’s already packed.”
And again in “I Need to Let You Go,” she writes: “And you smiled a sweet smile, You were so sweet to me ---door closed behind you.”
In her poem, “The Moment,” she expresses “You move ever so lightly You kiss my hair Oh Lord, stop the time Give me this moment.”
As unpredictable and ephemeral as love can be, we must savor each moment as if it might be the last moment of bliss and the first moment of heartbreak. In a positive light, she reminds us that when one door closes, another one opens: “One more last look around I step forward, open the door.”
Finding love is a journey, destination unknown. Regardless, “there is a moon round all smiles/ taking turn as nighttime sun/ And it lights the road for many miles/ making sure my trip gets done.”
This reviewer feels we can all relate to this journey on which this poet takes us. Many exit ramps, many one-way streets, so many detours, yet in the end with strength and resilience, we will get there. We will find our own peace of mind and heart.
This is an “Oh, so relatable book of poetry.” And we can thank Mia Williams, the author, for that.

ABOUT THE REVIEWER: jacob erin-cilberto is author of 27 books of poetry, his most recent being 27: a book of poems (Praying Mantis Press, 2026). He teaches at John Logan College and conducts workshops at Heartland Writers Guild, Southern Illinois Writers Guild and Union County Writers Guild. Posted May 1, 2026

To Speak to Each Day in Its Own Language by Melissa Huff

Kelsay Books, 2025 92 pages ISBN: 978-1639808335 Review by Michael Escoubas In July of 2026, I will reach the upper limits of my seventh decade. I find myself musing over this thought: What will I do with my limited time today? Indeed, what will I do with the limited time I have left in life? How shall I speak to this day in a language befitting its worth? In his timeless poem, “Sunday Morning,” Wallace Stevens’ protagonist contemplates a perceived tension between religious orthodoxy and the satisfactions offered by the natural world. He writes:
 Divinity must live within herself: Passions of rain, or moods in falling snow; Grievings in loneliness, or unsubdued Elations when the forest blooms; gusty Emotions on wet roads on autumn nights; All pleasures and all pains, remembering The bough of summer and the winter branch. These are the measures destined for her soul.
Similarly, Melissa Huff’s exquisite new book, To Speak to Each Day in Its Own Language, reveals her passion for a relationship with the natural world. There is an ongoing dialogue; a poetic relationship is in play. As poet Cristina Norcross has written, “Huff creates garlands of meaning with beautiful imagery and a deep reverence for nature.”
To Speak to Each Day is structured into four divisions: I. Talking with Trees; II. Threshold; III. Inhaling Light; and IV. The Calm Embedded in Forward Motion. Stylistically, Huff is full of delightful surprises. I counted more than a dozen variations of indentations, punctuation, italics usage, rhyme, and lineage. Her style coupled with a supersensitive awareness of her surroundings gives voice to a powerful merger between nature and human experience.
“Honeysuckle” is the lead poem and anchors the whole. In this vividly imagistic poem, Huff returns to early childhood. I get a whiff of aroma in the honeysuckle’s fragrant perfume. I can see her as she “wedges one sneaker / against rough bark” of her favorite “climbing tree.” She and her friend Kim weave yellow and white leaves together making garlands out of them. She muses, “Did I know then / that I would try to intertwine / life’s found materials / with strands of curiosity / that I might create / garlands of meaning?
“Talking with Trees,” the section’s title poem, reveals the nature-spirit merger alluded to above:
 In the after-snowfall silence I listen to the bare trees of winter,
 lean in to hear their wisdom whisper— this is the best time
 to scan the patterns of your growth, decide which branches need pruning,
 which offshoots are heading in the wrong direction.
The poem continues . . .
I will ask these trees how
 to stretch my arms wide, hold myself up to the sky,
 allow the furled layers of my heart to unfold like leaves—
I’m captured by Huff’s simplicity of diction. No word is wasted. Her accessibility is remarkable. She wraps her arm around my shoulder in the most natural way, as if to say, Come, step into my world.
And what a world this poet occupies! “Aubade” (from Threshold) describes Huff’s quiet, interaction with a half-moon evening: “a quiet observer on a backdrop of blue / I, too, make no sound / as the warm breeze skims by cheek / ruffles the tufted crest / of a nearby cardinal’s cocked head / the birds have long since begun / their conversations . . . their language is not mine / nor do I have wings to help me catch / a column of air / nor hollow bones to render me / almost weightless”
For those unfamiliar, the word Aubade refers to music or poetry about dawn or to that twilight seam of time just before full light. This is an intense moment of pathos, felt by one who seeks “to claim the whole wide sky / as my terrain”
At the beginning of this review, I noted lines by Wallace Stevens, whose protagonist feels at one with the world conceived as “passions of rain, or moods in falling snow, and unsubdued elations when the forest blooms.” I get an intense sense of this in Huff’s poetry. She is no stranger to “Grievings in loneliness . . . feeling all pleasures and all pains.”
The poem “Wick” addresses such elusive feelings. It speaks of everything slumping within her, “like a wilting hydrangea / in ninety degree heat.” Her whole self “curls inward / like the leaves of a parched dogwood.” As the poem continues the poet knows she must look within to grant herself a “blade of self-kindness.” In meditation she fills the emptiness from “deadwood brown / to a more vibrant hue.” Her life-candle, her “wick” will emerge triumphant once again.
I was breathless by the time I closed the last page of To Speak to Each Day in Its Own Language, I felt reborn . . . I felt as one might feel when the soul’s kindred spirit has been found.
ABOUT THE REVIEWER: Michael Escoubas is Senior Editor, Contributing Poet, and Staff Book Reviewer for Quill and Parchment, a 23-year-old literary and cultural arts online journal. This review is republished with kind permission from Quill and Parchment. Posted April 1, 2026

I Would Swim in Such a Sky by Carol Alfus

Kelsay Books, 2025 62 pages ISBN: 978-1639808311 Review by jacob erin-cilberto Appropriately, the first poem in this book is called “Recess” and begins with these lines: “When was the last time you took your mind out to play, let it shed judgement like an itchy sweater, and just wander where it pleased--- hunt for treasure in vacant lots.”
My question is, when was the last time/ you took YOUR mind out to play? When have you last taken time out to read a really satisfying offering of poetry? This book by Carol Alfus will give you that break, will let your mind wander and allow you to take a satisfying recess from the chaos of today’s world.
In “Gloria in Excelsis,” appears the title line, “Oh, I would swim in such a sky.” She continues: “tumble head first into its depths, splash and kick sending ripples out across the Universe…”
Carol obviously loves and respects Nature, even the lowliest forms. In “Photosynthesis she shares: “Those of us who eat and breathe should be building altars and singing hosannas to every herb, moss and lowly weed.”
I feel humanity could do more respecting of others, even those with the lowliest jobs. Every job, every calling, every human being is important within the photosynthesis of society.In her poem, “Little Rita, we see a girl growing up in the Depression who “learned to make do and do with less.” This line makes me think of my parents who grew up in the Depression themselves and told us kids stories of how hard it was to make ends, if there were any, meet. We see such greed in the world today and little appreciation for what we do have. It’s never enough. We could learn a lesson from “Little Rita.”
Rita “married Bob/ and raised seven kids/…taught us right from wrong/ inspired love/ and just enough fear/ to keep us in line.” Remember when we knew the line between tough love/ discipline and abuse?
The poem continues: “She stretched a dollar and a pound of hamburger further than you’d think was possible.”
That was my mother. Having lived through the Depression, even when the money was there, she knew how to be careful.
I absolutely love her poem “Salmon and Swallows.” We lived in an apartment building in Bronx, NY. Then, after moving to Illinois, we rented a very old house with odd nooks and crannies. Carol writes, “we painted, wall papered, stripped, refinished/ added on, renovated, mowed and planted”
Just as the speaker’s family rejuvenated the old house, we did that with our old house and our old lives from the NYC days. And by the way, that old apartment in the Bronx is still alive and kicking.
Carol takes on a personal journey that many of us will relate to. She refers to the grandchildren: “They come to us as freshling souls their eyes full of dawn their faces may wear the imprint of lineage, but their destiny lives in the wind.”
As they grow up, we cannot control their destinies, but we can hope to be “a comforting presence/ a compassionate ear/ and a love constant as the tides.”
In “Soundtrack,” Carol speaks to those of us from the Baby Boom generation. She writes: “I grew up with folk songs--- Blue collar, blue jean, back porch songs about workers’ rights, civil rights and dreams of a better world We believed in those songs and sang them with voices urgent and sincere.”
This poem took me back to the late sixties and my college days. She also writes: These are songs that woke me up, pulled me off the island of myself Tossed me into the river of humanity, saying Now, do what you can--- it’s why you’re here.”
Yes, we certainly have forgotten humanity in this current day and age. Carol Alfus reminds us of how humanity must revive. How important everyone is. One of her last poems suggests: “Poet, live your truth--- Put it to work, let it be in the driver’s seat there will be detours enjoy those side trips! Then recenter and embrace the journey your walk-the-talk truth your lost-and-lonely truth your work-in-progress truth… claim it, own it then put it out there--- your truth.”
This book of poetry is truth and that truth is presented with such beautiful metaphors and visual imagery. Reading it will impel us to look into our own souls and face our own truths. ABOUT THE REVIEWER: jacob erin-cilberto is author of 26 books of poetry, his most recent being A Jersey Shore in Ryegate. He teaches at John Logan College and conducts workshops at Heartland Writers Guild, Southern Illinois Writers Guild and Union County Writers Guild. Posted April 1, 2026

On the Other Side of a Heart Attack: Poems by Terry Loncaric

Cyberwit.net, 2025 37 pages ISBN: 978-9363545151 Review by Phil Rockrohr In certain rooms, spiritual awakening is attributed to hitting rock bottom. For Terry Loncaric, my friend and former colleague, that bottom came in the form of a debilitating heart attack. In her latest volume of poetry, “On the Other Side of a Heart Attack,” Loncaric uses simple yet elegant writing to create matter-of-fact verses that could fit just as easily into prose.
In “The Heart Attack,” which opens the book, she lays bare her experience. “A herd of elephants stampeded, then set on my chest/I will do anything to get out of a bad movie/The ambulance ride, a blur/I was riding high on adrenaline, as I often do/in a crisis situation, my humor, a total mask/for the fact I was scared shitless.”
I hear her poems spoken in her voice. Some, like “Determined,” move as smoothly as a young rap MC delivering the truth of his story and life. “The will to live/is wicked strong/Nothing is quite/as motivating/as the possibility of death/Too many poems/too many nature walks/too many life experiences /still left in my/ever-changing/bag of tricks.”
“Minimizer No More” conveys how recovery cracked through her denial: “I could explain away/the tightness in my chest/It was indigestion/I could justify my shortness of breath/I am out of shape/and I was climbing/a steep flight of stairs/Why wouldn’t I feel dizzy?/I was running around/doing too many errands/on a muggy summer day/In all of these situations/I failed to connect the dots/or I was not willing/to take the time/to simply listen to my body.”
“Second Chance,” inspired by her mom, identifies the restorative power of redemption. “There is that moment/you realize knowledge is power/it is possible to align/health and spirit/intellect and energy/I accept the brutal truth/my parts will eventually/wear out/But I must respect/my body’s strength/to restore itself/and not allow/any of my parts/to rust before/their time.”
By midway through the collection, Loncaric shares her full-fledged spiritual awakening in “An Integrated Life,” in which she aligns “mind, body and spirit”: “The spirit guides all /Call it faith/a belief in legacy/ a joy in purpose/a sense of my place in the universe. I neglected to water/the entire garden/with knowledge/awareness and spirit.”
By the time she presents the glorious “Testaments of Our Lives” in the final pages, Loncaric shares the spiritual secrets of decompartmentalizing ourselves and loving our bodies as beautifully imperfect “road maps” of true beauty. “Now I want to merge/the dance of sensuality/with the comfort/of understanding/the nuances of my body/finally accepting/that each dark line/and skin crease/every battle scar/and bruise are the/rugged rewards of/embracing a robust, invigorating life/The realization/our bodies are/the road maps/of our imperfect lives/demonstrates why/the trip is fraught/with detours/interruptions/unpredictability.”
ABOUT THE REVIEWER: Phil Rockrohr is an award-winning Chicago journalist and editor. He is a former editor for Sun-Times Media Group and Tribune Publishing. He is a former teacher for Chicago Public Schools and owner and operator of North Shore Writing. In his most recent endeavor, Rockrohr is a film director whose debut film, the documentary “Revisiting Utopia,” is scheduled for release in 2026. “Revisiting Utopia” reveals the story of Park Forest, Illinois, an integrated community in the South Suburbs with a groundbreaking history. Posted April 1, 2026

Hourglass Harlequin: A Series of Poems Reflecting on the Beauty and Obscenity of the Modern-Day World by Aleks Pavlovic

Luminaire Press, 2025 174 pages ISBN: 979-8886797817 Review by jacob erin-cilberto Emily Dickinson spent her entire life in her “father’s house,” with the exception of her four years at Mount Holyoke seminary. She took care of her invalid mother and her younger sister. She was content in that mundane life and within the crevasses of it she wrote all her brilliant poetry. This is proof positive that from even the most mundane moments of life, brilliance can shine, art can find its way out of the dust of life.This is once again proven by Aleks Pavlovic in her poetry book titled Hourglass Harlequin as she reflects on the beauty and obscenity of the Modern-Day-WorldPavlovic teaches grief and how to move on from it: “Grief is a teacher we learn so that we can teach, too.”And for those of us elder statesmen and stateswomen, we’ve learned enough lessons to earn that teaching degree and then some.In another piece she shares how, “Going through hard things has helped me go through other hard things.”The poet implies that going through “hard things” gives us the strength to face any other hard things that come our way.In “It Buzzes,” she expresses how stopping and not doing anything is a reset, the rest does not imply laziness, just a time out. But we get judged for that. And who gave other people the nod to be experts on how we should live.Aleks’ take on religion is quite interesting and reminds this reader of growing up Catholic and what was instilled in us, “FEAR”!In her poem, “The Fabric of Life in Technicolor” she posits: “I never understood the concept of “Fearing the Lord.” She speaks of God being a gentle spirit and not an entity that is scary or vengeful.This makes much more sense than eternal damnation and fire and brimstone shouted from Mount Sinai, and of course, red knuckles from those darn rulers.Whether it is how we view religion or just how we view the world in general, interesting or mundane, Pavlovic tells us that we “can perceive the world as gray/ or see it in vivid color/ at the end of the day/ it is entirely/ your choice.”Amen to that; it isn’t so much what we face in life, it is how we face it. What is our attitude? If we get lemons, let us make lemonade and sell it for a nickel a cup and get rich on the good feeling we get quenching another’s thirst. After all, as Aleks tells us (at long last), “a slow sigh of relief”We take way too long to learn to let out that breath, smile and enjoy even the simplest things. We may just discover these things can make us happy and content.I love the humor this poet displays. In her poem “dangerous” she comically shares a wonderful feeling of recklessness as she parks in the fifteen- minute time slot for an appointment that may last an hour.Oh my God! How daring is that?And living on the edge helps the poet to find “a Homecoming” of sorts, as she speaks of coming to love herself in a new, peculiar way and being upset at her own funeral because she didn’t get enough time to enjoy that realization.Why does this realization have to come so late in life?We often feel pressured to be great, to be extraordinary, to be noticed. But the truth is, a quiet, unobtrusive, even mundane existence is what many of us crave. And it can be quite satisfactory.Emily Dickinson, in all her genius, found it so. And she became a poetic legend in the solitude of “her father’s house.” Aleks has a great message for her fellow poets. She reminds us of this: Not making money off art does not mean we are not artists.Are poets bought and sold? Not really, it is the words that are important, they have their own value without a price tag.She thanks the artists who never gave up…who kept plugging away “and thank you to those who provided grist from the mill.”I echo those sentiments and this reviewer thanks Aleks Pavlovic for reminding all of us that it isn’t about fame or money. It is about life, ordinary life and the wonderful poetry born from that life.
ABOUT THE REVIEWER: jacob erin-cilberto is author of 26 books of poetry, his most recent being A Jersey Shore in Ryegate. He teaches at John Logan College and conducts workshops at Heartland Writers Guild, Southern Illinois Writers Guild and Union County Writers Guild.
Posted April 1, 2026

Streets & San by John S. O'Connor

Finishing Line Press, 2025 84 pages ISBN: 979-8899902215 Review by Carol Parris Krauss In Streets & San, John S. O’Connor’s masterful use of memory and imagery takes the reader on a poetic and at times, traumatic tour of Chicago in the late 1970s and 80s, his family and childhood, his daughter, and the wisdom gained from his experiences and reflection. Wisdom, reflections, and experiences that are universal and easily accessible to his audience.
O’Connor is an English teacher, as am I. He follows through with the well-known and often used mantra of teachers everywhere–Show, don’t tell. He is not afraid to use the full arsenal of imagery: visual, auditory, olfactory, gustatory, and tactile. In the first poem, “Top of the World: Photo of My Father, The Empire State Building, 1957,” he paints a vivid picture of his father:
“Half-King Kong, half-Cary GrantWith shoulders as wide as 34th St.”
And O’Connor then takes the reader from this moment at the observation deck to a depiction of his father remaining only in a photograph on Mother’s dresser, and, more importantly, in his memory. Poignant moments like this mingle with reflections on his father’s alcoholism, the Chicago riots, and losing a childhood friend due to their race. But, as the reader winds through these joys and traumas, we are reminded that this juxtaposition is a road map of real life. Additionally, how we navigate these moments, the truth, and the revisions, helps to define who we are. He emphasizes this when he writes in “Night Meds,” “Our tongues taste true.”
Streets & San is divided into three sections: I. “worlds/beyond/the world/,” “worlds/within/the words,” and “ worlds/within/theworlds.” In the last section, I see evidence that these traumas O’Connor reflects on have not prevented him from writing of love. Two poems about his daughter, “Reflection” and “A Walk in the Woods with My Daughter,” are proof that he can still love even though his childhood was often dictated by his father’s alcoholism and feelings of not being loved. In his walk in the woods with his daughter, he wishes to “pocket” the scents, flora, and love he feels for her, and in “Reflection,” he closes the poem with the lines many a parent has uttered, “I have never loved anyone so much. Not even myself.” These paradoxes are what life is made of; O’Connor and his audience are left to determine the meaning of these memories: the ugly and the beautiful.
ABOUT THE REVIEWER: Carol Parris Krauss is the author of "Mountain. Memory. Marsh." This most recent poetry collection was recently published by Fernwood Press. Posted March 1, 2026

Mountain. Memory. Marsh. by Carol Parris Krauss

Fernwood Press, 2025 78 pages ISBN: 978-1594981821 Review by jacob erin-cilberto The majestic mountains of Virginia, the memories of a life lived with family and the marshes that ripple with a plethora of poetic exploration all serve as impetus for this gentle explosion of verse.
The foreword indicates, “Our history. The complexities of life can be similar to the terrain of the Mid-Atlantic. Most states differ vastly in the terrains they have to offer. Carol Parris Krauss offers us varied literary techniques to guide us through her varied states of mind and the terrains to go along with them, just as many of the best poets do.
Her first poem opens “Pretty Bottles All in a Row.” She tells us, “My family would pile into our Pontiac station wagon and traverse/ Caesars Head to spend afternoons with my father’s parents.” I am sure that line draws the readers towards memories of growing up, visiting grandparents. This poem reminds me of weekends in Jersey City visiting my grandmother on my dad’s side. I never met my dad’s father and did not hear much about him. He died when my father was 16. But my grandmother made up for it with her sweetness and doting personality. Krauss speaks of “Papaw passed, / they told me he was an alcoholic.” We have our own “Half-Camel unfiltered “Memories of grandparents as we are “throwing a rainbow against kitchen walls. / Painted, covered what this grandchild didn’t know/ Didn’t want to know.”
We paint our own versions of them and those are what we want to hang on our walls.
Did you ever drive by an abandoned building and wonder what it was like when alive with activity? In “Like the Mary Celeste” (an old, abandoned vessel), she writes: “Will a stranger wander into my classroom See the date 3/13/ 2020, Friday the 13th,” on the right-hand corner of the board in perfect teacher script, and wonder what caused the room to be abandoned?” I am reminded of my father. He died in 2017 on March 3rd. I don’t remember if it was a Friday, but what I know is that the room seems empty without him in it. The room of my heart.
But that room, in my mind, is like Carol’s “When I Build my Snow Globe.” Her poem speaks of positioning those relatives in her memory:
 “In my snow globe, I will position Dad in his recliner”
That line I relate to as my own father was usually perched in his recliner reading a book; he loved to read. I sat in my own recliner reading Krauss’ book of poetry. “Kelly crisscrosses on the floor by the fireplace, And the great-grand kids running ribbons among the dogs. … After the season All but Dad will resume their daily routines. I will wrap him in glitter-sprinkled tissue, nestle And gently store him among the other family treasures.”
We think, imagine, hope they will live forever, can’t imagine them not being around until theStark reality one day slaps us in the gut. We will lose them physically, but for most of us---emotionally they will always remain in our Snow Globe, and our memory can just give that Globe a shake.
In “The Ghost Forest,” The marsh will walk. Stomp right/ up to the pine forest and attack. / …/ See modern man undoing/ what nature scripted and etched long ago.”
Krauss obviously has a deep love of nature as does this reviewer. And man undoing it leaves us with abandoned houses and abandoned rooms in our hearts.
In “Neap Tide” she expresses a woeful thought: “Then leaving. Only footprints evidence. Soon to be washed as the next tide creeps closer to my cottage. As I watch.”
Poets leave evidence of what we watched in our lives, and we often wonder if that evidence (our poetry) will ever be found. Our footprints on pages of what we have written.Her poem “She Holds Book to Belly” further expands this wish for us as poets to leave footprints. “The daughter of the house has settled in and popped the footrest. She holds a book to belly and appears to be sipping a Mason jar concoction.”
“Oh, if only that were my book nestled against her belly” thinks all poets who find writing to be their calling.
In “Daddy’s Home” she uses perfectly placed personification: “Afternoon sits at the end of my walkway. Pouts between two clumps of monkey grass. Staring at the front door. Swats at morning on occasion. Wants to get going before night calm commences.”
So, is she creating an analogy between afternoons and her father? It may seem so. And he needs to get going. They all need to do that sooner or later. All those loved ones who can’t stay long enough for our taste. We love them too much to lose them. Wow! This book---mountains of fine work to climb, memories dispatched from Carol Parris Krauss’ pen to our hearts, marshes of wind songs and wandering words with thick reeds of relatability find their way to our very soul as we let this poet’s words “Move to the light for closer inspection.”
ABOUT THE REVIEWER: jacob erin-cilberto is author of 26 books of poetry, his most recent being A Jersey Shore in Ryegate. He teaches at John Logan College and conducts workshops at Heartland Writers Guild, Southern Illinois Writers Guild and Union County Writers Guild. Posted March 1, 2026

1000 Pieces of Time by Michael Minassian

Sheila-Na-Gig Editions, 2025 Edited by Hayley Haugen124 pages ISBN: 978-1962405362 Review by jacob erin-cilberto Michael Minassian is one of the cleverest poets I have had the pleasure of reading. His book 1000 Pieces of Time comes in three sections. The first section places many fictional and real characters into our current century and gives us the poet’s interactions with them through a series of poems.In “Christopher Marlowe Buys Me a Drink,” Michael Shares this: “The person sitting on the next bar stool, … hat pulled down low Over his forehead, I hear him order an ale in a clipped British accent, realize his clothing has a distinct 16th century look. Christopher Marlowe? I ask Call me Kit, he replies. … but he makes no mention of Ben Jonson or Shakespeare”
It appears that the competition among writers back then was just as fierce as today. Examples are James Patterson vs. John Grisham or Stephen King vs. Dean Koontz. Surely, there is respect that goes along with the fierce battle to be number one.
In another piece, he speaks of meeting Emily Dickinson at a Waffle House. In their conversation, “She wanted to know if her hair pulled back in a tight bun made her look too old, complaining that she missed the 19th century and her sister Lavinia. Surprised she didn’t want to discuss poetry or publishing. We talked about pop culture music, and the latest fashions.”
These words in reference to their conversation drew me in and made me ponder just what her poetry would be like if she were living in this century, in this decade, in this year or on this very day.
In “Helen of Troy at Trader Joe’s,” this poet writes: Shoppers and staff all turn to stare as Helen of Troy walks the aisles, checking for organic products and fills her basket with golden fruit and shapely produce fit for a queen.”
I am friendly and a slightly bold person and these lines make me wonder what would happen if I met her in that store. Would I say something to her? Would I compliment her on her “perfect skin”?
Minassian begins part 2 of the book with a poem appropriately called, “What Words Can Say.”He speaks of corresponding with a friend and shares: “Each time, I write back to her, I pick a word out of the dictionary and pull it like a loose thread, whole sentences spill out, disappear in the rain like floating leaves at the end of the week.”
This reflects how many of us write poetry. We come up with a word or phrase and the whole lines “spill out.” And we pull poems out like his “loose thread.”
Michael’s imagery is to die for. In “While I Slept,” he writes: “It stormed last night; I heard the wind drive the rain(much like Minassian’s poetry drives this review) against the windows, a noise like horses’ hooves rattling across a wooden bridge.”
In “Compassion” his imagery further shines as he refers to Billy Collins’ “Introduction to Poetry”: “When I dropped a mouse into my poem, he seemed lost at first, wandering between images, chewing on the ends of lines, swallowing whole metaphors, and leaving dark, hard droppings like random punctuation.”
In “The Sweater” Michael refers to his grandmother on her passing, talking about her favorite sweater: “The top two buttons missing, as absent as her voice.”
This is writing that moves our hearts and finds those missing buttons for us.
Part 3 of this book revisits interaction with celebrities. In “Martha Stewart Invents My Kitchen,” after the cooking lesson, Martha says: “You’re on your own, she says, but keep that kitchen clean or I’ll be back. Typical Jersey girl… I think, glad to see her go and have the kitchen to myself, the happy chef of catastrophe.”
Reminds me of me, and how after I finish cooking, my kitchen looks like a disaster area---but Martha still might like one or two of the dishes I make.
In “My Sister Dated Frankenstein,” Michael humanizes the monster: “He spent long hours in the library devouring books on history and culture,
 read Paradise Lost and taught himself German, but claimed not to know
 about the disappearance of children and small pets, or the drowning death
 of my best friend after he asked my sister to the Senior Prom.”
In “Barely Heard,” he writes: Some poems poise on the pen like a bird before it takes flight: some lie in wait for words to nudge themselves…”
And in another poem, he poses: “There’s a quiet noise Inside silence, an architecture of sound.”This book is representative of that architecture. One, two, three floors of a poetry book so eloquently constructed, we will want to live within its walls over and over again.
ABOUT THE REVIEWER: jacob erin-cilberto is author of 26 books of poetry, his most recent being A Jersey Shore in Ryegate. He teaches at John Logan College and conducts workshops at Heartland Writers Guild, Southern Illinois Writers Guild and Union County Writers Guild. Posted March 1, 2026

In a House of Secret Rooms by Tom Moran

Cyberwit.net, 2025 31 pages ISBN: 978-9363547421 Review by jacob erin-cilberto Tom Moran’s poetry is no secret. It is filled with heart, soul, wry humor and clever personification along with sharp metaphor. In his first poem, “My Soul is a Telegraph Vine,” he uses flowers as implements to express his theme. He writes:
 “A flower of survival. My birth is a reluctant mirror. It sees what I should be but I know where I’m at.”
There is always that “but.” We know where we should be in life, but often we don’t quite make that destination. His poem “Old Calendars” leaves us his book of appointments and obligations for the New Year. And then he tells us at the end of the poem, “Next New Year’s Day/ I’ll look back at mile posts/ I leave behind.”
Yes, all those special days, events, people who appear in the rearview mirror. We all can relate to the memories that appear in our mirrors, even when we stand in front of a full-length one, one that shows us the full-length of what we have become.
Tom talks about standing “on the Riverwalk/ in downtown Chicago.” He feels he will “Raise and lower bridges/ only when I have something to say.” His poetry speaks volumes. It is precious cargo because obviously he does not write poetry just to be noticed. Instead, he only writes when the themes are of consequence, a cargo ship of words that needs to pass the bridge and reach readers. In his poem “My Father Waltzes in Heaven,” he reflects this memory:
 “’A crowd was forming. They would have stolen his shoes.’ Now that he has his shoes my father can dance whenever he needs to.”
One of My dad’s favorite pastimes was fishing. I think of him up in heaven with his rod and reel, “still fishing” in the deep blue and smiling.
I have infinite memories in my life, some good, some painful, but at times, I feel what Moran says in his “Now and Then” poem. He writes:
 “Or am I trying To remember something that never was.”
Much like remembering that huge trophy fish caught that was not quite as large as we recall.
In “How Far to Eden?” Tom speaks, using flowers once again as metaphor. He proposes:
 “I will visit each flower and make a haven. Beauty will engulf me--- not as a sun shower but forever.”
In “Away,” Moran says:
 “I push out an inky black poison of beatings I took while keeping my mouth shut.”
He takes this theme further:
 “Wounds heal Stitches hold. I cross the street catch up with my heart, to feel again trust again create again without toppling over.”
In the author’s “Shore Leave, “he addresses the truth about bullies.
 “He says ‘This is my viaduct and you can’t enter.’ He swings at me and misses. I unload on him with everything I have because with bullies you only get one shot.”
You can take that to the bank. This bully ended up walking away massaging his cheek “mumbling,” I didn’t think he’d hit me.” Yes, they never do. Bullies think intimidation is enough. I wish I had read Tom’s poem back when I was in grade school with those schoolyard bullies. I think his philosophy would have worked.
In “Relay” he asks:
 “Will my poems end up In a thrift store along with old furniture, dishes, forgotten jewelry? Or are they tracks Leading nowhere?
Later in the poem he adds to what would happen if some pages would fly loose.
 “Maybe someone Will put their foot on one page pick it up read it and say ‘I feel that too.’”
I have picked up this book, read it and “I feel that too.” It is like Tom Moran knows what we all want to say about what we feel in life, and scribes it for us, when he writes:
 “My poems waver on the page letting you know I was here.”
We, as readers, accept that fact without question. This book really does teach us “the difference/ between weeds and flowers,” bullies and the strong but gentle poets who are “flowers of survival.”
This is definitely a House of Secret Rooms that is worth exploring.
ABOUT THE REVIEWER: jacob erin-cilberto is author of 26 books of poetry, his most recent being A Jersey Shore in Ryegate. He teaches at John Logan College and conducts workshops at Heartland Writers Guild, Southern Illinois Writers Guild and Union County Writers Guild. Posted March 1, 2026

Before I Lie by Dralandra Larkins

Book Baby, 2025 212 pages ISBN: 979-8218695019 Review by jacob erin-cilberto In the first poem of this book, “The Trial,” Larkins foreshadows what we might anticipate from her poetry. She introduces herself with these words:
 “You’ll find me on these pages--- Undoing cycles sewn in my blood. Un-silencing my name. Exhaling what would’ve killed me silent. These poems aren’t just art. They’re evidence.”
With her next breath, Dralandra gives us her name in the poem titled “Dralandra.”
 “My name has no official or traditional meaning And that means names like mine get stereotyped--- ‘ghetto, ridiculous---absurd.’ But my name is a Melody---”
She is proud of her name, proud of her heritage. I relate to this as my grandfather’s last name was Cilberto. He came over from Sicily as a young orphan of about ten years. When naturalized, his name was changed to the more American sounding Gilbert. I love Cilberto and would ask my dad why he never changed our name back to that. Such is the name game when it comes to playing it safe and avoiding stereotypes. Dralandra asks the reader this question. “Has culture caught ya tongue?”
In her poem “Black Sheep,” she writes:
 “They called me different--- as if it were something to fix. As if standing apart Meant I was torn.”
Again, she is told to blend in, acquiesce from who she really is. And again, she refuses:
 “I was told to Smile politely fold yourself smaller and fit in the frame I spoke in my own language And they called it noise. But I wasn’t too much. They were just too afraid to stand beside a woman on full volume!”
Larkins is on “full volume” throughout this masterful book of verse. She lays claim:
 “This face? It doesn’t flinch anymore. It testifies.”
Dralandra, in “Holy Note,” tells us that
 “God didn’t draft you. Didn’t sketch you in pencil, You were inked with purpose.”
Yes, this poet obviously was inked with purpose. She was meant to write, meant to be a voice for her people, for all women who have no voice yet but need to find one, one that is strong, defiant, independent.
The poet reinforces this notion:
 “she taught me How to deaf out what doesn’t serve me, to silence what harms, and amplify what heals. To listen--- Only to freedom and turn up the volume on my power.”
One must be so impressed with the strong, yet gentle voice of this poet. Defiance? Yes. Strength? Yes. But anger? Hardly. Thes poems are not about retaliation but more about resilience and identity.
 “My mother could raise a child, raise her voice, and raise hell. But my mama didn’t raise no fool Didn’t raise no punk, She raised a flame a lover and a fighter, A poet--- Who might just be a problem.”
She is a poet with loud volume, a poet to be heard, who once is heard can never be un-heard.
In Dralandra’s poem, “When Hip-Hop Raised Me Wrong---I Loved Her Anyway,” she writes:
 “Even when he beat women into punchlines--- turned our bodies into metaphors But I wasn’t trap rap I was poetry--- Rhythm and resistance they couldn’t name.”
This reminds us of what she already told us in an earlier poem, “My name is a melody.”Larkins shows a loving, tender side when she writes:
 “Even love glistens in darkness … They lie still --- Bare, In one another’s nature … Just pillow thoughts Unspoken. Just skin Only breath Just them.”
At three-quarters of a century old, I have experienced plenty of joy but also plenty of pain in relationships and my motto is like what she says in a poem, “Heart guarded, / but never hardened.” Larkin goes on to say, “Your trauma is not your inheritance. / Leave what haunts.”
In “To My Younger Self Who Just Needed Joy,” she tells herself:
 “Baby girl one day the world will clap for you--- and you won’t have to prove yourself to earn it.”
This reviewer is still clapping and must admit this review has not been so easy to write. The reason is that I always try to include some of the best lines from the book to showcase the writing prowess of the poet. But picking those lines from this poet’s work is difficult because I could have found myself rewriting the entire book. Dralandra Larkins showers us with talent to which we react with some sadness, some smiles and much applause.
In “The Verdict” she writes:
 “I set fire To the lies I wore like lipstick. Verity blistered into ember, Hot enough to unseal the part of me I forgot to speak into flame. I echoed confessions, Across the courtroom of the cosmos Put silence on trial.”
Dralandra surely does “put silence/ on trial.” And lucky for us, she has done just that.
ABOUT THE REVIEWER: jacob erin-cilberto is author of 26 books of poetry, his most recent being A Jersey Shore in Ryegate. He teaches at John Logan College and conducts workshops at Heartland Writers Guild, Southern Illinois Writers Guild and Union County Writers Guild. Posted February 1, 2026

Turning Back to Her Love Pages by Judy Lorenzen

Kelsay Books, 2025 46 Poems ~ 100 pages ISBN: 978-1-639800-757-4 Review by Michael Escoubas If you are one who, like this reviewer, laments the state of the world: its violence, its vitriolic rhetoric, the seeming absence of good manners, and forbearance. In short: lack of love and respect. Judy Lorenzen’s Turning Back to Her Love Pages will change your life. In the words of Kathryn Kurz, Assistant Professor of Education at York University . . . “Judy’s special gift is to show us that love is a choice; love is powerful, and love is the most excellent way.” Turning Back is lovingly dedicated to the author’s parents, who gave Judy the seeds of their lives, not knowing that what they gave would blossom into poetry and bloom forever.
The collection is divided into four sections: I. Second Chances, II. Portraits of Mother, III. Portraits of Father, and IV. Love Lives On. Each section adds to and builds upon the former, resulting in a fully orbed picture that gave birth to the whole.
The title poem “Turning Back to Her Love Pages” (Second Chances) provides helpful background about how her parents met. Their “love story began in 1949, / when they married after six weeks of meeting, / her, a high school graduate, waiting tables.” Soon their first child was born. Six more daughters graced their lives over the years. Jill was severely disabled. As with most marriages there were trials. Here is an especially poignant expression:
 If love could die from troubles, the heart-framed mirrors of their hearts for each other would have shattered. But she loved him with a rare love that always reflected back a beautiful image of the one it was set on.
Amid their troubles and sufferings, life’s most important question takes center stage:
 And what is love anyway? A commitment to stay—no matter what?
One poem builds upon the next. Like an artist’s brush strokes, Lorenzen’s canvas gradually fills with colors, landscapes, and loving portraits that shed fresh light upon the poet’s core question, what is love anyway?
Wisdom and irony play heavy in “What Mother Taught Me.” The poet’s family is moving from her childhood home in Malcolm, Nebraska. Judy’s heart is heavy. She weeps at the thought of leaving “a hundred thousand points of light in the soft violet sky.” Her mother inquires:
 “Look at my trees I love, smell the fragrance of these green grasses, listen to the crickets’ last song for me, and look, look at those stars— I’m losing everything!”
The poem rounds out with deep-founded wisdom that justifies the price of the book. The irony noted above will resonate. Don’t miss this one!
Moving into Section III “Portraits of Father,” I was reminded of my own father. “What the Depression Taught My Father,” placed me with my own:
 be grateful for the job you have— never assume you’ll always have it never assume you will have a home tomorrow be grateful if you have a roof over your head shut the lights off when you leave the room know that all work is honorable get rid of any pride you have
The poem, thirty-seven pregnant lines of how to live and what to do, surely must have instilled a sense of awe and dread within the psyche of a young girl. “What Brought Him Back” signals that all was not well in the household. Consisting entirely of questions. Here’s a sample:
 Was it the love of a woman who would not stop believing in him? Was it a vow he had spoken and committed to years earlier? Was it the moon watching him, night after night, as he was making his decision?
My sense, from reading between the poet’s lines, is that good somehow finds it way to the surface. All the trouble, all the suffering, somehow gets reconciled. “Fog” is that kind of reconciling poem. It is a poem that many finally write in the heart’s depth, if not on the page:
 I’d give anything to see my father again, a man whose love I rejected most of my life when the fog of resentment obscured my perspective— then I took his love for granted like he owed it to me. But death and memory offer the sorrows of hindsight, the blessing of clear vision. Now I see everything, and what I see is all I failed at, and what I remember is goodness, and the only thing I feel is mountains of love.
Ah, yes . . . mountains of love . . . would that all of us give our parents credit for doing the best they could with what they were given. Thank you, Judy Lorenzen.
ABOUT THE REVIEWER: Michael Escoubas is Senior Editor, Contributing Poet, and Staff Book Reviewer for Quill and Parchment, a 23-year-old literary and cultural arts online journal. This review is republished with kind permission from Quill and Parchment. Posted February 1, 2026

For Those Who Mourn by Trudy Kleckner

FriesenPress, 2025 66 pages ISBN: 978-1038348241 Review by Carol Parris Krauss For Those Who Mourn is a poetry collection that addresses death, grief, and navigating loss. Kleckner’s poetry conveys that each person experiences grief and mourns differently, and that losing a loved one—whether a parent, sibling, child, dear friend, or partner—can be traumatic and unique. She also implores the reader to cherish life. Trudy Kleckner holds a master's degree in social work (MSW) and worked as a licensed marriage and family therapist for about 25 years. She's published multiple poetry collections including Paper Airplanes, (2016), Riding the Rainbow (2019), Bring Light (2023), in addition to For Those Who Mourn. Her therapeutic background is evident in each word, line, and poem of For Those Who Mourn. As I worked on reviewing Kleckner’s book, I was called by hospice to tell my Mother good-bye. She passed away the day after my daughter and I visited her. Kleckner’s book helped to guide me through those days, and was never far from my side. Letting go can be one of the hardest experiences a human must endure. In “Called to Transform,” Kleckner advises us that “...the world can teach us how to live/grow/ripen/and let go.” Within these few short lines the impact of what can be given to us, and what we must eventually do is conveyed. Sometimes the letting go process can be drawn out as expressed in “The Waiting Game.” No one is ever prepared for the loss of a loved one, and sometimes the process of the loss of life does involve painful waiting that can be personified as something that “...stalks in/trailing a dark dusty cloak.” As I navigated the loss of my Mother, I reflected on my Father's death, which occurred a few years earlier. “The Man” came at that time. The idea that the man that we have lost is a hero is universal. The poem’s lyrical list of fatherly actions made me smile and cry at times as I reflected on my own Father. “Know he loved you dearly/you/his shining light.” We will all experience loss at some point in our lives. In the days immediately after such a death, we are often busy with funeral preparations. Often too busy to feel the impacts. “After Loss” personifies this passage as a “complex swamp” but the poem ends by reminding the readers to “...remember, cry, laugh, together.” I laughed and I cried as I read For Those Who Mourn. I found it to be a much needed support with valuable adages that helped me at a very tender time. Kleckner’s voice, compassion, and honesty are evident throughout the collection. She employs symbolism, imagery, and personification to convey to the reader that the experience of loss is unique, and it will be painful, but to never forget that the experience of life is beautiful. And to never forget that either.

ABOUT THE REVIEWER: Carol Parris Krauss is the author of "Mountain. Memory. Marsh." (Fernwood Press, 2025). Carol was born in S.C., to mystical mountain people, raised in NC, and attended Clemson University. She currently lives in Virginia with her St. Bernard, Martha June.
Posted February 1, 2026

Entwine by Mary Newell

BlazeVOX [books], 2025 94 pages ISBN: 978-1609644925 Review by Patricia Carragon We live in a world where global warming is unstoppable. Reality is supported by the greedy elite, politicians elected on broken promises, the distrust of scientific evidence, and humans who think only of themselves and not the consequences. Mary Newell’s Entwine is an ecological wake-up call to save the environment.
Ms. Newell writes with the eyes of Audubon, the mind of Thoreau, and the soul of the Appalachian Trail. Using the verb “entwine” as the title fits the character of her words, artistry, and scientific observation. Her days in the Hudson Highlands crafted a poetic journal with black-and-white photographic depictions—the symmetries of trees and the wonders of birds in flight.
In “Flying Jewels Fading,” Newell writes about the shrinking habitats of birds native to the Hudson Highlands and elsewhere, on the verge of extinction at an alarming rate:
 During pandemonium, names of old friends echo – call quick to verify they remain among the visible. Some, still on the map but fading out of likeness.
 Meanwhile, hummers and salvias, that co-evolutionary duo together again and again throughout the Americas, yet threatened with shrinking habitat.
Not only fauna is threatened, but flora as well, as told in “Hard to Know the Whole of It.” As a lover of trees, my special oak tree outside my window recently had the branch that I used to touch amputated during brick repairs on my building. It sadly hangs on the scaffold until its removal. The tree will live, but its lost limb will leave a scar.
These stanzas remind me of my tree’s dilemma:
 “Trees are quite commonly beat upon,” rooted in places as they are: assaulted by chainsaws, windstorms, humans wanting more sunlight, more asphalt, more…
 Trees can’t heal like animals. “The trick is in sealing, not healing.”
Water is like a living spirit that flows against the banks of untouched land. Newell captures this in “Shape of Water Shaping Rocky Banks.” We feel the words photographing the lines of life, the “stomp of many boots,” past and present. For the Copper Mine Brook, water and its banks age gracefully. For instance:
 ponder how rock resists the mutable but mellows smooth with slick touch
 in time in flow
 how water knows to over-slide boulders, toss small pebbles, permeate moss
From the gentle flow of poetry enhanced by Newell’s call to eco-advocacy and her exquisite photography, the reader will appreciate the wisdom of nature and science. Time is ticking under this administration. As in “And Yet, the Seed!” we are the seeds of tomorrow:
Every one of these seeds… will be found to be winged or legged in another fashion.
We must plant new seeds for tomorrow—for the world to welcome future generations of humans, flora, and fauna to enjoy what this world was intended to be. Mary Newell’s Entwine is an ecological wake-up call, and we can do better. The future is up to us. ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Mary Newell, PhD, is an educator, eco-writer, and certified Feldenkrais practitioner whose work bridges embodied experience and ecological consciousness. A college professor and scholar of literature and environmental studies, Newell teaches Creative Writing and literature at the University of Connecticut, Stamford. ABOUT THE REVIEWER: Patricia Carragon received a 2025 Best of the Net nomination for her haiku, “Cherry Blossoms,” from Poets Wear Prada. She hosts Brownstone Poets and is the editor-in-chief of its annual anthology. She is the editor of Sense & Sensibility Haiku Journal and listed on the poet registry for The Haiku Foundation. Her jazz poetry collection, Stranger on the Shore from Human Error Publishing, is forthcoming. Posted February 1, 2026

Something Small of How to See a River by Teresa Dzieglewicz

Tupelo Press, 2025 75 pages ISBN: 978-1946482822 "You Can't Quiet the River," Review by Carol Parris Krauss In the summer of 2025, I had the pleasure of attending a professional development for teachers at Harvard University. One of the speakers was the Director of Harvard University Native American Studies, Jordan Clark. And while Clark, a member of the Aquinnah tribe, discussed cultural appropriation with the group, he also discussed the importance of using all our voices to honor the history, culture, and sacred stories of Native Americans.
In Teresa Dzieglewicz’s inaugural collection, Something Small of How to See a River, she recounts through narrative and lyrical poetry the story of the Oceti Sakowin Camp at Standing Rock and the Water is Life movement there. Across the collection, she meditates on control, state and environmental violence, whiteness and its failures, and the daily chores of care, joy, and solidarity that sustained the Indigenous- and youth-led resistance to the Dakota Access Pipeline. She also asks, Who tells the stories–the government, participants, activists, or media–or does everyone have a page to write? Lastly, she reminds us that the river is one of the strongest voices in this collection and in nature.
I found the timeline of the Water for movement quest to stymy the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline (in the preface) very helpful, as I fell into Dzieglewicz’s poetry. The first poem, “August at Ochetahi, One Year Later,” is a poignant reflection on revisiting the site and the movement's memories. It grabs the reader immediately with the first line, “Crawl beyond barbed wire.” It continues to serve as a witness to the movement 360 days after the event, showing that the government can’t erase what happened. Dzieglewicz writes, “The state can take but not replace the hooves that spoke small o’s along the dirt.”
The river is personified in “The Story Starts Like This: With Scraps of Shells.” This river is not beholden to anyone. It is not damned, controlled, or an implement of war. But the soldiers arrive and try to gain control of it. Forgetting that you can’t contain it or its voice. Once they arrive, they rename the body of water. “But when the soldiers came, saw the sun-lit stones, warm and breathy as eggs, they re-christened her the Cannonball: because when destiny means only more and more, when all your tools are weapons, even a river starts to look like war.” This is a feeble attempt at corralling a river with a name change. The Water is Life movement recognizes the danger in attempting to convert the river into a war zone.
The Water is Life movement at Standing Rock was only partially successful: it did not permanently stop the Dakota Access Pipeline, but it increased visibility of Indigenous rights, shifted public discourse on environmental justice, and helped spur ongoing legal and policy challenges. Each voice in the collection has a different perspective and an agenda. As every poem in the collection unfolds, the reader encounters the language of the land and people, among the strongest of which is the river. “In a Word Choice,” Dzieglewicz speaks of this voice and the need to preserve Indigenous land when she writes, “We protect the water for everyone…”
ABOUT THE REVIEWER: Carol Parris Krauss is the author of "Mountain. Memory. Marsh." This most recent poetry collection was recently published by Fernwood Press. Posted January 1, 2026

The Impossible Physics of the Hummingbird by Kim Farrar

Unsolicited Press, 2025 114 pages ISBN: 978-1963115512 Review by Arlyn Miller
There is an affecting through-line of love, loss and attentive leaning in in Kim Farrar’s, The Impossible Physics of the Hummingbird. Interspersed among the poems are photographs, drawings and collages made by Farrar which help amplify the text and create additional layers of meaning
Early on, readers are introduced to the extraordinary connection between the poet and her brother, and their mutual connection to the natural world. In the opening poems, the poet grapples with her brother’s complicated life and with his death. In the last two lines of “Calamities of the Natural World,” Farrar writes, You had to love him whole; you had to love his whole slow falling apart.
The book’s opening poem, “Spider,” looks at the connection at close range, Look there, you instruct, a perfect spider’s web. Each glistening fiber jeweled with dew.
 Here we see Farrar’s brother showing her how to look at and appreciate the world.
“Why It’s Hard to Write About My Brother,” perhaps the strongest poem in the collection, is a heartrending litany, each reason beginning with the word, Because. The poem details compelling particulars of this brother, this brother-sister relationship. Other poems employ a well-develop metaphor. In “Dear Pluto,” for instance, we feel the pull and plight of a planet that is an outsider, [o]utcast among the riffraff pulled by gravity and dark matter, now nobody’s son.
In the poems final lines, Farrar asks, Already disappeared from texts and diagrams, who will cherish you? Who will remember?
With equivalent pathos, Farrar includes poems about parenting her autistic daughter. The poem, “Powerful Forces” begins: Watching my autistic daughter stand at the ocean’s edge, I imagine that words for her are sound clusters in primary colors.
 But today, I forget about trying to extract language, trying to hear her voice. The ocean fills the space where the trying goes.
The poem’s concluding lines are prayerful: Lord, look how beautiful she is. Lord, let others love how she lifts her face to the wind.
The Impossible Physics of the Hummingbird is also a window onto the poet’s melancholic love for her deceased father, her pain over her infirm, aging mother’s circumstances, and her struggle with her own cancer diagnosis and treatment. An apt description of the book is perhaps Wordsworth famous assertion that poetry takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquility. It may be tranquil recollection which enables Farrar to interweave humor with subjects as serious as her cancer odyssey. Her poem, “The Box” begins: The box has been delivered and set upon the dining room table. You read the label, shake it, and listen. This is the visiting nurse’s equipment. Even though you know what lurks inside, you can’t help being excited by a parcel.
The poem concludes that once hooked up to the chemo, Farrar …turn[s] on America’s Funniest Home Videos because the kid with the bat will hit his dad in the nuts, the table under the drunk dancer will collapse, the dog on the skateboard will crash, and it’s good to know what’s coming.
 Buy this book; support independent presses. Read this book; it will be time well spent. As The Impossible Physics of the Hummingbird evinces, Farrar never loses sight of the fundamental early lesson she learned from her brother: Look there. It’s a good directive for readers as well.
ABOUT THE REVIEWER: Arlyn Miller is the poet, publisher, and instructor inspiring writers of all ages under the umbrella of PoeticLicenseInc.net.
Posted January 1, 2026

Thought Fish by Ruan Bradford Wright

Second Edition, Improved and Expanded Fae Corps Publishing, 2024 70 pages ISBN: 979-8330529803 Review by Tina Cole
Thought-fish is a luminous and imaginative collection that captures the restless movement of thought itself, fluid, unpredictable and full of quiet wonder. Wright’s poems balance clarity and mystery in a way that feels effortless, each piece seems to emerge naturally, like a ripple spreading across still water. What stands out most is Wright’s command of image and rhythm. Everyday moments, a fragment of memory, a flicker of emotion, the texture of a place are transformed into something layered and resonant. The poet’s language is playful yet precise, allowing ideas to shift shape and swim beneath the surface of the literal. The collection opens with "Bluebell Picking," a poem guaranteed to evoke childhood memories and ritual. It is evocative and nostalgic without feeling cloying. Wright uses this moment in time as more than description, the scene becomes metaphorical, emotional, layered. The bluebells may represent the fleetingness of time, the innocence of youth, the rootedness of place. Other favourite poems were "Boy on a Bike," where the image of a boy on a bike immediately evokes movement and memory, it suggests another moment of freedom and then holds open the possibility of something more tender or reflective. Wright uses concrete, vivid detail (the bike, the boy) as an anchor, which helps the reader access an emotional or reflective space without losing the groundedness of the scene. There’s also a subtle tension between innocence and experience, a boy riding a bike is simple, but the poem invites you to consider, perhaps, what it means to move forward, to leave something behind, to be on the cusp of change. I also enjoyed, "As if Satisfied," another poem filled with ambiguity that opens a space for longing, incompleteness, or the fragile nature of satisfaction. Wright’s willingness to evoke that half-feeling is a strength. In this poem, the tone feels contemplative, the speaker seems to hover between acceptance and desire which gives the piece emotional richness. What these poems show is Wright’s ability to take seemingly simple moments and render them in language that is both precise and open, rich in image but light in tone. The poems don’t shout; they invite. They leave space for the reader’s memory, for reflection. And they deliver value precisely because they’re crafted with attention to image, tone and emotional subtlety. The collection also shows an impressive range, some poems are sparse and meditative, drawing power from silence and space, while others are rich with sound and movement. Throughout, there’s a sensitivity to the music of words and a willingness to experiment with form that gives the book a fresh, modern energy. Ultimately, thought-fish feels both intimate and expansive, a collection that invites reflection and rewards rereading. It’s the work of a poet deeply attuned to the subtle currents of mind and language. I enjoyed the poems very much and recommend them to you.
ABOUT THE REVIEWER: Tina Cole is a retired Headteacher (principal). who lives in the U.K in rural Herefordshire near the Welsh borders. She has three published pamphlets, I Almost Knew You, (2018), Forged (Yaffle Press, 2021) and What it Was (Mark Time Books, 2023) .
Posted January 1, 2026

A Jersey Shore in Ryegate by jacob erin-cilberto

Praying Mantis Press, 2025 64 pages ISBN: 978-8294525613 Review by Laura Daniels
A Jersey Shore in Ryegate is the twenty-sixth poetry collection by jacob erin-cilberto. Each poem offers the reader an opportunity to go deep into a moment by interweaving vivid images and sonic tones.
I became aware of erin-cilberto’s poetry when I read the titular poem, “A Jersey Shore in Ryegate”, published by Highland Park Poetry as a Daily Poem. As someone born and raised in the Garden State (also known as New Jersey), I enjoyed experiencing this farmland as it was then and how it is now. This poem is written in the first person point, but I easily found myself in this memory:
 There were raspberries in that pasture….
 So many decades later…
 no fence, no cows, no youth all of it grown over with brush that hill lost in adolescence…
 leaves me still pondering what those cows thought of us…
A few of erin-cilberto's poems, like “A Jersey Shore in Ryegate,” reflect on Ryegate and Tickle Nake Pond, both in Vermont, and where the poet spent his summers during the 1950s. It is also featured in the cover photograph taken by the poet’s father in 1957.
Other topics covered in this collection include the impact of past events (such as the Vietnam War) and present-day events (such as climate change).
In “Veteran”, I can feel this soldier’s plight as he returns:
 back to the earth of my normal existence I see nothing in the misty dawn no home, no job, no money no thanks
 service to a country that abandoned its soldiers
This poem is timeless and relatable. It’s as true today as it was during the Vietnam War. The opening line of "Polling the Storms," "puddles are gargantuan tears," cries out, and unfolds the story that involves "…ego and thirst for power:"
 and torrential rains not of a natural kind but ballyhooed by exterminators of life having thunder in one hand lightning in the other…
 the tears are frozen in state we are all clowns with kerchiefs trying to ice skate
 on spilled milk rather than just cleaning it up and starting over…
Erin-cilberto ends this poem as he ends many with a positive turn:
 frozen or not we must sidestep the puddles and take a course of action that might turn the sky into a clear blue smile fit to drink.
Erin-cilberto covers heavy topics, but he also includes over a dozen poems about poetry. In these offerings, erin-cilberto pulls back the curtain and reveals poetry's complex inner workings. Each delivers a mini craft lesson and exploration into the life of a poem.
This is shown in the ending stanzas of “a syllabic lack of evidence’:
 …the pen stabs the interrogator in the eye
 with misdirection and with a very steady hand that could easily pass a lie detector the poet writes cursively creative verse to free himself
 from impending confinement.
Erin-cilberto personifies a poem brilliantly in the opening stanza of “No Trespassing in Faulkner’s Town”:
 a poem gets off the train in Fiction Town was immediately attacked and beaten verbs barely able to crawl away …hidden themes hiding behind rocks of unredeemable rhetoric
 with poetry there is no law no protection from thieves or plunderers…
I’ll leave you with this mini craft lesson from the opening stanza of “Poetic Tensions”:
 allow me to allow you to read deep into the bones of my poetic tensions a confession of sorts a sharing of point-of-view a straining to capsulate nature’s effect on the words of my poetic tensions…
 ….fragments of what remains of my poetic tensions and the lack of bone density but still a few words here and there that might make some sense.
This collection invites the reader back in again and again. Every time I return to the words, I’m taken deeper, and new nuances reveal themselves. I recommend adding it to your library and bedside table stack for easy access. ABOUT THE REVIEWER: Laura Daniels (she/her) is a neurodivergent multi-genre writer as well as founder/editor of The Fringe 999 Poetry Forum. https://lauradanielswriter.wordpress.com/about/
Posted January 1, 2026

Heirloom by Catherine-Esther Cowie

Carcanet Press Ltd., 2025 96 pages ISBN: 978-1800174795 Review by jacob erin-cilberto
Heirloom: a valuable object that has belonged to a family for several generations. Before my parents passed, they asked me what of theirs I would like for myself. The only item I really wanted was a book of photographs. It is a very old one filled with black and white photos of their parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, people they couldn’t even identify. Those pictures went back to the early 1900’s. An heirloom that has more worth than money could ever buy. Priceless. Priceless is what this book Heirloom is as Catherine-Esther Cowie takes us with her on a journey through four generations of women, what they survived, their defeats and victories. This is a book of poetry that defines faith, strength and deliverance through the toughest trials. Cowie begins with these words: “Image of our own making More paper and ink than flesh” She lets on that her poetry will show us her perspective of these four generations of women in her family. In “Blessed Be My Unwed Head,” she writes: “How noise in my head grows and grows, Splinters into phantoms and shapes, Graceless muses for her cot-mobile How I terror.” What a splendid use of the noun “terror” as a verb. So clever. In “Body Talk” she speaks of “A child we made on purpose, not like the first one. Now you slow, slow and shutter, hold onto your bruises longer.” We could see these words as identifying those silently suffering abuse, blaming themselves for it and feeling lucky to have a man. But to live in constant fear? Unfortunately, so many have. We see the body giving away with bruises what the heart will not admit. In another poem Catherine-Esther writes: “The first time God pulled me Into a body, I imagined myself a fruit, soft and spilling.” Later in the poem she writes: “We pitched forward in the dark; he had the knife, I was the ram undoing him with my teeth, our desecration darkening his fingertips Each time I offered my body, he grew a vision--- a raintree, the sky aflame, children, burning.”
Wow, what incredibly strong words. Power unleashed— “Even when the man hurt me My body could not forget Awakening.” People may only be kept down so long and then they wake up to the hurt they may have let happen and fight back. In “What I Know,” “I hit Auntie in the face she tried to sell my sisters I hit her again. We hid. I hit my daughter. Even now, She throws the past at me, Some sports uniform I burnt When she was thirteen.” Shades of Joan Crawford and “Mommy Dearest.” I know a mother who was mistreated at a young age by a stepmother and in some ways that was passed on to her children. Some scars do not totally heal and when they re-bleed, others may suffer. “On Repetition” has the speaker showing us: “Sunday afternoons my front porch my child right here by my side banging some toy into its broken parts” The woman appears to see herself and her own broken parts. She continues: “ A woman shuttered and struck I ruffle my daughter’s hair Sing I touch the woman Bruised cheek.” “The same blues” repeated from generation to generation until “the rot rises/ freights your lungs.” Again, she has cleverly used a noun as a verb. There is such action in Catherine-Esther Cowie’s poetry even when there are acceptance and inaction---the strength lies within. Will it eventually flourish? Can we forge a new path, differing from what those before us were forced to endure? We can only hope our book of photographs shows what was, not what needs to be now. With her final words she once again reverts to using a noun as a verb with such verve--- “I string you into verse---- A vengeance, … I call you monster, I call you father How this song blues the kitchen floor Bloodies our feet.”
This poetry will “blues” our heart, and it will “hit us in the face” but will also make us cheer the strength and survival shown by the fight these women of four generations embody.
ABOUT THE REVIEWER: jacob erin-cilberto is author of 26 books of poetry, his most recent being A Jersey Shore in Ryegate. He teaches at John Logan College and conducts workshops at Heartland Writers Guild, Southern Illinois Writers Guild and Union County Writers Guild.
Posted December 1, 2025

Message in a Bottle: Poets Respond to Hopeful Communication Edited by Mary Beth Bretzlauf, William T. Carey, Jennifer Dotson, Irene Hoffman, Julie Isaacson, & Jen Meyer

Highland Park Poetry Press, 2025 117 pages ISBN: 979-8988091974 Review by Michael Escoubas
Every year Highland Park Poetry Press comes out with another superb anthology. Contributors from all over the world and the United States offer their best work on a specific theme. The collaborative process results in a virtual banquet of poetic delights sure to please even the most sophisticated artistic palate. This year’s theme Message in a Bottle, is second to none in drawing fourth quality work.
Seventeen-year-old Briana Wessel’s “Lover’s Beach” stands out for its creativity. Note the plaintive messages both up and down as well as horizontally:
 Where Children played, and grown-ups talked, I waited in the waves near shore. Did you see me, love? Did you see me seeing you? Did you see the bottle at your feet? You Must have, it’s your favorite color. Pink and rosy and divine, the color I see surrounding you. But now I see you turn to Go. Aren’t you going to join me? I’ve waited for oh so long. I yearn to be beneath the water with you once again. My Scales have begun to dry, my tail lying restlessly atop the soft waves. Sirens aren’t known to fall for humans, But you’re too special. Too perfect. Aren’t you still my friend? Aren’t you still my Love?
Message in a Bottle is all about effective communication. Terry L Slaney’s “Telephone” gives readers pause to consider differing ways of getting through to people:
 We used bottles instead of tin cans at first but it didn’t work If you want the message to get through choose the right vessel won’t you?
 The words in the bottle will remain, but in the tine can they will fly out on the bounty main of air and sound waves picked up again at the other end into the ear, and out, my friend.
From beyond our borders, Sreejata Roy, from Kolkata, India in which the shared “mes-sage” is contained within the “bottle” of the poet’s heart:
 The Letting Go of Light
 An untold conflagration of a loving heart: I am bottling the flames up, like fireflies stolen from the night and surrendering them to the river that meanders down my city. Let these disappear with the dissolving stars in the water or get lost in the tides of the yawning ocean I would risk them to never be received rather than having to extinguish them again and live on with the charred remains.
Roy’s impressive use of imagery: fireflies stolen from the night, dissolving stars in the water, and the yawning ocean, represent the first-rate talent on display throughout this superb anthology.
“Vintage Wine in the Cabinet,” by Chinese American poet William Marr, shows Marr’s skill with lineage ranging anywhere from two to seven syllables:
 water and fire love and hate soul and flesh after countless fierce battles and intermingles it now becomes settled clear and bright
 the older its age the more aromatic
 floating on the sea of time emitting amber light this magic bottle from Arabian Nights is waiting patiently no, impatiently for someone to fish it up and uncork Marr’s signature cryptic style paints a vivid picture. One can easily visualize the subtle amber light of the bottle floating upon the sea. But Marr’s message runs deeper than that . . . it is a commentary on the human condition. The vintage wine of a wise heart . . . when will humankind drink deeply of peace, mercy, and grace?
By the time I had finished reading each poem in Message, I came to realize the editorial skills of the volume’s gifted team of editors. They have assembled a full-orbed portrait of the human condition. Morgan Silas Donnelly’s “Love Rings Out,” captures, with subtle charm, things this reviewer bottles up in his heart:
 Love rings out in clear black night A bell without sound A fire without heat A jury without sight
 Love rings out in clear dewy dawn A blue bird sings A kettle whistles The village comes alive A doe nuzzles her fawn
 Love rings out in clear bright day Workers yell instructions Coffee is poured Dogs go for walks Recess arrives, and children play
 Love rings out across the miles Across the waves Across the chasms To the stars and to the heavens when sweet memories bubble up and smiles erupt on the two who share knowing of how sweet love can be
Ah! Yes . . . the sweetness of love . . . order you copy today: Message in a Bottle: Poets Respond to Hopeful Communication . . . underpriced at a mere $15.00.
ABOUT THE REVIEWER: Michael Escoubas is Senior Editor, Contributing Poet, and Staff Book Reviewer for Quill and Parchment, a 23-year-old literary and cultural arts online journal. This review is republished with kind permission from Quill and Parchment.
Posted December 1, 2025

Winter Poems by Jim Wilkerson

Independently Published, 2025 46 pages ISBN: 979-8346676539 Review by Michael Escoubas
In his foreword to Winter Poems, Jim Wilkerson writes, Winter can be such a beautiful season. On several occasions Wallace Stevens affirms Wilkerson’s advocacy. In “The Snowman,” Stevens writes, “To behold the junipers shagged with ice, / The spruces rough in the distant glitter / of the January sun.” In another poem Stevens characterizes winter as “still full of icy shades and shapen snow.” While Stevens’ view of winter is often pejorative (he favors summer as the season in which “the mind lays by its trouble,” the examples cited do sound welcome notes of beauty in a season often associated with death and despair.
Enter Jim Wilkerson on centerstage. Jim’s debut collection is apt to challenge your mind about winter. It certainly has brought a change to this reviewer’s heart. My goal is to feature highlights that make buying a copy of Winter Poems well worth its modest asking price.
First off: The author’s titles speak to me and gain my interest. I live in these titles: “Autumn Says Goodbye,” “Snowbirds,” (I’m a snowbird myself). “Sledding Day,” and “Blizzard,” to cite but a few that drew me in.
The nicely rhymed “A Christmas Toy,” took me back to Christmas joy at eight years old:
 He came in plastic And cardboard with graphics
 He rolled down the table And everywhere he was able
 He spun out in the bedroom Popped wheelies in the bathroom
 He stood up in bed Then jumped off my head
 He kept watch by my night stand While I dozed off to dreamland
 A friend and protector of mine His name was Optimus Prime
While my Christmas morning treasures were well short of Optimus Prime, (I got a Roy Rogers cap gun and holster set), the feelings were the same. A gift that was all mine, something hoped for, realized. I wore that holster set with pride.
While early morning gift-openings are memories to treasure, Wilkerson presents a very adult seasonal dimension in “We’re Going.” The weather is cold and bleak but a friend in the hospital “With cancer / Lurking like a blizzard,” needs pastoral care:
 It was a 40-mile trip One way Knowing by the time You head home It will be twice as white Twice as slick Twice as dangerous
The poem “Still” uses the word still, in skillful repetition to describe the longings of a soldier faraway. The haunting violence of war permeates the poet’s psyche thinks of his beloved knowing “that she loves me so / and she’s waiting, still.”
Variety pervades this exquisitely produced volume. Seven winter haiku are salt and peppered throughout”
#1 snow angels frozen I look where our hands once touched just three days ago
#3 pup sees first winter she doesn’t need to be told how to play in snow
#6 winter fisherman drills at a woman’s frozen heart still too thick
Wilkerson’s poems are written primarily in free verse. There are prose poems, short-syllabic poems, poems that are centered on the page, poems with a wide range of stanza configurations, as well as a lovely poem which honors Jim’s faith-tradition titled, “Did You Know,” Here’s an excerpt:
 Unselfish love Blood poured out for all The red of Christmas.”
Indeed, the deeper meaning of winter is not lost on this budding new talent. Jim Wilkerson has something special when pen and paper meet the seasons of life.Winter Poems is proof-positive of that.
ABOUT THE REVIEWER: Michael Escoubas is Senior Editor, Contributing Poet, and Staff Book Reviewer for Quill and Parchment, a 23-year-old literary and cultural arts online journal. This review is republished with kind permission from Quill and Parchment. Posted December 1, 2025
To Order, author instructs - You send me your book, I’ll send you mine:Carl “Papa” Palmer, 8918 46th Street West, University Place, WA 98466carlpalmer@hotmail.com

Old Mill Road by Carl "Papa" Palmer

Independently Published102 pages To Order, author instructs - You send me your book, I’ll send you mine:Carl “Papa” Palmer, 8918 46th Street West, University Place, WA 98466carlpalmer@hotmail.com Review by Michael Escoubas
Imagine yourself a fifty-year-old orphan. The startling circumstances of losing both of his parents, fifteen days apart, as well as his childhood home due to a fire had a tsunami-like effect on Carl Palmer. All traces of his parents’ existence along with any physical evidence of their existence caused a sea change in the poet’s life. The stories and poems in Old Mill Road are Carl’s heartfelt response to preserving the rich heritage of his family, himself, and his Puget Sound environs.
My goal is to show the heart and soul of a distinguished poet using his craft to honor his family and the Pacific Northwest, as only poetry can do.
First off, Carl “Papa” Palmer loves to connect with people. His verse is crisp, colorful, and accessible. No pretense here. Carl drew me in with titles such as: “Amana Memories,” a poem about his mother’s calming voice making magic of words on the page, “perfectly pronouncing six syllable words,” and “Portrait of Helen,” a poem about a lady whose permanent was so perfect that “not a hair was out of place, ever.” I related immediately to these poems because they brought my own youthful images to mind.
Interspersed among the poems are essays that lift the curtain on Carl’s interesting life. One such essay is entitled “May 18th, 1980.” In this remarkable stream of consciousness narrative, Palmer recalls being station in the U.S. Army in Hessen, West Germany, witnessing a cloud of white ash that had crossed the Atlantic ocean after Mt. St. Helens “blew her top” in western Washington state. The cloud landed on his blue BMW! This narrative poem, which contains no punctuation other than commas, is full of colorful commentary on the region: where giant Pacific Octopi reside, Big Foot, aka Sasquatch sightings, legends about underground tunnels burrowed beneath skid row streets for waylaying drunks and placing them on merchant ships heading out to sea. These are just for starters. Readers may skip over some of the poems, but no one should miss this creative gem.
Carl has an innate sense about how to reach the heart. For example, “Harmonica Player” recalls his Dad’s skill on the instrument. He played songs his listeners liked: Camptown Racetrack, Oh Susannah and Red River Valley. He could play German tunes when he felt like it and do a perfect imitation of a train chugging its way along the tracks. Sons and grandsons each received their own Hohner harmonica and beginner instruction book. Such family-binding moments make this collection stand out.
Palmer’s skill with irony is captured in:
“second hand smoke”
retorted with husky voicethrough puffed streamsof freshly used fumes
“just a rumor” raspingan aroma of burnt tar
“not proven” as shepops a breath mintahems her phegm
flips the spent butt afterone last lung filled drag
refreshes her perfumeand reenters the barafter enjoying a quickbreath of clean fresh air
“Act Your Age” is filled with winsome truth. A young girl observes her Dad at leisure watching TV in bare feet, munching on popcorn, drinking chocolate milk straight from the milk carton:
“He stays up late as he wants, eatswhenever and whatever, never hasto get up early for school or workand nobody tells him what to do.”
“I can’t wait until I am an adultso I can be a kid just like my Papa.”
“Poet’s Prayer” is a charming confessional to the Lord. Carl comes clean with God about his numerous deficiencies such as not attending church as often as he should and other acts that deserve heartfelt penance. He says, “I mislead, spin yarns, take false / liberties justified by some self / served poetic license.” But he rests in the sublime faith that whatever may be his shortcomings, he is confident that “in spite of my untruths, / You take care of me, so I guess / we remain on good terms.”
Old Mill Road speaks to me where I live. This delightful collection comes home to me in the poem “Family Values”:
It makes me feel good to see the family,mother, father, son and daughtersitting together on the spread blanket at the parkheads bowed around their picnic lunch, a traditionof saying grace before the meal not often seen,
when they all look up at the same time, laugh andpoint at the tweet just received on their iPhones.
Order your copy from Carl, get a cup of coffee or tea, sit back and simply enjoy.
ABOUT THE REVIEWER: Michael Escoubas is Senior Editor, Contributing Poet, and Staff Book Reviewer for Quill and Parchment, a 23-year-old literary and cultural arts online journal. This review is republished with kind permission from Quill and Parchment.
Posted December 1, 2025

Garden Tools by David W. Berner

Finishing Line Press, 2025 70 pages ISBN: 979-8-899990-131-7 Review by jacob erin-cilberto
The opening lines of “Desert Prayer,” the first poem in Garden Tools, give us the perfect opening for this review:
 “If I were to swallow the earth, I would taste cinnamon in the desert’s red rocks, where the light catches the edges of the heart, and the table is set for one.”
Yes, the table is set for one, the reader. And reading through this volume of poetry demonstrates how this poet has “swallowed the earth” and through the mouth of his pen echoes all of the flavors of nature and how they have been such a major influence on his poetry.
In “The Last Tulip,” David gives us “from the deep-brown ground comes/ an owl-brown, dying plant, dying for now.” We see summer on its last legs, trying to stretch itself out for just a few more days.
 “but there is an uncertain death--- a burning in the night or a slow goodbye without ever opening in the midday sun.”
Perhaps, some of us never quite achieve what we could be in full bloom before fall takes us away.
This poet gave me such an emotional turn in his poem “Workshop.” He dedicates this piece to his father, but the universality with which David writes allows the readers to bring their own experiences and feelings to the works. For me, this poem reminds me so much of my engineer father. A brilliant man in his field, a little less handy at home with his own tools.
 “A jigsaw Coping saw Keyhole saw and a bone saw”
Inside, I often smirked because Dad would be determined to do it himself. Most often he would get there after several failed attempts and a barrage of curses to the god of home repairs. Much like Berner’s father:
 “He decided long ago he was to be a woodworker a carpenter who made dining room tables, rocking horses, and humidors.”
My father was not that extravagant with his endeavors---but with much of the same result.
David’s poem “Illness” reminded me of my mother’s last couple years.
 “What tells us when it’s time to restart a life to shed a skin?”
There was a shedding of skin, but her life was to be restarted in the Heavens above.
 “Revival comes In the desperate places Found in the underbelly of sickness.”
And thus, she (my mother) left us to shed our own skins one day.
On the lighter side, David gives us the poem called “Fists.” He reminisces of the boy in the schoolyard always wanting to fight him.
“Running straight to each other as fast as we could embracing with smashing fists.”
Oh, I had such a similar situation. But not being proficient with fists, I often took the brunt of punishment. I had one advantage. I was stronger and could wrestle. So, eventually, I would get tired of getting hit and grab him and put him on the ground, while sitting on top of him until he would cry “Uncle.” He hated being the submissive one.
 “I wonder if he remembers”
And often I wondered if years later, he remembered those days.
Another wonderful poem in this book is “For the Writer.” He scribes:
 “And on my desk A typewriter sits My journal at its side pen before the page in the mystic I dream of magic”
Such a great use of near rhyme this poet so often uses. All of us writers dream of that magic. We hope that this might occur:
 “I forever hammer at the bark in silent night or morning moon my beak against the wood.”
Peck, peck, pecking at the keys with something worthwhile to say.
In “Thinking of Death” the poet speaks of having his sister’s ashes in his car, driving her around the block and that she will hear the music on the radio. And he ends the poem with this line. “I hope someone drives me around when I’m dead.”
I suppose it would be nice to be the passenger after a life of driving ourselves everywhere, including “Crazy.”
In his final poem “December,” he speaks of “coming on winter” and finishes the poem with these appropriate lines:
 “in the lattice work of clouds to fall on skeleton reeds of decayed thistles stillness takes hold be silent pause.”
And as Hamlet said “The rest is silence.” David W. Berner’s poetry is concise. He wastes not one word. And it is much more than just reading. It is the experience of seeing and feeling nature and how that nature nurtures us and provides a perfect setting for the portraits we paint of our own lives.
ABOUT THE REVIEWER: jacob erin-cilberto is author of 26 books of poetry, his most recent being A Jersey Shore in Ryegate. He teaches at John Logan College and conducts workshops at Heartland Writers Guild, Southern Illinois Writers Guild and Union County Writers Guild.
Posted November 1, 2025

Memory Coin: Poems by Sheila Elliott

Highland Park Poetry Press, 2025 65 pages ISBN: 979-8999712202Review by Michael Escoubas
It is little wonder that Memory Coin, by Sheila Elliott, was awarded first place in the prestigious Prairie State Poetry Prize competition for best first or second collection. As competition judge Jan Chronister states: “Sheila Elliott meditates on everyday places and events that connect us.” When I reflect upon my reasons for writing and reading poetry, that statement by Chronister, says it all! A poem must capture my interest in the telling moments of life, in the things, people, and places, which define who I am. Elliott understands “places of the heart.” My goal is to show several examples that evidence Sheila Elliott’s heart, a heart that reaches mine.
Notes on Titles and Structure:
My prereading of Memory Coin immediately captures my attention by the poet’s skill with titles.“Tea Leaves and Cards in the Reliance Building.” What’s this all about, I wonder. Then I encounter, “Gentle as Ice,” . . . How can ice be gentle? “Enduring Uncertainty,” “Prescient Frost,” “The Rules of 2 A.M. Conversations,” and “Let’s Meet Beneath the Clock.” I wonder what goes on under the clock!
Elliott is a free-verse poet, as well as a poet skilled in rhyme. Her free-verse style is never boring because she uses quatrains, couplets, innovative lineage, and interesting stanza breaks. A few poems run solid. “In Praise of Ordinary Things,” is a well-written prose poem. “Autumn Leaves, Last Leaves,” is an example of inventive line endings and nicely executed rhyme:
 Autumn leaves, last leaves, winnowed boughs, thin-sleeved, begin tossing, they heave but in the end, cleave. To win a chance is to believe there’s a sense to this weave and spin.
 But darkness lets us see how strong light can be, trees, trim— they’re set sparsely yet perfectly, within the space they’re meant to be, sentinels, with exacting gravity within.
It is Elliott’s superb use of the imagination that stands out. Is Nature harboring within its seasonal cycles something we humans should notice about ourselves? If there is an issue here, Elliott does not do our work for us. Like any great poet, she is bold enough NOT to solve a problem. She trusts her readers to ponder for a little more depth.
Notes on Nature and the Human Condition
Sheila Elliott paints pictures with words. Most good poets do this. However, Elliott excels. Among the harder things to do in life is to wait. In a mere five couplets she portrays a merger between Nature and the human spirit:
 What it Means to Wait
 Where ridges cascade into hollows, there winter reveals itself. Aging snow ponds, and gray shadows, thinner than the twining trees above, lay scattered discreetly. There, wind now and forever unseen, whispers something about the meaning of waiting.
I can see it. An intimation of desolation, long-standing snow, unremitting gray interacting with barren boughs, the incessant wind dominating the scene, its whispers portending change, the unnamed (but assumed) human presence . . . waiting, waiting, waiting.
“Coulda’ . . . Shoulda’ ” draws a corollary between natural-world phenomenon and the human spirit. Elliott eloquently captures an anomaly of human experience.
 Never wanted things this way, but no one tells you that the slick, secret skin of the great and narrow road can be followed for too long, or how ice you can’t even see can snap back at you like a rubber band, spin you ‘round, slow you down, then set you face-to-face so you’ve got to meet the golden eyes of the demon that is the wish for the past’s revision.
How pointedly this poem speaks to real-world issues for this reviewer.
“Her Passing” is an elegy written for the poet’s mother. It is an unconventional sonnet which scans: aaa / bbb / ccc / ddd / ee. However, it is the tenderness felt by Elliott that speaks to my heart.
 When it came to the end, when we were sure she wouldn’t mend, I didn’t try to pretend— It was me crossing in a way, too, leaving with reluctance, away and through, though I had a life’s work still to do.
 Years have gone by since that night. I’ve seen now, death is an invisible sight, a flat line that intensifies the light. And though she passed when I was grown, time since has surely shown one loss is not to be outgrown. And coping becomes the mask When we’re not up to the task.
One task, dear reader, that you are up to is ordering a copy of Sheila Elliott’s award-winning collection, Money Coin. A mere $15.00 will transport you to a poetry banquet that will satisfy your hunger for spirit-nourishing food.
ABOUT THE REVIEWER: Michael Escoubas is Senior Editor, Contributing Poet, and Staff Book Reviewer for Quill and Parchment, a 23-year-old literary and cultural arts online journal. This review is republished with kind permission from Quill and Parchment.
Posted November 1, 2025

Eject City by Jason Morphew

Poets Wear Prada, 2025 88 pages ISBN: 978-1946116291Review by Patricia Carragon
In Eject City, we enter a fragmented world of pain and grief, bottled up for years. Unlike fine wine, pain and grief simmer in the darkness of unsettled family histories that refuse to stay buried, a monster that needs to rage before it is set free from its crypt. Morphew is not afraid to dig into his past, to do his own “shadow work.” He transforms his agony into art. An art form that is helping him heal.
In “Bell’s Palsy,” Morphew suffered a facial paralysis during a Slash concert in Laurel Canyon. This poem explores a sudden loss of control in both language and form. He writes in two columns, where meanings can either be read across or down. But the intensity cannot be camouflaged. We know he is depressed with the current political situation and his own. The concert setting underscores this tension—a public performance colliding with a private crisis, joy disrupted by sudden vulnerability. In “Bell’s Palsy,” poetry itself becomes a reflection of the body’s betrayals and the outside world.
Where “Bell’s Palsy” is about physical disruption, “Suzanne” delves into the intimate world of memory and shame. The poem emerges from a dream state. A dream so unsettling, like a reality dosed with drugs and an unraveling marriage. The poem’s disorientation is internal, lodged in voice and syntax. The backstory behind the poem is about Morphew’s cousin Barry Morphew, who has been re-arrested for killing Suzanne Morphew and is currently in prison, awaiting trial. Beyond the history, “Suzanne” captures grief, absence, and loss in one of his strongest poems, leaving only unresolved questions to haunt the mind. In “Now that’s my father’s ash,” Morphew writes about his heartfelt experience—carrying his father’s ashes in a bag, alongside a tube of toothpaste—a bizarre contrast of an everyday item versus the human remains of a living person. Unlike the formal experimentation of “Bell’s Palsy” or the fragmentary drift of “Suzanne,” this poem is blunt simplicity but has power in its context. Death goes beyond the grief of losing a loved one. Death is a part of life, like brushing your teeth. That legacy and mortality are never distant abstractions; they live among us, pressing against our daily lives.
Throughout Eject City, Morphew embraces life not as an accident but as a method. The collection’s wide range of styles—shape poems, elegiac lyrics, fragmentary meditations—feels less like eclecticism and more like a deliberate embrace of instability. The book suggests that erratic ruptures are the truest interpretation of experience. Bodies fail, families disintegrate, memories blur, and yet poetry persists amid the broken events of life. Morphew’s background as both a poet and songwriter resonates throughout the collection. Some poems carry a musical cadence; others resist rhythm altogether. Morphew is unafraid to let his poems falter, stutter, or collapse into silence. He is a true artist—a virtuoso who is unafraid to take risks. He transforms his despair and life’s experiences into art—whether of body, of heart, or of legacy. The collection is difficult, inventive, and deeply honest. It will not leave its readers unchanged but may make you think about your trail of shadows.
About Jason Morphew - Jason Morphew started life in a mobile home in Pike County, Arkansas. Of his debut collection, dead boy, The Washington Post says Morphew’s “sharp intelligence makes the poems pop.” His writing has appeared in The Daily Beast, Los Angeles Review of Books, Seneca Review, and other places. As a singer-songwriter, Morphew has released albums on Ba Da Bing, Max, Brassland, and Unread Records. He lives in Los Angeles and teaches at Stanford Online High School.
ABOUT THE REVIEWER: Patricia Carragon received a 2025 Best of the Net nomination for her haiku, “Cherry Blossoms,” from Poets Wear Prada. She hosts Brownstone Poets and is the editor-in-chief of its annual anthology. She is the editor of Sense & Sensibility Haiku Journal and listed on the poet registry for The Haiku Foundation. Carragon's jazz poetry collection, Stranger on the Shore, from Human Error Publishing, is forthcoming this year. Her latest novel is Angel Fire (Alien Buddha Press, 2020). Books from Poets Wear Prada are Meowku (2019) and The Cupcake Chronicles (2017). Her book Innocence is from Finishing Line Press (2017).
Posted November 1, 2025

Darkness Called Us Home by Rosemarie Wurth-Grice

Finishing Line Press, 2025 30 pages ISBN: 979-8888389898Review by jacob erin-cilberto
I felt conflicted reading this book of poetry. Much sadness enveloped me at the losses suffered by the speaker in these poems. But I also smiled at the incredibly intelligent metaphors that help convey that very grief. And I do love metaphors and express most of my work through them. The cleverness in her lines eases the pain the reader’s heart feels.
In her poem “Vestigial” she writes:
 “You gave me memories I could have tucked away Like cherished linens in a cedar-lined chest But you know I could never fold anything neatly”
She seems to indicate, “I cannot remember you without wrinkles in the creases.”
In “Sunday Morning Self-Realization,” a poem written on legal pads that her dog chewed on but found “unpalatable,” she shares the following:
 “I walked across the pasture and wrote a list of grief-bent metaphors.”
And in another poem, she advanced these lines “In my other life I couldn’t swim and sailed the Titanic.”
So, is she meaning “why would my heart go on” after such losses or is she saying she must go on and swim against the current of despair? So many questions are raised by Wurth-Grice’s poetry, and she challenges us readers to answer them for ourselves when pertaining to our own griefs.
And how eerie is that metaphor relating to the Titanic?
She speaks of titles of poems she will never write. I cannot help but think of Plath, Sexton, Berryman, O’Hara and others who died too soon and wonder how much was left in their poetic souls. How much poetry from all of these artists did we miss? Were they written out or was there more to come?
Her poem “An October Pantoum of Sorts,” I felt a Plathian touch. Rosemarie speaks of“a solitary bee is sleeping/…/ Your Keeper has died?” Plath often wrote about keeping bees and how they turned on her and she was stung all over.
In “Winter Rain,” the speaker is listening
“to the sky shedding wet shades of grey a thousand cat feet tromping on the eaves to sit by a fire solitary but content in warm sylvan silence.”
So, does the rain and loneliness cause us to dwell on sadness? Or do we come to a comfortable agreement with it and find contentment in the memories?
 “In the soft warmth of your flesh gone You have a place but your place is not here,”
I wonder where that place is to where our loved ones have gone. I just hope they are sitting comfortably by a fire, smiling contentedly and thinking of us, the ones they left behind.
Worth-Grice writes such relatable poetry. We take this journey with her, and it is a sharing of feelings and memories between poet and reader.
ABOUT THE REVIEWER: jacob erin-cilberto is author of 26 books of poetry, his most recent being A Jersey Shore in Ryegate. He teaches at John Logan College and conducts workshops at Heartland Writers Guild, Southern Illinois Writers Guild and Union County Writers Guild. Posted November 1, 2025

Gentle Grasp by Laura Daniels

Kelsay Books, 2024 62 pages ISBN: 978-1639806638Review by jacob erin-cilberto
It is not easy to make that journey in life that might end in contentment. But Laura Daniels writes poetry that moves us with a Gentle Grasp on our minds and hearts. And we find ourselves wanting and needing to go along with her.
In her piece titled “Anna/An Inventory,” Daniels shows the subject as “not a busybody when she looks out the window; she’s neighborhood-watching… she makes sense of her world through words. She writes to let out all that is contained but churning to be released.”This poetry book does just that. It shows a great release in the form of “just being.” The key to peace in life is “just being.”
In “Come Out of the Shadow” she talks of how “happiness evaporates overnight/ transformed light into darkness/ Cimmeria garden flora/ unable to root, nothing/ grew in shadow.” Sometimes we seem to put ourselves into our own asylum with “understanding sought/ understanding withered.” But “eventually in illumination/ finally got grounding/ began to bloom.” Is she saying we need to work on ourselves to get to that place where we are “just being”? Perhaps, yes. And we reach that point, then, “roots spread/ roots deepened.”
In her poem, “Centering” she writes: “to absorb those hard tough bits (of life?) before it’s too late”And later in the poem she expresses ”I want to look away ignore what’s coming.”
But “We grasp/ we grieve/we gaze/ at the sunset/ …/ just listening/ accepting/ being.”
There are moments in life when we may wonder whether going on is something we want to do. In “Reflection: A Golden Shovel,” she shares: “In the morning the sun tried to shine joy into a mirror that sits alone. Its reflection isn’t something I want shared.”
In our younger, uneven years, we have so much uncertainty as to who we want to be, what we really are, how much we could achieve. Expectations pile on top of expectations, on top of expectations. All that is what others need us to be in order for them to be content. But Laura’s poetry helps us to find a much smarter course in life.In her “Poem at Sixty,” she writes: “once I slept like a motherboard waking up freshly restored to factory specifications that was before my warranty expired. and the factory recall can they even find the part?”
Can they find the part? Can’t fix the car without the part. Can’t fix ourselves without the part. But what if the part is not something tangible or concrete? What if the part is more of a notion of an idea?
What if we are simply “beauty/ mending/cracked cup” put back together by us “Simply/ being”? What if we could embrace the wonderfully sane philosophy of Laura Daniels’ poetry. And then maybe we would be: “Stoking others’ courageous inner fires knowing these qualities live in all.”
Laura Daniels’ poetry is realistic but so hopeful.
In “Centering” she leaves us with this thought: “here’s hoping heaven’s a lot like love”
If we can find ourselves “just being” perhaps it will be. Read this book and find where your center lies, your inner peace; this author may help you with that journey of discovery.

ABOUT THE REVIEWER: jacob erin-cilberto is author of 25 books of poetry, his most recent being A Journeyman’s Poems. He teaches at John Logan College and conducts workshops at Heartland Writers Guild, Southern Illinois Writers Guild and Union County Writers Guild.
Posted October 1, 2025
Order from Artful Communicators Press 711 Oak Street, St 310, Winnetka, IL 60093 For credit card purchase, contact Ebay distributor of Artful Communicators Press in Winnetka, Illinois. Questions about purchase? Call 847-881-2664

Wondrous Instruction and Advice from Global Poets: How to Write and Publish Moving Poems and Books and Publicize Like a Pro by Charlotte Digregorio

Artful Communicators Press, 2025Softcover: 334 Pages, (27 Chapters) 8.5 X 11 InchesRetail Price, $27.95 (plus 6.25 SH)-check or money orderISBN 978-0-9912139-2-4Order from Artful Communicators Press711 Oak Street, St 310, Winnetka, IL 60093For credit card purchase, contact Ebay distributor of Artful Communicators Press in Winnetka, Illinois. Questions about purchase? Call 847-881-2664Review by Joan Leotta
Promises Kept and More! The things I noticed about this volume were its size— 8.5 by 11—and thick and the broad scope of the title. Then, on the back cover, I read the many enthusiastic endorsements from poets , including the wonderful Roberta Beary, and noted the lengthy list of DiGregorio’s other books.
The title and subtitle set a daunting task before the and reader, promising “wondrous” instruction and advice from around the globe, and in the subtitle, information on how to publish poems that will touch readers, compile those into books, along with tips on publishing, publicity and sales. In addition, as a lagniappe, the volume contains an entire chapbook of poems by Charlotte DiGregorio. Blue Lines, A Poetry Collection forms part of the back matter of the book and serves as an example of what DiGregorio has just taught her readers to do, especially with regard to compiling a collection and producing it. This is not a book with templates of poetic forms. Rather, it is a wholistic approach to the art of poetry—how poems function as an extension of a writer’s creativity, how they work into one’s life, and how writers can share their work, make it known to others , by publishing.
I have long been an admirer of DiGregorio’s work, so I jumped at the chance to read and review this work. Reading this book, I benefit from her advice and have been inspired to go in various new directions with my own work. Just as a small example, in the front of the book DiGregorio offers quotes from many writers on creativity, this line of hers stood out for me: “each month I make it a point to read the work of a poet I’ve never read before to inspire and to expand my poetry knowledge.” She adds that reading –poets, poetry, and other kinds of literature music, theatre, dance, are also ways to improve one’s own work. She also advises immersion in other art forms, in nature, in life itself, including exploring new cultures, as ways to “rev-up” one’s poetic engine, not simply to find new topics but also to see the world from new perspectives. She says that the broader our interests the more avenues you have for creating poems. She advises readers to expand their reading beyond poetry, too and knows how this can inspire writing of yours. She devotes an entire chapter on how to think like a writer.
She does offers a deep dive into haiku, senryu, and tanka—three forms that she writes in most often and from her perspective are forms that are champions at combining wisdom and heart, She notes that finding healing and wisdom and learning to appreciate life’s moments which are an innate part of these forms. Haiku in particular is about capturing the moment, rooted in Zen Buddhism it teaches gratitude and both haiku and senryu bring our inner selves to the surface—to go onto paper.
DiGregorio is not content with simply getting a person to write. She also offers practical advice on preparing for poetry readings, forming a critique group, how to conduct a critique group, how to deal with rejection, plan a book of your own, and publish then publicize the work. When speaking of rejection she offers the experience of award-winning poet (in several forms) Roberta Beary (USA and Ireland) who had a small piece rejected several times but kept submitting it. That same poem won the International Kusamakura competition (2025) in Japan! Persistence pays.
DiGregorio has not only fulfilled the promises made by the title, but thanks to the included book of poems and the lists of comments made by numerous poets on creativity and other topics, and the careful, example-laden structure of the book, she has exceeded my expectations. Although just having advice from Charlotte herself would be amazing, she offers points of view from all over the world on the topics she tackles in this book, which are what increases its value immensely. DiGregorio is the author of nine books, including poetry collections and how-to’s on various aspects of writing, publishing, and selling books. DiGregorio is also a noted speaker and teacher who has received more than four score poetry awards and has been honored by the Governor of Illinois for her lifelong literary achievements. Serving others with her talents includes past served as VP of the Haiku Society of America and working as the regional coordinator of the International Woman’s Writing Guild.
Because of its holistic approach and conversational tone which open the door to deeper thinking for both a novice writer and the more experienced wordsmith without being overly complicated or too simple, I was not surprised to learn that this book has already been adopted as a supplemental text at several universities. This is a book that belongs on every teacher’s desk, on the desk of every student of poetry, the nightstand of every practicing poet, and in the TBR pile of everyone who is even thinking about becoming a poet. In fact, upon finishing the book I moved it to the side of my desk where it will repose as a reference and source of creative “jump starting” when I need it. Two of the master writers she quotes remind us, “The pen is the tongue of the mind” (Cervantes) and advise “Who dares nothing need hope for nothing”(Friedrich Schiller German poet and playwright).
Continuing to learn, aspire to inspire, develop a readership to keep you motivated—three bits of advice from Charlotte I hope to apply to my work daily. Reading it is time well spent. Referring to it often, a joy.
Thank you, Charlotte, for writing this book.

ABOUT THE REVIEWER: Joan Leotta is an author and story performer. Her work was nominated for Pushcart and Best of Net in 2022. Publications include Feathers on Stone poetry chapbook (Mainstreet Rag Press) and Languid Lusciousness with Lemon (Finishing Line Press).
Posted October 1, 2025

The Songs of Summer: Poems About Baseball Tom Erickson & Ed Werstein, Editors

Water’s Edge Press106 pages ISBN 978-1-952526-31-2https://www.watersedgepress.com/product/the-songs-of-summer-poems-about-baseball/Review by Lois Baer Barr I am not a serious fan of baseball. I went to bed when the Cubs were tied with the Indians in the 2016 World Series. There was a plane to catch at Midway early the next morning, so I didn’t find out that the curse had been broken until I got to Harry Caray’s for breakfast. So, why am I reviewing The Songs of Summer: Poems About Baseball? Poetry! I am a sucker for good poetry that lifts into the air like a long ball heading over the ivy-covered wall. This anthology includes poets from the Midwest and from around the world and is full of fast balls, curve balls and pop flies that seem to hang in the air endlessly. It celebrates cherished memories, the rituals of our lives, and the “The Friendly Confines” that baseball offers us. With a wide variety of forms, it offers the rhythm of the seasons, a welcome dose of humor as well as the serious side of playing baseball. Many of the poems in this anthology are about relationships. Sometimes Baseball nurtures and strengthen family ties. This collection includes the voices of women as players and spectators. Jocelyn Boor celebrates an intergenerational tie in “Baseball for Girls:” My grandpa took me to baseball games/When I was three years old. The Rockford Peaches./Instead of popcorn/I wanted to play.” Peggy Trojan speaks of the sacrifice involved in being a “Baseball Mom,” from “Little League to high school varsity.” But she did not do that for the love of the game:, “I came to watch you.” In Maggie Capettini’s lyrical remembrance, “Dad’s AM Radio,” not only does baseball create family ties but it also ties the city of Chicago to rural America. “it still sounded as though/they were inside a tin can,/talking to us through a child’s play/ telephone of empty soup and a string—/somehow synchronously distant/and intimate.” For some relationships, baseball was the only vehicle for communication. In Jan Chronister’s “ A Game to Remember” the poet reveals, “… the only year the Braves won the World Series./That was the only day my dad spent time with me alone.” For others baseball brings back bitter memories. The loss of a son, a promising player making his way up the ranks playing in Kenosha and Cedar Rapids is achingly recalled after a ballgame in Gregory Zeck’s "Boys Forever Blues." Naturally, there are many poems about the heroes of the game from Shohei Ohtani (Bill Cushing’s “samurai in cleats”) to Willie Mays. Roberto Clemente’s fateful flight to Nicaragua to deliver relief to earthquake victims is described in a poem by James P. Roberts. Mario (the Poet) Willis “For the Love of the Game” sings the praises of heroes of the Negro Leagues. Even Mighty Casey is remembered. Paul Buchheit’s “Say Hey” recounts a softball game in which their talented short stop went for a long drive to centerfield, but “…Mikey Casey dropped the ball.” Then there are also the unsung heroes, players whose baseball cards are only worth $2.00 in David Jibson’s “On Finding a Jack Morris Baseball Card.” And for those of us who like the hoopla better than the game, I appreciated Robert Chicoine’s “Nancy Faust” about the organist who just came out of retirement to play for the Sox 125th anniversary season. Many of the pieces show baseball’s unique language. In “Ode to Baseball.” Amy Miller’s “Spring: A Catechism” …We speak their Spanish, their Irish names, speak their same strange language: Split-finger. Short Porch. Wheelhouse. Fly.
In Vincent Wixon’s “Town Ball” (11) the nicknames of the players beg to be in a poem: “Carp, Big Daddy, Sam Curt, Pus Arm, Hoss, Billy, Flame Thrower, Bo, Lefty, Flatty, Harmbody…” The Songs of Summer offers a variety of forms from persona poems and narratives to eye-catching haiku and a variety of ways to play the game; sandlot, backyard, major leagues, minor leagues, softball, hardball. Mark Hammerschick’s “Baseball” notes the personal lessons: “it’s how we learn to be human/ scoring, striking out, winning and losing. This game, as the poets remind us, is our national pastime. We do not sacrifice a bull. No gladiators are thrown to the lions. Mario (the Poet) Willis says in “Baseball”: The game still groans to think it was ever used to separate men when these diamonds and green grass were intended to bring us together. (16-17) Playgrounds provide a sacred space within our day-to-day world as Virginia Small relates in “Home Team”: We created a diamond in the space between the bar, the shed and the garage.
Moreover, baseball has a strange effect. It “… stops time when nothing else will” says Pepper Trail in “Upon Being Told, Again, That Baseball is too Slow.” The nostalgia served up in this book is not sappy. Scott Lowery’s “Memorabilia” offers an arresting scrapbook of haiku. For example, and here comes the tarp roll & tumble one small crew versus all that rain
The tough part of being a critic is that like the ump you must call them like you see ‘em. For my taste, the title is too sweet for this collection of poems. A sibilant whisper of soft evenings and soft landings. The cover with its sunlit green grass gives the same message. Yet, thankfully, there are dark poems that reveal baseball’s ugly side. In “Elegy for a Dove,” Darrell Petska’s persona poem, the baseball feels guilt about killing a dove when flung by the pitcher at 100 miles an hour. Tim Krcmarik’s poem, “The Big Hurt,” reminds us of the painful holes that are covered by baseball. pedaling pussy and gin, the north side Blues and the south side Blacks,
 all starry-eyed on coffee and speed, lock horns in a bi-annual bloodbath
So, if I nitpick about the title and cover, it is only because this book includes the beauty, the brawn, as well as the ugly black and blue underbelly of the game. Could they have included a persona poem from a battered wife? That is not my call to make. My call on this book is that it is a brilliant display of poetic fireworks and finesse. Each time I pick it up, I discover more to ponder and to relish. If you take me out to the ballgame, I’ll pack this anthology in my pocket.
ABOUT THE REVIEWER: Lois Baer Barr has published two chapbooks of poetry, Biopoesis and Tracks: Poems on the “L.” She goes to baseball games to eat Crackerjack, drink beer, and yell.
Posted October 1, 2025

What the House Knows Anthology edited by Diane Lockward

116 poems ~ 210 pagesPrice: $21.00Publisher: Terrapin BooksISBN: 978-1-947896-78-9Reviewed by Michael Escoubas
About houses Robert Frost once wrote, “Talking is a hydrant in the yard and writing is a faucet upstairs in the house. Opening the first takes all the pressure off the second.” This thought occurred to me as I read the wonderful poems in editor Diane Lockward’s superb anthology, What the House Knows. After all, few things matter more, or have exerted greater influence, for good or bad, upon our lives, than those special places we call home. Lockward, in her excellent introduction, concludes “As you move through the poems . . . listen to what the walls have to say.” The walls in this anthology have a lot to say. My goal is to share how some of them have spoken to my heart.
If you are a fan of variety, What the House Knows will not disappoint. There are long poems, short poems, poems that rhyme, free verse, classical form poems, prose poems and more. There are great titles too: “The Doghouse,” “Deep in Milkweed,” (What is that all about?), “The Poet Leaves Muzot for Paris and the Housekeeper Remains,” and “The Fire Responds to Questioning.” No poem disappointed me.
Need I explain what “The Doghouse” is about? This delightful take on household unrest, by Eric Nelson, engaged me with a kernel of truth. It sums up, for me, what I felt witnessing my own parents’ consternation with each other. Nelson, the son, imagines life from the perspective of living in the doghouse. His last stanza is precious:
 How I learned what it meant to be in the doghouse I don’t know. But whenever I hear the expression I think of my Dad. And Mom. And Ray and the house where I grew up knowing I was loved. And nothing else.
Note: “Ray” is short for “Stray” the dog.
In my youth and even as an adult, I am drawn to the Biblical story of the prophet Jonah in the belly of a Great Fish—he lived there for three days’ time. It is not surprising then that Jennifer Maier’s “The Occupant Imagines the House as a Great Fish” arrested my attention. In this fascinatingly creative gem, Maier finds herself living in a century-old house, “each year a silver iridescent scale.” The poet describes its “creaks and currents of air, its slow, digestive rhythms.” Maier conjures the former occupants, imagines what they were like, asks them questions about the décor, what influenced their decisions. Don’t miss the last stanza on this one—it highlights Maier’s excellent command of her Great Fish metaphor.
Ted Kooser’s “Abandoned Farmhouse” is a masterpiece of interesting details. His listing of clues about the house’s former occupants would impress any detective. Kooser aptly defines the size, shape, demeanor, likes, dislikes, and tendencies of those no longer there. Then Kooser lets everything hang out there wanting answers:
 Something went wrong, says the empty house in the weed-choked yard. Stones in the fields say he was not a farmer; the still-sealed jars in the cellar say she left in a nervous haste. And the child? Its toys are strewn in the yard like branches after a storm—a rubber cow, a rusty tractor with a broken plow a doll in overalls. Something went wrong, they say. Annette Sisson’s “Deep in Milkweed” describes a dilapidated house, a shack that had none of the basic things, let alone extras. In the country, no running water, barely sound enough to stand on its foundations, the roof was flimsy, no insulation. It did have a wood stove, but the walls were ready to collapse. This bleak portrait of a particular house put me in mind of a family I knew. This family tried everything to sustain their home. The children in the poem reminded me of real people I once knew:
 His children, angular and think, Rambled the hill
 Deep in milkweed. Sharp pods scraped
 their skin as they scanned for monarchs. Tufts of floss
 released, ribboned the empty heat, the sky.
During my childhood in rural central Illinois, my family moved six times. At each new place, I found small things, inconsequential things, that wedded me to history and to the people that once dwelt there. Jane Kenyon’s “Finding a Long Gray Hair,” captures the essence:
 I scrub the long floorboards in the kitchen, repeating the motions of other women who have lived in this house. And when I find a long gray hair floating in the pail, I feel my life added to theirs.
What the House Knows has returned me to the places and to the people that shaped me into the person I am today. The poems connect with reality (my reality) on so many levels. And yes, it is poetry, which is its own reason for being, that has moved my heart into its depths.

ABOUT THE REVIEWER: Michael Escoubas is Senior Editor, Contributing Poet, and Staff Book Reviewer for Quill and Parchment, a 23-year-old literary and cultural arts online journal. This review is republished with kind permission from Quill and Parchment.
Posted October 1, 2025
Archive of Book Reviews published by Highland Park Poetry

July - September 2025

  • Diorama by Sandy Marchetti (July 2025, Review by Marie Asner)
  • The Flight from Meaning by Steven Haven (July 2025, Review by jacob erin-cilberto)
  • Two Emilys: Poems by Andrea Potos (July2025, Review by Michael Escoubas)
  • Nothing Louche or Bohemian by Tina Cole & Michael W. Thomas (July 2025, Review by Marie Asner)
  • The Beast Inside: Collected Poems by Bill Cushing (August 2025, Review by Diane L. Redleaf)
  • Words for My Mother by Monica K. Allen (August 2025, Review by Michael Escoubas)
  • Dining on Salt: Four Seasons of Septets by Wayne Lee (May 2025, Review by Michael Escoubas)
  • On a Clear Night, I Can Hear My Body Singing byJeannie E. Roberts (August 2025, Review by Michael Escoubas)
  • The Language of Cancer by Caroline Johnson (September 2025, Review by jacob erin-cilberto)
  • Simultaneous States by Beatriz Fitzgerald Fernandez (September 2025, Review by Cynthia T. Hahn)
  • Sadie, Queen of the Swollen Nose Saloon by Martina Reisz Newberry (September 2025, Review by Ann Malaspina)
  • A Swale A Sort of Swaddle by Abby Walthausen (September 2025, Review by Michael Escoubas)
Archive of Book Reviews published by Highland Park Poetry

April - June 2025

  • The Last Wild Place: Poems by Peter Serchuk (April 2025, Review by Marie Asner)
  • An Altar of Tides: Poems by Peter Ludwin (April 2025, Review by Michael Escoubas)
  • Faith Lost & Found by Jim Hanson (April 2025, Review by jacob erin-cilberto)
  • Train of Thought by Scott Waters (April 2025, Review by Michael Minassian)
  • Laughing in Yiddish: Poetry by Jamie Wendt (May 2025, Review by Lois Baer Barr)
  • Thanks for Stopping: Poems by Miriam Sagan (May 2025, Review by Marie Asner)
  • A Journeyman's Poems by jacob erin-cilberto (May 2025, Review by Patricia E. DeJong)
  • Lovin Me Always by Crystal L. Goss (May 2025, Review by Michael Escoubas)
  • A Yellowed Notebook by Beth SKMorris (June 2025, Review by jacob erin-cilberto)
  • Gatherings: Poems by Dan Fitzgerald (June 2025, Review by Michael Escoubas)
  • Night Music: Poems by B. J. Buckley (June 2025, Review by Michael Escoubas)
  • Traveling Through Time: Collected Poems 1956 - 2025 by William Marr (June 2025, Review by Michael Escoubas)
Archive of Book Reviews published by Highland Park Poetry

January - March 2025

  • How to Do the Greased Wombat Slide by Pamela Miller (March 2025, Review by Michael Escoubas)
  • Inside My Father's House by Josephine LoRe (March 2025, Review by Patricia Carragon)
  • Random Reflections by Brian Pondenis (March 2025, Review by Michael Escoubas)
  • Persons of Interest: Poetry & Prose by Mark Fleisher (March 2025, Review by Michael Escoubas)
  • A Work Life by Marilyn Gehant (February2025, Review by Bill Cushing)
  • Paradise Lost: A Poetic Journey by Paul Buchheit (February 2025, Review by Judith MK Kaufman)
  • this deep, wide, dark world by Whitnee Coy (February 2025, Review by Marie Asner)
  • Ballad of Life: and other poems by Ian Smiddy (February 2025, Review by Michael Escoubas)
  • Appear to Dance by Linda Kleinbub (January 2025, Review by Jamie Wendt)
  • Parental Forest by Chad Norman (January 2025, Review by Michael Escoubas)
  • Distilled Lives, Volume 7: The Biennial Anthology of the Illinois State Poetry Society Edited by Lennart Lundh & Marjorie Rissman (January 2025, Review by Michael Escoubas)
  • Noon Out of Nowhere: Complete Poems and Aphorisms by Alan Harris (January 2025, Review by Michael Escoubas)
Archive of Book Reviews published by Highland Park Poetry

October - December 2024

  • Come December: A Collection of Poems by Colleen McManus Hein (December 2024, Review by Michael Escoubas)
  • The Old FOlks Call It God's Country: Poems of the Tarheel and Palmetto States by Carol Parris Krauss (December2024, Review by Marie Asner)
  • Flyover Country by B.J. Buckley (December 2024, Review by Michael Escoubas)
  • From This Side of the Picture Window by Patricia E. DeJong (December 2024, Review by Michael Escoubas)
  • What It Was by Tina Cole (November 2024, Review by Candace Armstrong)
  • Go Figure by Carol Moldaw (November 2024, Review by Marie Asner)
  • Haiku and Senryu You: a book of short shorts by jacob erin-cilberto (November 2024, Review by Michael Escoubas)
  • Dragons and Rayguns by Vince Gotera (November 2024, Review by Bruce W. Niedt)
  • Ode to the States: Poems Inspired by the Fifty States and the District of Columbia by Diane L. Redleaf (October 2024, Review by Gary David)
  • Esemplastic: Many and One by Karian Markos (October 2024, Review by Michael Escoubas)
  • It's This by Laura Foley (October 2024, Review by Michael Escoubas)
  • The Unraveling Script by Maggie Kennedy (October 2024, Review by Candace Armstrong)
Archive of Book Reviews published by Highland Park Poetry

July - September 2024

  • Pink Moon by Tina Barr (July 2024, Review by Michael Escoubas
  • The Seven Streams: An Irish Cycle by David Whyte (July 2024, Review by Michael Escoubas)
  • Echoes in My Eyes by Kelly Sargent (July 2024, Review by Whitnee Coy)
  • The Unknown Daughter by Tricia Knoll (July 2024, Review by Joan Leotta)
  • A Sphere Encased in Fires and Life by Jared Smith (July 2024, Review by Ed Werstein)
  • Kansas Reimagined: Poems by Anara Guard (July 2024, Review by Ann Malaspina)
  • A Time for Such a Word by Michael W. Thomas (August 2024, Review by Marie Asner)
  • Prairie Roots by James Lowell Hall (August 2024, Review by Kathryn P. Haydon)
  • Dark Souvenirs by John Amen (August 2024, Review by Bill Cushing)
  • Family Rattling by William T. Carey (August 2024, Review by Carol L. Gloor)
  • Poems from a Restless Traveler by Terry Loncaric (September 2024, Review by Maggie Kennedy)
  • At Last a Valley by Lara Dolphin (September 2024, Review by Michael Escoubas)
  • Singing is Praying Twice by Marianne Peel (September 2024, Review by Cynthia T. Hahn)
  • Abundance/Diminishment: Poems by Ann E. Michael (September 2024, Review by Michael Escoubas)
Archive of Book Reviews published by Highland Park Poetry

April - June 2024

  • The Feather Variations by Jane Richards (June 2024, Review by Marie Asner
  • How I Went Into the Woods by Lennart Lundh (June 2024, Review by Michael Escoubas)
  • Losing Streak by Paul J. Willis (June 2024, Review by Gary Davis)
  • The Shape of Wind on Water: New and Selected Poems by Ann Fox Chandonnet (June 2024, Review by Michael Escoubas)
  • Wild Apples by Tricia Knoll (May 2024, Review by Marie Asner)
  • Aligned with the Sky by Kathy Lohrum Cotton (May 2024, Review by Michael Escoubas)
  • What Shines by Sydney Lea (May 2024, Review by Tricia Knoll)
  • Making Invisible Visible Again by Marie Bellefeuille (May 2024, Review by Carol L. Gloor)
  • Silent Marshes by Tom Moran (April 2024, Review by Gary Davis)
  • Democracy - Ever Fragile by Terry Loncaric (April 2024, Review by Julie Isaacson)
  • Hunting for Shark's Teeth - Poems by Renee Butner (April 2024, Review by Michael Escoubas)
  • The Storm by Mark Lipman (April 2024, Review by Michael Escoubas)
  • A Whispering by Geoffrey Heptonstall (Jan. 2024, Review by Michael Escoubas)
  • Rejection to Acceptance: 57 Poems That Finally Made It by Patricia Williams (Jan. 2024, Review by Michael Escoubas)
  • Sonnets of Love & Joy: poems by Paul Buchheit (Jan. 2024, Review by Judy Cummings)
  • Born Under the Influence by Andrena Zawinski (Jan. 2024, Review by Michael Escoubas)
  • Quarantine Highway by Millicent Borges Accardi (Jan. 2024, Review by Michael Escoubas)
  • Departures from Rilke by Steven Cramer (Jan. 2024, Review by Dan Carey)
  • A Tale of Two Souls by Shai Har-El (Feb. 2024, Review by Michael Escoubas)
  • All the Poems I Never Wrote by jacob erin-cilberto (Feb. 2024, Review by Michael Escoubas)
  • Late Epistle by Anne Myles (Feb. 2024, Review by Gary Davis)
  • How to Become Invisible by Mary McCarthy (Feb. 2024, Review by Joan Leotta)
  • Double Stream by Ellen Dooling Reynard (Mar. 2024, Review by Michael Escoubas)
  • Aisle 228 by Sandra Marchetti (December 2023, Review by Marie Asner)
  • Castaway by Miriam Sagan (December 2023, Review by Tricia Knoll)
  • Lamenting My Failure to Learn How to Tap Dance and Other Missteps by Joan Wiese Johannes (December 2023, Review by Lois Baer Barr)
  • Periodic Boyfriends by Drew Pisarra (December 2023, Review by Lynn Viti)
  • Family Matters: Poems for and about Grandparents and Grandchildren by Judie Rae (December 2023, Review by Michael Escoubas)
  • Our Aching Bones, Our Breaking Hearts: Poems on Aging by Joel Savishinsky (December 2023, Review by Michael Escoubas)
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About Us
Sharing poetry with audiences of all agesOffering readings, displays, and writing workshops.Creating opportunities for poets. A local group with a global reach.
Contacts
1690 Midland Avenue Highland Park, IL 60035 US