RAIN VIOLENT, Ann Spiers (poet), Bolinas Frank (artist & calligrapher). Empty Bowl, 14172 Madrona Drive, Anacortes WA 98223, 2021, 78 pages, $16, paper, www.emptybowl.org. “In Rain Violent, Ann Spiers unfurls the ravages of climate change,” so Deborah Bacharach begins her Compulsive Reader review of this arresting book. Along the way, Spiers unfurls her own life: […]
WINTER, Patricia Fargnoli. Hobblebush Books, Brookline, NH, 2013, 88 pages, $18, paper, https://www.hobblebush.com. When MoonPath’s Lana Hechtman Ayres told me Patricia Fargnoli had been her teacher and mentor, I went looking for her. Winter, the sixth volume in the Hobblebush Granite State Poetry Series, was the first to arrive, and is now on sale for […]
WHAT MADNESS BROUGHT ME HERE: NEW AND SELECTED POEMS, 1968-1988, Colleen J. McElroy. Wesleyan University Press, Hanover and London, 1990, 107 pages. Out of Print. I had this mad idea that I would—instead of doing my usual blogfest of poetry book reviews in April (National Poetry Month)—review a book each week this year. The problem being that […]
Greetings & Gratitude would be a good subtitle for this post. It’s been one of those years — I’m thinking of the news headlines, but also the loss of people dear to me. The last of my mother’s brothers died this summer, and a shocking number of my older cousins slipped away throughout 2023. In […]