All Our Unforeseen Lives
Three recent poetry collections — Ian Hall’s Creekwater Mansions, Gaylord Brewer’s Goodbye, Baby, and Rachel Landrum Crumble’s In Praise of Detours — give voice to times of turbulence and upheaval.
Ghosts of a Better Life
The world depicted in Patrick Strickland’s debut story collection, A History of Heartache, is thick with undercurrents of personal violence, addiction, cynicism, and economic instability. Strickland’s stories persistently braid these elements together as they work to generate the stories’ thematic power.
Broke-Down Blessing
Nashville poet Donovan McAbee’s first full-length collection, Holy the Body, brims with depictions of the spiritual life that refuse dogma or sentimental cliché. McAbee will discuss Holy the Body at a book launch event at Woodmont Christian Church in Nashville on March 24, with featured guests including Ciona Rouse, Thomm Jutz, Mark Jarman, and Mary Gauthier.
‘When You’re Dead We’ll Cherish You Again’
In her mesmerizing debut, Helen of Troy, 1993, poet Maria Zoccola merges the mythological and the modern, casting Helen of Troy as a restless housewife and mother in Sparta, Tennessee. Zoccola will be a featured author at ETSU’s Emerging Writers Series on February 9.
‘A Beacon of What Is’
Three recent poetry collections — Lou Turner’s Twin Lead Lines, Connie Jordan Green’s Nameless as the Minnows, and Richard Collins’ Stone Nest — skillfully utilize a variety of Tennessee settings, including the Nashville music world, Oak Ridge in its early years, and a rocky mountaintop in Sewanee.
A Burst of Light from the Dark
In his third collection, Feller, East Tennessee poet Denton Loving offers moments of heightened exchange between the human and nonhuman worlds.
