Briefly Noted

“A set of poems about violence and war through the ages: Anderson’s collection spans multiple eras, blending imagery from the Bible, the works of Dante Alighieri, and recent headlines.”

“Fasano’s unparalleled access to Americana artists like Sheryl Crow, Rhiannon Giddens, Vince Gill, Keb’ Mo’, Judy Collins, John Oates, The Avett Brothers, The McCrary Sisters, Lucinda Williams, Margo Price, Blind Boys of Alabama, and Kris Kristofferson gives Americana Portrait Sessions the kind of authority that comes from true reach into the breadth of the genre.”

“In 2015, increasing numbers of refugees and migrants, most of them fleeing war-torn homelands, arrived by boat on the shores of Greece, setting off the greatest human displacement in Europe since WWII… All Else Failed is Dana Sachs’s compelling eyewitness account of the successes—and failures—of the volunteer relief network that emerged to meet the enormous need. Closely following the odysseys of seven individual men and women, and their families, it tells a story of despair and resilience, revealing the humanity within an immense humanitarian disaster.”

“Here are poems of music, violence, faith, doubt, and the creaturely world, composed in the unignorable shadow of Holy Scripture. Here, too, are childhood and child-rearing, small sagas of fortune and failure across the generations. Like the dissonant chords for which the book is named, Hillard’s poems seek resolution but find it only sparingly.”

“This Afterlife: Selected Poems brings together poetry from A. E. Stallings’s four acclaimed collections, Archaic Smile, Hapax, Olives, and Like, as well as a lagniappe of outlier poems. Over time, themes and characters reappear, speaking to one another across years and experience, creating a complex music of harmony, dissonance, and counterpoint… Many of these poems unfold in the mytho-domestic sphere, through the eyes of Penelope or Pandora, Alice in Wonderland or the poet herself.”

“[Porter’s memoir] explains for future generations how his own Boomer generation evolved through struggles against racism, the Vietnam War, and myriad forms of oppression, both at home and internationally. I believe the book will be an important resource for future scholars interested in the social and political events of the mid to late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries.”