Poetry Book Reviews

In her debut collection of poetry, A Frostbitten Memory of a Stillborn Spring, Lindy Kennedy shows an admirable talent for describing life’s vicissitudes with sensitivity.

Kennedy expresses in the introduction her intention to capture “eternal pairs” – highs and lows, beginnings and ends – reflected in the book’s three sections: People and Love, Things and Time, and Places and Ambition. Kennedy uses a clever turn of phrase when she’s at her best, as in “Where Are You?” which wryly asks, “If it’s over, where did ‘it’ go?” There is the quiet exhortation in the aptly titled “Life Lived Leaves […]

Love Crimes is a raw and moving collection of poems about relationships by debut poet Sayde Scarlett.

Largely consisting of epitaphs to love lost, the collection begins with an invitation to “Engage Me.” In “The Play” the poet writes her lover and herself into a drama, asking wistfully, “How does it end, this play?” In a litany of complaints about lovers who have done her wrong, Scarlett’s bitterness seethes: “You were the vulture, I the carcass”; “You had me by the soul, or by the wrists.” “To Touch To Taste” and “Skin” show that love sometimes deepens, but more likely, […]

A Lover in the Land of Hell by Jennie Haiman begins on an appropriate upbeat note – “Welcome, Newborn” – and continues with an exploration of high-minded themes.

Haiman feels different from those around her, and speaks in these poems for the downtrodden: “Perhaps I’m here for a reason–maybe the world needs more like me.” She makes poignant cries for help for fellow beings, including animals, plants, and even the planet itself. She urges us to improve our thinking and “just give.” Two poignant works chronicle the life of a street cat and an old dog consigned to a shelter. […]

Emerging poet Julia Cirignano explains that neither intoxicating substance named in her title has “necessarily helped me create great art, yet I feel that they help define me,” hence the title of her evocative first work of poetry, White Wine & Medical Marijuana.

Cirignano may be just starting out as a poet, but her perceptions evince timeless insight. Most of these poems focus on encounters with men. With one, she knew from the first glance that “all hope was gone”; one just likes to have lots of girls, so she can’t be surprised that she’s just “the next one”; […]