Entries by Bethany

Richard Hugo, 1923-1982

DUWAMISH HEAD, Richard Hugo. Copperhead, Box 271, Port Townsend, Washington 98368, 1976, 24 pages, out of print. I have an extraordinarily busy day lined up, and beginning early, so I’m sharing with you a chapbook of poems by Richard Hugo, recently passed along to me by a friend who was letting go of some books. […]

Warsan Shire, Bless the Daughter Raised by a Voice in Her Head

BLESS THE DAUGHTER RAISED BY A VOICE IN HER HEAD, Warsan Shire. Random House, New York, 2022, 93 pages, $17.00 paper, https://www.randomhousebooks.com. “No one leaves home unless one’s home is the mouth of a shark” writes Warsaw Shire in her powerful and explosive poem, “Home.” This line sounded so familiar to me that I thought […]

Caitlin Scarano, The Necessity of Wildfire

THE NECESSITY OF WILDFIRE, Caitlin Scarano. Blair, Durham, North Carolina, 2022, 78 pages, $16.95 paper, www.blairpub.com. I have to tell you that I fell hard for this book. I was cobbling together my Escape Into Life review of Ada Limón’s The Hurting Kind, and came across an announcement about the Elliott Bay book launch of The […]

Jane Wong, How to Not Be Afraid of Everything

HOW TO NOT BE AFRAID OF EVERYTHING, Jane Wong. Alice James Books, 60 Pineland Drive, Auburn Hall, Ste. 206, New Gloucester, ME 04260, 79 pages, $17.95 paper, https://www.alicejamesbooks.org. Jane Wong dedicates this book of poems to her grandparents “and those lost during the Great Leap Forward.” I looked up the Great Leap Forward and learned […]