THE LACHRYMOSE REPORT, Sierra Nelson. Poetry Northwest Editions, 2000 Tower St., Everett, WA 98201, 2018, $29, https://www.poetrynw.org/. Here’s another northwest native, but with an entirely different aesthetic than yesterday’s poet. Elizabeth Bradfield describes the sensibility behind The Lachrymose Report as a “bright, bird-mind” that “sees the world and its questions in the best kind of strange light.” Reading it […]
THE LOVELINESS OF THIS WORLD, John L. Wright. Finishing Line Press, PO Box 1626, Georgetown KY 40324, 2020, 36 pages, $13.00 paper, https://www.finishinglinepress.com/. It is always a pleasure to recommend a local poet. Wright lives in Edmonds and until 1988 was a physician at Swedish Medical Center. I’m so glad he made his way in retirement to poetry, […]
THE HALF-FINISHED HEAVEN: SELECTED POEMS, Tomas Tranströmer. Trans. Robert Bly. Graywolf Press, 250 Third Avenue North, Suite 600, Minneapolis, Minnesota 55401, 2001, 2017, 118 pages, $16 paper, https://www.graywolfpress.org/. Tranströmer won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2011, and his influence is pervasive. But he is not merely a serious and learned poet, he is also wry and funny […]
TRASHCAN FUNERAL, Sage Curtis. dancing girl press & studio, Chicago, IL, 30 pages, $7 paper, http://www.dancinggirlpress.com/. Last October my friend Carla and I traveled to San Francisco and read our poetry at Sacred Grounds Cafe. The featured reader was Sage Curtis, whose poems (like her) are young, sexy, and full of great sounds. (The whole evening was […]