Book Reviews | Tarpaulin Sky Magazine
TELLING YOU WHAT TO THINK SINCE 2003 | IMAGE: NOAH SATERSTROM
Book Reviews | Tarpaulin Sky Magazine
TELLING YOU WHAT TO THINK SINCE 2003 | IMAGE: NOAH SATERSTROM
James Pate’s Evening Signals: Maria Negroni’s “The Annunciation”
"[U]nlike a more mainstream novel, this isn’t a novel of hard-won wisdom and gentle epiphany, but a work of mirrors and lists and fever dreams and manic monologues, with no sense of closure in sight." - James Pate
Stephanie Strickland’s “Ringing the Changes” reviewed by Erica Ammann
"I imagine a visual representation of Strickland’s textual cartography in which the contextualizing axes are nebulous, a mapping in the sense that it directs possible configurations of being while also conjuring an anti-topography that conducts echoes, vibrations, and undulations. " -
Kelly Krumrie’s “figuring”: Will Alexander’s “A Cannibal Explains Himself to Himself”
Figuring is a monthly column that puzzles over (to figure) and gives shape to (a figure) writing, art, and environments that integrate or concern mathematics and the sciences. This month's column explores Will Alexander's The Cannibal Explains Himself to Himself.
James Pate’s Evening Signals: Mariana Enriquez’s “Things We Lost in the Fire”
James Pate examines Mariana Enriquez's Things We Lost in the Fire (Penguin Random House): ."the literal and symbolic collapse into one another..."
James Pate’s Evening Signals: Reflections on Olivia Cronk
James Pate examines Olivia Cronk's Skin Horse (Action Books) and Louise and Louise and Louise (The Lettered Streets Press): "the theatrical, the occult and the unnerving..."
Janaka Stucky’s “Ascend, Ascend” reviewed by Chris Muravez
"We thrive on the dead – animal and plant carcasses, fossilized energy, microbial environments in our guts – and in this sin, we are allowed to continue breathing, fucking, shitting, living, becoming." Chris Muravez explores "negative ecstasy, incantations, and ritualistic destruction of the ego" in Janaka Stucky's Ascend, Ascend, from Third Man Books.
“I Cannot Resist the Terror”: Essay by Olivia Cronk
"Dizzy time-travel alienation self/ selves sadnessexhilaration. To walk 'the edge of the abyss.'” Olivia Cronk examines multiple selves, Scenes from a Marriage, The Double Life of Véronique, and books by Dionne Brand, Amanda Goldblatt, and Maria Negroni.
Jordan Davis’ “Shell Game” and Drew Gardner’s “Defender” reviewed by Tyrone Williams
Davis's Shell Game and Gardner's Defender "demonstrate the discursive poles of naïveté and cynicism underpinning avant-garde practices." -- Tyrone Williams
Stephanie Strickland’s “The Universe Is Made: Poems New and Selected,” reviewed by Terese Svoboda
Always, a darting sharp intelligence dares the reader to follow, impatient with empathy, refusing prompting, overlaid with a grave concern for women in a catastrophic world." -- Terese Svoboda on Stephanie Strickland's How the Universe is Made: New and Selected Poems
James Pate’s Evening Signals: Maria Negroni’s “The Annunciation”
"[U]nlike a more mainstream novel, this isn’t a novel of hard-won wisdom and gentle epiphany, but a work of mirrors and lists and fever dreams and manic monologues, with no sense of closure in sight." - James Pate
Stephanie Strickland’s “Ringing the Changes” reviewed by Erica Ammann
"I imagine a visual representation of Strickland’s textual cartography in which the contextualizing axes are nebulous, a mapping in the sense that it directs possible configurations of being while also conjuring an anti-topography that conducts echoes, vibrations, and undulations. " -
Kelly Krumrie’s “figuring”: Will Alexander’s “A Cannibal Explains Himself to Himself”
Figuring is a monthly column that puzzles over (to figure) and gives shape to (a figure) writing, art, and environments that integrate or concern mathematics and the sciences. This month's column explores Will Alexander's The Cannibal Explains Himself to Himself.
James Pate’s Evening Signals: Mariana Enriquez’s “Things We Lost in the Fire”
James Pate examines Mariana Enriquez's Things We Lost in the Fire (Penguin Random House): ."the literal and symbolic collapse into one another..."
James Pate’s Evening Signals: Reflections on Olivia Cronk
James Pate examines Olivia Cronk's Skin Horse (Action Books) and Louise and Louise and Louise (The Lettered Streets Press): "the theatrical, the occult and the unnerving..."
Janaka Stucky’s “Ascend, Ascend” reviewed by Chris Muravez
"We thrive on the dead – animal and plant carcasses, fossilized energy, microbial environments in our guts – and in this sin, we are allowed to continue breathing, fucking, shitting, living, becoming." Chris Muravez explores "negative ecstasy, incantations, and ritualistic destruction of the ego" in Janaka Stucky's Ascend, Ascend, from Third Man Books.