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
Anca Cristofovici’s “Stela” reviewed by Matt Kirkpatrick
"Based on Cristofovici’s childhood in Soviet Romania ... Stela is built from fragments: compact, lyrical chapters, like glimpses of dreams, function to create an emotional and psychological space of longing.... A splintered dream of lives interrupted, rendered in electric prose."
Jean Valentine’s “Shirt in Heaven” reviewed by Elisabeth Whitehead
"There are thresholds, doors, windows to cross though. In silence and listening, a reaching. The hunger and drive to find a bridge...."
C.D. Wright’s “Shallcross” reviewed by Celia Bland
"Shallcross testifies to an artistic truth rather than a factual one, including gestures toward the ghost world, the dusk where evening comes down, but with always keeping an eye on the light of the sun, the places where a self comes into its own, speaking of 'wonder and regret.'"
J’Lyn Chapman’s “Beastlife” reviewed by Arianne Zwartjes
"A sumptuous feast and a rotting; grotesque and greenly lavish all at once. Published by Calamari Archive in 2015, Beastlife is a beautifully designed book, delicious to the eyes as it is to all the other senses.... Bursting with fecundity and fetid detail, with lush green overgrowth and the stench of death and feathers."
Joy Harjo’s “Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings” reviewed by Kelly Lydick
"Affirms that the personal is political, that the environmental is personal, and the microcosm cannot be separated from the macrocosm. It is a call to a deeper way of seeing, feeling, and being in the world."
Joseph Massey’s “Illocality” reviewed by Elisabeth Whitehead
"With little presence of an 'I' that calls attention to itself, the words themselves seem to take on the dress of animation. Sometimes the words click. Sometimes they snake or fold. Sometimes they pause to breathe."
Anca Cristofovici’s “Stela” reviewed by Matt Kirkpatrick
"Based on Cristofovici’s childhood in Soviet Romania ... Stela is built from fragments: compact, lyrical chapters, like glimpses of dreams, function to create an emotional and psychological space of longing.... A splintered dream of lives interrupted, rendered in electric prose."
Jean Valentine’s “Shirt in Heaven” reviewed by Elisabeth Whitehead
"There are thresholds, doors, windows to cross though. In silence and listening, a reaching. The hunger and drive to find a bridge...."
C.D. Wright’s “Shallcross” reviewed by Celia Bland
"Shallcross testifies to an artistic truth rather than a factual one, including gestures toward the ghost world, the dusk where evening comes down, but with always keeping an eye on the light of the sun, the places where a self comes into its own, speaking of 'wonder and regret.'"
J’Lyn Chapman’s “Beastlife” reviewed by Arianne Zwartjes
"A sumptuous feast and a rotting; grotesque and greenly lavish all at once. Published by Calamari Archive in 2015, Beastlife is a beautifully designed book, delicious to the eyes as it is to all the other senses.... Bursting with fecundity and fetid detail, with lush green overgrowth and the stench of death and feathers."
Joy Harjo’s “Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings” reviewed by Kelly Lydick
"Affirms that the personal is political, that the environmental is personal, and the microcosm cannot be separated from the macrocosm. It is a call to a deeper way of seeing, feeling, and being in the world."
Joseph Massey’s “Illocality” reviewed by Elisabeth Whitehead
"With little presence of an 'I' that calls attention to itself, the words themselves seem to take on the dress of animation. Sometimes the words click. Sometimes they snake or fold. Sometimes they pause to breathe."