Reviewed by Mandy Bach

Sweetly optimistic and structurally succinct, N.E. Wright’s Poetic Help is a collection of inspirational poetry peppered with illustrations.

Poetic Help touches upon a wide range of topics, from body image to drug use. Each poem has its own sense of clarity that seems uniquely able to simplify its chosen situation such that readers can see the choices they have laid out in front of them more easily.

The poem “Man and Woman” explores heterosexual marriage and the ruinous nature of infidelity. Another, “Late,” spends its first stanza with a speaker who is struggling with tardiness before providing readers with a series of tips for showing up on time. This is a poetic self-help book with clear vision.

Several of the poems in Poetic Help are in some way or another about self-image and self-esteem. “Things are looking up” shows readers a speaker frustrated by their mental health journey. The last couplet of the poem is, “My emotions started to sink but hey now things are looking / up. I need to look in the mirror and give myself a wink.”

Similarly, the poem “Smile” ends with the lines: “So go on and give me a / smile. It will brighten your day and mine, go on put all / your troubles behind and enjoy the sunshine.”

Rather than offering comprehensive solutions, these poems are interested in the tiny tricks that could make make life a little easier to live. This move circumvents the risk of belittling complicated problems, choosing instead to focus on small, easier choices that could genuinely offer readers solace. The poems in Poetic Help are always inspirational.

As the speaker sets out to share their neat understanding of the world around them, they take on an optimistic, at times teasing tone, much like one teachers use with small children. The rhyme in the poems provides us with a playfulness that permeates the collection.

Most striking about Poetic Help is its attention to play. Even when a poem’s content drifts into heavy territory like hatred or mental health, the voice and form stay playful. There is a lot of fun in this collection that fits nicely with the altruistic goals of the book as a whole. The illustrations are a great example of this playfulness.

The poem “A picture of perfection” lists some common examples of perceived perfection: Marilyn Monroe’s lips, Grace Jones’ cheekbones, and Julia Roberts’ hair. The last item on the list is Arnold Schewarzenegger’s abs, which are then showcased in a tiny illustration of a man with a body builder’s physique and no head. The illustrations all feature this sort of sweet humor that emphasizes N.E. Wright’s attention to play.

Poetic Help offers playful assistance with the thousand little struggles of everyday life. The poems each feature their own tips and tricks for incorporating a little extra joy into life, fiercely complicated as it may be.

Thank you for reading Mandy Bach’s book review of Poetic Help by N.E. Wright! If you liked what you read, please spend some more time with us at the links below.

The post Book Review: Poetic Help by N.E. Wright appeared first on Independent Book Review.

Reviewed by Nikolas Mavreas

A healing collection that remembers and projects the voices of a small community

“In the beginning there was the life of the enslaved man and the enslaved woman fully evolved, fully loved, fully remembered.”

Salaam Green, the inaugural poet laureate of Birmingham, Alabama, has produced The Other Revival out of her communication with the descendants of the Wallace House plantation, descendants of both the enslavers and the enslaved.

Many of the pieces were written during Homecoming days at the Wallace House, making for a spontaneity which is evident in the book. The name of the collaborator is given after the title of each poem, and short informational notes are provided for them in the back of the book, in addition to some of their direct thoughts in prose.

And so Green’s poetic voice, enriched by collaboration, acts as an interpreter for the complexities nesting in the descendants of the Wallace House. The book’s style shines in much of its forceful, passionate moments, like in the newly found readiness to “scream the part that once was whispered.”

In the poems from the perspective of the enslavers’ descendants, like “I Do Descend,” guilt is substituted with reflective accountability. In “Washing the White Out,” the versificatory playfulness contrasts with the gravity of the content. And “Prelude to a Sweeter Belonging,” this reader’s favorite in the collection, takes advantage of more traditional technique and imagery to moving effect. We are struck by the cruel jaggedness of the singular instead of plural “wing” in its penultimate line:

“Oh, how dignified and how far and free
the bird with clipped wing flies”

Green’s technique is generally reserved. The illuminated sensibility in these pieces is expressed through undecorated and unhazarding diction. The gears of the poetry’s mechanics don’t betray themselves by clunky noises, but it is also not always clear whether that is because they are so well oiled or missing altogether. So great a subject matter can, naturally, overwhelm its medium, its form and its craft. One thing is certain: The story is in the clarity of content not the lavishness of method.

The poems tell a captivating, intimate story of Black resilience in the smallest corners of American history. The spread-apart nature of the shifting perspectives tells a full story that shows intelligent forethought on the part of Salaam. This was and is a good idea. A collection that modifies the conscience and reclaims the holy awe of joy, The Other Revival is the kind of poetry that does not sing in simple tunes but that which renders dissonance bearable enough to be confronted.

Thank you for reading Nikolas Mavreas’s book review of The Other Revival by Salaam Green! If you liked what you read, please spend some more time with us at the links below.

The post Book Review: The Other Revival appeared first on Independent Book Review.

Reviewed by Jadidsa Perez

A celebration of love, empathy, and the strength found within women

Have you come across a pink talking lemonade maker? Or fallen in love with someone on the Moon and gotten married on Venus? These imaginative, whimsical tales, along with many others, coexist in Ode to Women, a cozy, women-centric anthology of stories and poetry.

Most of the stories feature a female protagonist navigating eccentric and unique circumstances. The characters vary greatly in age, setting, and the challenges they face; the book begins with seven-year-old Woolah and nearly concludes with fifty-year-old Andrea.

While some of the women seek romantic love, it’s not the focal point of all of their stories. What takes center stage is the empathy and kindness that they exert toward friends, family, and even furry creatures. There’s magic, fantasy, and lovable, idiosyncratic characters that create the most comforting atmosphere. Turning the page feels like diving into a completely new adventure, with women taking the lead.

While Ode to Women features a variety of great stories, some are standouts due to their vulnerability and complexity. “Andrea’s Crush,” featuring the aforementioned Andrea, is one such story. Feeling disillusioned by her modest life compared to her more outgoing roommate, Audrey, Andrea sets out to track down her crush from her school years—her professor, Hubert Valance. On her journey to the school, she realizes how unwelcoming life is to an older woman. Most other stories are a parable or have a happier tone, but “Andrea’s Crush” is brutally reflective. This story provides a refreshing change of pace and offers a perspective that is typically disempowered.

Ode to Women also tells stories of specific, real-life women such as Olga Carmona and Sam Kerr. Sports fans might find those names familiar, as Olga and Sam played for Australia and Spain, respectively, in the FIFA Women’s World Cup. The poems are simple but full of winsome, uplifting language. Including tributes to both fictional and real women creates a diverse mosaic of experiences for the reader to enjoy.

While most of the stories and poems fit together nicely, the “Healthy Lifestyle and Good Health” section feels a bit like an outlier, including two poems about how to tidy up a bedroom. While the writing is charming and the advice is helpful, the subject matter doesn’t seem to mesh naturally with the overarching theme of womanhood without a connective piece about women’s expectations to clean.

For women readers who love a warm, snug book to cozy up with, this is an easy choice. These stories and poems from multiple women emit an atmosphere that goes perfectly with a cup of tea.

Thank you for reading Jadidsa Perez’s book review of Ode to Women by Silver Phoenix! If you liked what you read, please spend some more time with us at the links below.

The post Book Review: Ode to Women by Silver Phoenix appeared first on Independent Book Review.

Reviewed by Nikolas Mavreas

A collection of healing laments about loss and grief presented in dazzling verse

George Northrup is an experienced poet and psychologist, qualifications that are evident in his latest collection, Everyone’s Going: Poems on Grief and Mortality. More evident still is the fact that here is a poet who loves poetry and who is concerned with the crafting of language, not only as a means to an end but also as a means to some kind of beginning.

Northrup writes about grief and mortality—there is no point trying to paraphrase the book’s perfectly accurate subtitle—through a personal point of view, whether real or assumed as speaker, commenting on the experience of losing a father, a mother, and a partner. His poems are like alloys, with great lyricism mixed with memoiric narrative detail, not just seamlessly but inseparably.

The poet draws a tragically accurate picture of illness in old age, with sudden bursts of actuality that can unsettle. For example, the old man says the following to the son during a visit at the rehabilitation center:

“‘Do not be fooled,’ he said, ‘by polished floors and costly doors.’
He showed me his diaper, the feeding tube that pierced his gut.”

The contrast between the two images is enhanced by the contrasting character of the lines: the first smoothed by the perfectly symmetrical, the second plunging into violent staccato. Northrup is a bard who can modulate his tone and style, such as when the lines above gradually turn into the almost Elizabethan “Another almost-ghost in fitful sleep.”

The idea of experiencing a lost loved one through the objects they left behind is explored a few times, to undiminishing effect. A gardenia with which the son surprises his widowed mother ends up being damaged by overwatering—that is, by too much care—which leads to this remarkable thought after she is gone:

“I considered repotting my gardenia,
tilted upright to look less like an amputee.
But I have come to prefer this injured way,
holding all that was perishable between us.”

If you detect a hint of Philip Larkin in that, you are not mistaken. Larkin’s epigraph might be saved for last—following others from Rilke, Dickinson, Eliot, Williams, Dante, and more—perhaps to signify the deeper influence. Echoes of Larkin ring beautifully throughout, such as in the beginning of the penultimate stanza of “Throwing It All Out.” Moreover, compare the last stanza of Larkin’s “Faith Healing” to the following lines from Northrup’s poem titled “Late-Stage American Hegemony:”

“Some believe in progress,
others in a lumbering pendulum that swings between prosperity and want, peace and war.”

Toward the end of the book, the poet turns to consideration of his own mortality, becoming more philosophical, with the language seeming markedly more abstract. It is a moving conclusion, not at all naive, as we still sense the apathy that always threatens to creep in.

The opening epigraph in Everyone’s Going is from Macbeth: “Give sorrow words; the grief that does not speak whispers the o’er-fraught heart and bids it break.” In these poems, George Northrup expresses an eloquent sorrow and a singing grief, signifying the mighty lament of a broken heart that keeps on beating.

Thank you for reading Nikolas Mavreas’s book review of Everyone’s Going by George H. Northrup! If you liked what you read, please spend some more time with us at the links below.

The post Book Review: Everyone’s Going by George H. Northrup appeared first on Independent Book Review.

Reviewed by Mandy Bach

A striking collection about a speaker lost in the hollowing world of corporate America

Dreaming of North Beach (from Corporate America) looks at the way Americans think about and interact with the work they spend so much of their lives doing.

The speaker of the poems takes long drives; he wreaks havoc in dive bars until the early hours of the morning. He starts bar fights against his better judgment, and imagines himself a famous and desired musician. Readers are brought into the speaker’s rapidly dissolving life as he spends his long working hours restless and annoyed and his fleeting off-hours frantically trying to feel as if he is alive at all.

The first part of the collection works to establish a sense of dehumanization that is attributed to the kind of work the speaker does in corporate America. Names are turned into archetypes: “We needed more Madisons but hired too many Todds,” and we watch a series of characters who attended hilariously named fake universities get devoured by the corporate mouth, one-by-one falling prey to a world that doesn’t care for their personalities or backgrounds.

Readers sense the dehumanization even at the language level: the poem “Corporate America #2” is a kind of collage of words and phrases one may find in a corporate office or email thread, which left me with an expertly manufactured sense of foreboding that followed me throughout the rest of the collection.

The poem “The Entrepreneur” provides us with another, much grimmer example of this same idea, one that features a man who dreams of opening a restaurant committing suicide when his restaurant loan is declined. These poems are precisely intentional in establishing the way that corporate America strips individuals of the wonderful things that make them human: their passions, their interpersonal relationships, and even just their free time.

Amidst the speaker’s apparent frustration with his corporate life, we see moments of him reaching out for intimacy and closeness with those around him. The poem “Don’t Let Me Down” depicts the speaker’s relationship with his father through a discussion of several cars—a “shit-brown” Chevy Blazer, a ’64 blue-sparkle Ludwig, and a brand-new green SUV. This move feels inspired by the imagery of an old-fashioned Americana, and it brings a timid brightness to the speaker’s world that feels vividly necessary.

Similarly, the poem “Going Down Slow” centers on our speaker’s relationship with a coworker who shares his desperate frustration with his role in corporate America. The coworkers find joy in the very simple moment of an elevator with a silly automated voice, giggling together “like kids.” That said, the brightness in these kinds of intimate moments is stifled by corporate America: in the poem, the two coworkers immediately come upon a boss that doesn’t even know their names.

As the collection continues, it becomes clear that Gell does offer a way forward and out of the labyrinth we reside in for much of this collection. The natural world brings our speaker a reprieve from the noise of his corporate job. The poem “Wildhoney” has the speaker follow the scent of wildhoney over rolling green hills toward the Pacific, to finally land in a garden surrounded by the lush and gorgeous world. Gell writes his speaker as, “At peace with [his] wildhoney, koi pond, and the Pacific Ocean—the sound of its distinct waves dissolving the pain inside me,” offering us his own personal salve for corporate-sponsored hurt.

Deno Gell gifts readers with Dreaming of North Beach (from Corporate America). This is a vital critique of work life.

Thank you for reading Mandy Bach’s book review of Dreaming of North Beach (from Corporate America) by Deno Gell! If you liked what you read, please spend some more time with us at the links below.

The post Book Review: Dreaming of North Beach (from Corporate America) appeared first on Independent Book Review.

Reviewed by Nikolas Mavreas

A spirited and affectionate call to meaningful living through empathy and attention to nature

Sonja Koch lives with her husband and their many animals on a heavenly piece of land in Southern Ontario, surrounded by calmness and nature. In Bookends of Life, she urges us to live in peace with ourselves and to connect meaningfully with the nature that surrounds each one of us.

The title page of Bookends of Life lists another author next to Koch, one Dalys Finzgar, who is the writer’s young granddaughter. The book was inspired by her, and many of the poems act as advice to the young lady. Some poems are written in the first person from the girl’s perspective, but when we read the warnings about talking to strangers and staying away from dubious websites, we can’t help but hear the voice of a worried grandmother. Most of the poems, however, are instructive not just to Dalys but to everyone.

Koch invites the reader to openness, compassion and adventure. Her encouragements are full of a conspicuous vigor, which is enhanced technically by her more than occasional use of the energetic quatrain:

“The love, the peace amidst the rush
And stress of daily living
Is there for all who choose to see
The loving and the giving.”

This kind of calling to empathy and relaxation characterizes the whole book. Not an idle relaxation but one made vibrant by creativity and focus on all the important things: kindnesses to others as well as to oneself and a connection to nature.

Koch writes about animals she has experience with, like alpacas and horses, and uses the age-old device of seeing and living things through their bodies. More interestingly, in the beautiful poem entitled “To My Sister, Nancy,” she wishes she could travel as a feather on a wing.

The author finds meaning in both fauna and flora, as she describes with gratitude the trees surrounding her, which she calls the skyline of her life. Comfort derives from constancy, and perhaps this is what indifferent nature provides. But as our species has changed the climate, one can’t help but feel uneasy at the author’s expression of her belief in the unbreakable cycle of the seasons.

This very sprightly book loses a bit of its energy in some poems lacking structure and rhythm, which are a minority. And as much as some readers will love Koch’s occasionally magical language, with cameos from sprites and fairies, others may not be used to it. It is not intrusive, however, and it will add color to the reading experience of even the staunchest skeptic. As per the title of a poem, it’s not so much witchcraft as it is wishcraft.

The book is at its most endearing whenever Koch refers to her granddaughter and herself as the maiden and the crone, and at its most effortlessly relatable with the tiny poem exalting the gift that is tea. Bookends of Life is written with an elfin feeling and uplifted spirit. It is a genial manifesto for creative, earthly non-conformity and attentiveness to all that is truly great in life.

Thank you for reading Nikolas Mavreas’s book review of Bookends of Life by Sonja Koch and Dalys Finzgar! If you liked what you read, please spend some more time with us at the links below.

The post Book Review: Bookends of Life by Sonja Koch and Dalys Finzgar appeared first on Independent Book Review.

Reviewed by Mandy Bach

Both a seething criticism of the American political climate and a compelling argument for interpersonal closeness

American Entropy by Travis Hupp is an expansive exploration into the emotional life of a speaker vehemently defying homophobia, racism, and apathy in the political, religious, and social systems that surround us today. The collection is divided across six sections: Anger, Politics, Metaphysical, Despair, Hope, and Love, and each are filled with poems that feel attentive, uninhibited, and, at times, tender.

Hupp’s speaker begins with political poems that offer fiercely articulate and seething criticisms of Donald Trump, MAGA rhetoric, and our current political regime. From that point on, Hupp moves readers through an emotional minefield of his queer and religious speaker’s mind, discovering and examining his rage and grief, his disgust and guilt, his reverence and joy.

American Entropy’s greatest poetic strength is its rawness: Hupp isn’t afraid to describe the great depth of his speaker’s emotions.

I was captivated by the way those feelings twist and compound throughout the collection. Imagery is warped by that emotion: the Statue of Liberty is violated, American patriotism is poisoned, the tiny animal moments of pets are signs of God. In moments where the prescriptive language falls short, Hupp uses his imagery to bring readers into the world of his poems. In concert with the visceral imagery, the clever alliteration and surprising rhyme choices peppered throughout the collection bring a layer of sonic interest that really lights up the poems.

American Entropy saves its sensitive heart for its second half. As the speaker’s anger and frustration fade, they leave behind a man desperately reaching for tender closeness and connection with those around him. While this reaching occasionally leaves him lost in despair, at other moments it gives life and love to our speaker. In the poem “Dive Deep,” with its tumbling, rhythmic syntax and wide open depiction of desire, the speaker explores the intimacy he finds when someone reaches back.

The collection makes time for interpersonal connection, and it argues that this connection is vital for personal wellness in a fraught and derogatory social climate.

In the poem, “Beyond Our Means,” Hupp writes:

“Let’s trace some ley lines
Steal some succulence
Sneak out way into
Some party of opulence”

Richly unrestrained and thematically vast, American Entropy ask us what “poetry’s loose bones” can do for us and our communities in such a fraught political and social climate. Readers are called to analyze their own dangerous complacencies while creating space for their vital joy.

Thank you for reading Mandy Bach’s book review of American Entropy by Travis Hupp! If you liked what you read, please spend some more time with us at the links below.

The post Book Review: American Entropy appeared first on Independent Book Review.

Reviewed by Samantha Hui

A compositional boxing match between poet and machine

Poet Lyman Ditson’s The Poetry Contest: Human Vs. Machine presents an experiment that is as provocative as it is imaginative.

Blending the creative efforts of Ditson and “Adam A.I.” (the name Ditson attributes to ChatGPT’s generated poems ), this collection explores not only the evolving landscape of authorship in the age of artificial intelligence, but also questions of how much of art belongs to the artist and how much to the reader.

Through this poetic dialogue between man and machine, Ditson invites readers to examine the nature of creativity, authorship, and meaning-making. For those interested in the intersections of technology and art, especially those skeptical or curious about AI’s role in creative writing, this book is both intellectually and emotionally engaging.

“the universe is a poem / spinning rhythms / of fire and dust / striving to add meaning / to barren worlds.” – Lyman Ditson

The Poetry Contest is organized around 45 prompts ranging from concepts like “Poetry,” “Grief,” and “Yearning” to specific topics like “Austin,” “San Francisco,” and “Christmas.” Each prompt is followed by a poem from Ditson and then one from Adam A.I., creating a back-and-forth rhythm that encourages comparison and reflection. Ditson doesn’t seek to crown a winner; instead, he presents an open space for nuance where we the readers grapple with our own beliefs of what experiences and labors we attribute to being human.

“Not prophets, but something closer, / a cipher for those / who dare to look.” – Adam A.I.

The book’s structure, with its poetic call-and-response, is one of its greatest strengths. It provides clarity and rhythm while spotlighting the voices of both poets. Adam A.I.’s poems are surprisingly rich with imagery and emotional depth, often feeling eerily familiar. Adam A.I. writes, “It does not matter who / or what created it, / only that something inside you / recognized it.” This is the crux of the book’s intrigue: generative A.I. draws from human language, thought, and feeling, so its most profound moments are often reflections of our own collective experience.

“writing a poem requires / my blood as ink / to splash the page with / the tracks of my mutterings” – Lyman Ditson

Meanwhile, Ditson’s poems are less polished, but unmistakably human. His poems contain fewer formal punctuation marks, more varied line breaks and stanza lengths, and a mastery of the volta. Ditson’s writing offers moments of vulnerability, humor, and oddity like in his poem titled “Prophet,” he writes, “It was a mosquito, / one hot, drippy, day, / who first buzzed.”

Unlike his A.I. counterpart, the human poet interprets the prompts in surprising ways, like in response to “Grief,” he writes a poem titled “Chance.” Adam A.I. responds with “Absence.” In viewing loss not as sorrow, but as possibility, Ditson captures the unpredictability of human response to tragedy.

“Until then, / I will write, / learning from the echoes / of all that you are.” – Adam A.I.

What makes this project so compelling is its inherent tension. Ditson takes on an ambitious and deeply relevant task of wrestling with the question of AI’s role in creative expression. It grapples with a question central to our time: can machines create meaning, or do they simply reflect it back at us? And if they do reflect it, does that make it any less meaningful? In fact, I often wondered whether my preferences or critiques would remain the same if I hadn’t known which poems were AI-generated. That question alone makes the book worth reading. Whether you’re an advocate for AI’s creative potential or someone deeply skeptical, this book gives you just the experience you were hoping for—and then some.

Thank you for reading Samantha Hui’s book review of The Poetry Contest: Human vs. Machine by Lyman Ditson and Adam A.I.! If you liked what you read, please spend some more time with us at the links below.

The post Book Review: The Poetry Contest appeared first on Independent Book Review.

Reviewed by Samantha Hui

An examination of the American psyche through a fire-starting magnifying glass

“Sometimes I miss the respiratory depression / And the thrill that I could die in my sleep”

Alex Osman presents Scandals, a searing poetry collection that crackles with the intensity of lived experience and the ache of American contradictions. These poems are gritty, jagged, and unflinchingly honest. They don’t offer readers a safe landing but rather a reality that is raw, cracked open, and radiating a mournful beauty. Readers who appreciate contemporary poetry that is both socially conscious and emotionally intimate will find in Scandals a collection that stings, stirs, and stays with them.

“He went to jail for a meth bust in 1997 / The lab almost took out my friend Jacob’s trailer / While they were in Disney World for his sister’s / Make-A-Wish vacation”

Rather than tell a single story, Osman’s collection explores a constellation of lives, some famous, some forgotten, all undeniably human, all too human. These poems meditate on the absurdities and hypocrisies of American life: meth lab explodes while a Make-A-Wish child is at Disney World; addict nods off in the theater balcony during Jesus Christ Superstar; pop culture icons like Buddy Holly, Brutus Beefcake, and Jim Jones collide in a surreal American dreamscape.

Osman’s subjects are wounded, addicted, bitter, often broken, and yet, the collection invites readers not to look away, but to look closer. In a country shaped by both nostalgia and neglect, Scandals elevates the neglected: the parentified child, the overdosed brother, the neighbor who never came back from war. These are poems that grieve, mock, remember, and forgive.

“They came here looking for something / And they found it / And when they found it / It exploded like a hand grenade”

Osman invites us to see not only the flaws of his subjects but also their humanity and beauty, shaped by the era and systems that produced them. Poems like “GRANDMA AND GRANDPA” and “FUNERAL OUTFIT” are catalog poems. Through his detailed listings, Osman gives us the sense that the speaker is truly present in the scenes he describes. The objects listed feel tangible and specific; we can almost see the grandparents as if they were our own or we can picture each item in the funeral outfit, as though we’re helping the speaker lay them out.

“Brutus Beefcake stabbed Cesar Romero / Swimming in the Atlantic with the remains of Jim Jones”

Other poems, like “GOLD TOOTH IS A KNUCKLE SANDWICH” and “BRASS CRAWFISH,” use anaphora to evoke the repetitious, cultural noise of America. Referencing Starsky and Hutch, Gilligan’s Island, ALF, and Buddy Holly, Osman shows how pop culture becomes a constant loop, embedding itself into our collective consciousness. These poems suggest that both the people on the page and the readers themselves are shaped by these repeated images, creating a culture where life imitates art.

“Exhaust fumes remain nostalgic / Microwave dinners melting in a vacuum”

Finally, poems like “WON’T GET FOOLED AGAIN” and “I SHOULD HAVE SAID SOMETHING” are strikingly brief, composed of only two lines. They read like passing comments or half-remembered thoughts, barely poems in a conventional sense, but their inclusion and titling force the reader to pause and reflect. Their power lies in their brevity; Osman invites us to linger on what might otherwise be overlooked, revealing the weight behind seemingly casual remarks.

“When I’m dead, I’m dead / Eradicated like a crippling virus / I just want some quiet”

Alex Osman’s greatest gift is his ability to write about the unpoetic with profound lyricism and care. There’s an undercurrent of mourning in these poems, but also empathy. These aren’t just stories of failure or despair; they are testaments to survival, portraits of dignity among the wreckage. Osman never romanticizes addiction or trauma, but he refuses to discard the people shaped by them.

Scandals is a collection that’s unafraid of the dark corners of the American psyche—for who want poetry that challenges as much as it comforts.

Thank you for reading Samantha Hui’s book review of Scandals by Alex Osman! If you liked what you read, please spend some more time with us at the links below.

The post Book Review: Scandals by Alex Osman appeared first on Independent Book Review.

Reviewed by Nikolas Mavreas

A wise and weary contemplation of untenable love

In Beyond All Knowing, Chantal Dalton writes about love, age, companionship, and loss. Her medium is the exploration of a relationship between a young man and a much older woman, from whose perspective these poems are written. Dalton’s exploration yields results that are filled with gracefulness as well as wisdom.

It would be inaccurate to the collection to analyze this book poem by poem. It is characterized by a complete unity of setting and narrative, if not of theme. Maybe it is not even a collection at all, but, rather, a uniform work of poetry, with the poems’ names serving as useful section dividers and indicators of meaning. This a story—and a powerful one at that—a stroboscopic look into an obviously complex situation.

A woman, incontinent and equipped with titanium knees, is in love with a young man, who travels and may tend to get drunk on tequila. There is a platonic relationship and a great deal of affection between the two, but it is not clear that feelings are exactly reciprocal, there being a difference between love in the forms of eros and agape. And so, the book is an extended rumination on unfulfilled love, seen from a quite unusual point of view, that of the older speaker who is here seen wondering about the fate of her tributes to the young man:

“Are my poems your haven and refuge? Or just writing that disappears on a frosty window under a ruthless sun?”

The lines oscillate between companionship and loneliness, often juxtaposing the two, with loneliness largely prevailing. The poet-protagonist goes through extremes of emotion, though their expression is fittingly subtle and subdued. She is a remarkably wise woman. Like the Marschallin in Rosenkavalier, she movingly and poignantly meditates on the unfairness of time and untimeliness. “Our timelines don’t match,” she puts it crudely, “but our spirits do.” Would she have preferred it if their timelines matched? Evidently so, and she poetically says so through artful denial:

“Good thing I didn’t meet you or know you sooner, I wouldn’t be sitting here longing to hear you whisper instead of shout — Longing to make you sigh.”

Dalton’s authentic poetic sensibility is apparent throughout. She has a knack for rhythm, but she doesn’t always take full advantage of it. The texture of her writing is delicate, yet unstrained in its simplicity. She arrests us with her insights into the psyche. These, presented without decoration, can be quite grim, nowhere more so than when the protagonist sees herself: “wrinkly skin, hesitance and fading purpose.” Such flashes disrupt the natural idleness of the work like far-off thunderbolts sounding on a simply cloudy day.

Like with everything else in life that is dictated by time, acceptance is the only possible route in our speaker’s situation. Our heart, however, can’t help but break at the reluctance, achingly simmering under the surface of her words, to accept inevitability and loss. Beyond All Knowing is filled with affecting bits of reality and stirring emotion. There is great knowledge here—and even greater lessons.

Thank you for reading Nikolas Mavreas’s book review of Beyond All Knowing by Chantal Dalton! If you liked what you read, please spend some more time with us at the links below.

The post Book Review: Beyond All Knowing appeared first on Independent Book Review.