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Review by Jason Carney

Cristin O’Keefe Aptowicz’s sixth book, The Year of No Mistakes, is a book of transitions. Movement is a strong thread throughout the most sophisticated offering this poet has made to date. Her voice is authentic and precise. The whole of the text seems as if not only the poems are in transition, but the poet as well, as if the narrator is searching for wholeness by leaving parts of herself behind.

The easiest transitional element to spot is the physical location of the poems. The reader is constantly moving page to page—Chicago, Brooklyn, Austin, Queens, and various cities in between. This movement seems natural and fluid, as if the book is piecing together the signs of her life, with the most important of these examinations being the relationships the narrator has developed and outgrown. The Year of No Mistakes is a book of remembrances and reflections, presented in a tangible and visceral manner, relevant to each of our lives. A clear example of this is the poem “The Bowery.”

We danced like ball bearings.
We laughed like ripped newspapers.
We smoked like backwards rain clouds.
We kissed like slammed doors. Continue reading →