[REVIEW] Witch by Philip Matthews

Posted on April 22, 2021 by admin

REVIEW BY GABINO IGLESIAS

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It’s probably impossible to read thirty poetry collections in thirty days and not come across a variety of voices, approaches, and styles. The beauty of such an exercise is that different styles jump at you and you learn to accept them all, to navigate whatever you encounter with the same attention. I’ve been reading poetry that tells clears stories lately. You know, the kind of poetry where you can easily identify slices of the poet’s biography or know exactly who shows up in a poem as well as when and where it happened. Philip Matthews’s Witch was a departure from the realm of clarity and straightforward storytelling in verse.

Witch pulls readers into a world of angels, demons, shells, and strangeness. In fact, more than a poetry collection that can be easily compared to other books, the easiest way to “explain” this collection is to compare it to arthouse films. Just like arthouse, we know we’re in the presence of art and enjoy the elements we’re able to fully grasp while rolling with—and often also enjoying—that which is beyond immediate comprehension. Sure, we know there’s a woman in many poems here names Petal and we know there is love, fatherhood, water, transformation, and pain in these poems. We also read lines like “I rinse her cock with/abundant energy” or “we are trying/to scry out/a gender” and understand there is a discussion of gender and queerness rippling right at the surface. However, the rest evades us. Witch is a festival of language and meaning waiting to be decoded. “The Five Shades in Her Neck” is a perfect example:

“Petal peels back you.

Bell stitched to her headskin.

Bicycle.

Chased through the eight sun.

She freezes.

She is a strict gun.

Stunning you with her hand.

Her hand immediately in your hair.

Sunni red.

Tined and constellated.

The targeting wind in her neck.”

Yes, some of the stuff in Witch is confusing, and that’s okay. Why is Petal 1,002 years old? What is the significance of being married to two angels? Why do women appear as tentacled in a poem? Why is the headless angel kneeling? Why do other angels “drift along the periphery/of sheep”? I don’t know, but reading about them is an exercise in poetry, a way to enter a different world and encounter words strung together in ways you’ve never encountered them before. This is one of the beautiful things poetry can offer, and it’s what the core of Witch is made of.

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Gabino Iglesias is a writer, editor, literary critic, and professor living in Austin, TX. He is the author of ZERO SAINTS and COYOTE SONGS. You can find him on Twitter at @Gabino_Iglesias.

[REVIEW] Green by Melissa Fite Johnson

Posted on April 20, 2021 by admin

REVIEW BY GABINO IGLESIAS

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Melissa Fite Johnson’s Green is a box of memories that also contains a few bridges. Yes, I said bridges. The first one is between now and whenever the things she talks about—the death of her father, her running away at five years old, breaking her leg, a trip to the fertility clinic—happened. The second is between poetry and music. These are poems that have a unique rhythm, and undeniable musicality, but I mean more than that; these are poems that have open conversations with songs, most of which readers will know. The last bridge is between reality and the world Johnson’s filter creates. She was once sixteen, but she can be sixteen again here as she visits her past self or she can bring her father to the page despite the fact that he passed away in 1998. Every one of these bridges is worth crossing.

Poetry that tells stories has always been my favorite kind, and Green is full of stories. Some have a hint of comedy, some are memories shaped into poetry by words, and some are slices of Johnson’s biography presented without filter. Every line about her father, for example, cuts you to the marrow. “The Immediacy” is a perfect example:

Once my father wanted yogurt?

but couldn’t remember the word.?

Once he tried to carry his own cereal,

brace the bowl’s lip against his cane handle,

and my mother came home to flakes

crusted to the kitchen floor. When he

mouthed Elden again and again, I guessed

my brother had a new girlfriend, Ellen, but

it was the name of his dead uncle.?

So what? I asked, then left the room.

The day my father died,?

I smelled the cologne-tinged?

rubber handle of his cane, held it tight

in my hand, pretended it was his hand.

The say geniuses are those who can explain something complicated in a way that it’s easy to understand. The poetic version of that probably has to do with a poet’s ability to bring something to the page in a way that you understand it, but only the best of them can me you both understand and feel. Johnson belongs to this second group. There are poems here so full of emotion that they stick with you even after you’re done reading. There’s sadness and pain, but both are presented in ways that they become palpable, capable of jumping from the page and touching you with their painful straightforwardness. Just read “The Woman and the Wolf”:

He strangled little sounds from me

in his doorway. Later?

he called the word strangle

dramatic. You could breathe fine.

Hand over my mouth, he shushed

into my ear. Later he said,?

You can’t rape your girlfriend.?

I lay awake while he slept.

Easter morning I cried?

in church, quietly?

so my mother couldn’t hear.

Another bowed chin in a pew.

Sometimes I imagine wolves?

as wounded birds. From a distance,

they’re not so different, the howling

head, a wing puncturing the sky.

Johnson visits herself in the past and sees herself in the future. She imagines other realities while tied to this one. Throughout all of it, she chronicles, and the result of that is a fantastic collection that demands to be devoured first and then read slowly, savoring each trip in time regardless of the darkness that sometimes is waiting there.

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Gabino Iglesias is a writer, editor, literary critic, and professor living in Austin, TX. He is the author of ZERO SAINTS and COYOTE SONGS. You can find him on Twitter at @Gabino_Iglesias.

[REVIEW] To Emit Teal by upfromsumdirt

Posted on April 17, 2021 by admin

REVIEW BY GABINO IGLESIAS

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Sometimes you read poetry that makes you think of a juggler throwing knives lit on fire into the night sky. You’ve seen jugglers before, but this one—the one you’re reading—is new, special, unique. Encountering poets like that means encountering not only words in orders you’ve never seen them in before but also words used to say things you’ve never heard them say before. upfromsumdirt is that kind of word magician (“i’m a shaman on the forward path/walking past-backwards to where the Ra also rises”).

I first encountered upfromsumdirt’s word last year when I read Deifying a Total Darkness, which blew me away and struck a chord with the Caribbean magic riding my veins. When I started putting together this National Poetry Month project, I knew I had to reach out and include some of his work. To Emit Teal was all I wanted it to be and more.

You don’t even have to go into the first poet to know you’re experiencing something strong, something that carries a message. All you have to do is read the dedication:

“TO EMMETT TILL

FOR

breonna &

ahmaud &

george &”

Simple, but it hurts. Three times; a history of racism, struggle, and murder. Then you start reading, and it only gets better. One of the things that make upfromsumdirt work unique is his balance of time and subject. He writes about now, but with always keeps the past present. He writes about the word, but in a way that’s filtered through his experiences and amplified and presented by his voice. This is poetry about the self that often is inextricably tied to the world and to other people.

Some things in this collection are easy to write about. You already know it deals with racism and history. Yeah, slavery is in there, and don’t you forget. There’s also a distinctive musicality and words that create their own rhythm: “you hafta be a butterfly to feel this tango,/electric bomba for our boneblack spirits.” Lastly, there is Blackness as upfromsumdirt sees it in a historical context: “our status as Nigerian bronze smith descendants/down to some ordinary yard bird—hustlers” Lastly, there is the stuff you read and then read again because it’s so timely (sadly) and so powerful:

“we coddle our kids in the genie bottle’s broken shards; we caress & dress our newborns in secondhand smoke & mirror with “make a wish” as body armor. born as batteries—their pained laughter the lithium for the very war machine come to kill them. for nostalgia’s sake, they’ll even kick in your door in the dead of night and brew tea for you under a hail of bullets; the keystone cops in a brutal ballet.”

You can understand that without much digging, but then there are poems that seem to bring messages that demand you dig deeper. upfromsumdirt seems to have spoken to the Orishas and they gave him a gift: to write with words we all know but in a way that strikes your chest like the sound of drums…and makes you understand it beyond language. This is something he does time and again, and it’s the reason why folks should read his work. Here’s just a taste you can feel and could have a hard time explaining because it contains so much:

“either way, i’m too ancestral to carry on as some

cold canon’s common cuck—i’m an old ass man

my knees ache from translating Earth?

to a telling-tongue (and from too much Splenda

to let a daughter tell it)—carrying a vesperous hurt

400 years too heavy – but walking around with your

ass on your shoulders is a definite cause for type-2

diabetes so i’ve backed down (somewhat) with

the mouth-frothing diatribe—i’m a faith-healing

black folk-art snake handler in 21st century coveralls

bidding you to come eat my magic yeast—beneficial

poisons to regrow lost youthhood these

mythic words are a load-bearing wall in the Temple

of Octavia—Patron Lady of the Thick Black Lip

each quip a ledger for our unborn legends and that’s

the real reason i’ve lured you here—human sacrifices

are needed—so surrender at once your throat to me let me

slice out a premonition with the edge of

an orange peel placing these long drawn out words?

on the sleeve of a t-shirt for e-bay every sentence

a gang sign for the Dark Gods Of Black Poetry on

pinterest—my stories hauled in egg sacks from

the center of the sun on the back of Anansi

i’m here because there is splinter in America

and now is not the time for withdrawing words

absconding from the up-or-down vote.

You’ve seen jugglers before, but from time to time you encounter one doing tricks you’ve never seen before. That’s what To Emit Teal does, and it’s what makes upfromsumdirt a poet you should read. Leave what you think you know about poetry at the door and enter his world. You won’t regret it.

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Gabino Iglesias is a writer, editor, literary critic, and professor living in Austin, TX. He is the author of ZERO SAINTS and COYOTE SONGS. You can find him on Twitter at @Gabino_Iglesias.

[REVIEW] Love & Metaxa by Christina Strigas

Posted on April 16, 2021 by admin

REVIEW BY GABINO IGLESIAS

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Starting a review with your own blurb is a weird thing to do, but here we are. I’ve been a fan of Strigas’s work for a while now, so when she asked me to read her latest and say something about it, I jumped at the opportunity to talk about her poetry outside of a review. Here’s what I said:

“Love & Metaxa is a collection of feelings violently thrown against the page. Strigas’s work is intense and honest. This collection is a mirror that reminds us of ourselves: a little dirty, a bit sad, stained with coffee, questioning everything, remembering the things that turned into scars, craving booze, ignoring the way the heart aches. These poems are the equivalent of making out with a stranger in a parking lot as wild horses stampede down the street and you feel the weight of the ghosts of old lovers hanging from your lips. Ah, but there is fun and lust, locked rooms and books, the beach and the fact that death is not yet here. Forget reading these poems; feel them. They will probably kiss you in return.”

That blurb contains no lies, but I didn’t have enough space to say everything I wanted to say about this collection. Enter this review.

Love & Metaxa is a bizarre rollercoaster of emotions. Strigas makes love in one poem and then deal with her father’s death in the next. There are kisses and glioblastomas, a bit of music and a lot of booze, a few ghosts and a lot of pain. In a nutshell, these poems are a collection of feelings and experiences, all filtered through poetry, all containing a slice of Strigas, a chunk of her life:

I slept under crumbled bridges,?

car lights reflecting pothole prisms,

when I lost my soul to the?

gods of: drugs.?

wars?

alcohol?

dead poets?

sharp philosophers?

listless writers.

Our glowing graffiti—illegal,

Polaroids, opioids?

a tower of glossy tabloids—

Past inflated—dated bottles

majestic little lanterns

erupting enlightened.

You filled in a spotlight for me,

In neon bars I slaved in,?

smoky?

local

emptied, lonely rebel—?

just another female poet, a fitted slave

I became your Metaxa maid.

No more niceties.?

As the antihero you were made to be:

under a highway bridge?

ashamed?

stuffed inside a glass pillow, evoking

cult leaders.?

A revelation I named Vacant Lot.

The magic of Love & Metaxa resides in its balance: it’s beautiful and ugly, painful and happy, sexy and sad. These are poems are traveling, but also about things you want to forget and fridges full of hostility, of books but also of loss, of city lights and naked flesh. Strigas writers with her heart on her sleeve, and the writing here reflects that with poem after poem full of memorable lines, pointed questions, and sharp observations. Read that blurb again. Done? Now go get your kiss.

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Gabino Iglesias is a writer, editor, literary critic, and professor living in Austin, TX. He is the author of ZERO SAINTS and COYOTE SONGS. You can find him on Twitter at @Gabino_Iglesias.

[REVIEW] All the Violent Memories by J.B. Stevens

Posted on April 15, 2021 by admin

REVIEW BY GABINO IGLESIAS

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“I hope I don’t catch one,

But I know I’m due.

I know I’m due.”

J.B. Stevens is talking about a bullet in those lines. He is talking about the certainty of death, the fear of knowing that the more time you spend in front of heavily armed enemies, the bigger the changes of you catching a bullet are. A bullet is something you can touch, a tool you can use. Fear is different. Fear is something that touches you and not the other way around. It’s something you might try to use as a tool to stay alive, but it’s also something that can destroy you, haunt your dreams, make you insecure. In All the Violent Memories there is a lot of fear and bullets. However, there is hope and happy endings. This is a short poetry collection about war that digs deeps into the trauma of it and shows that violence has a way of hurting even those who survive.

There are times in which poetry is used to deliver veiled messages or to explore something using language in a way that makes it impossible to see the meaning of the work unless the reader spends time deconstructing the poem. That’s not the case here. Stevens writes about war as if he’s stabbing the page. In All the Violent Memories, writing is a way to cope, an exorcism, a way to perform self-surgery and put things on the page so that, maybe, they haunt Stevens a little less.

“Iraq took my soul,

Sleep required medication,

Death beckons peaceful.

Why can’t I relax,

The assholes all fucking missed,

I endure. They missed.

Motivation gone,

My novel consumes the world,

The memories call.

War is at the core of this collection. Several other elements are present, and they all come together to give this a noir feel. Guns, drugs, violence, and even a coffee burn to the crotch bring in a dose of gritty reality, but war and its effects are the heart of All the Violent Memories. The threat of death, suicide, broken relationships, loss, fear, bomb dogs, interpreters, and bombs; they make up most of the poems here, and they make for authentic, uncomfortable reading that everyone should experience.

All the Violent Memories is raw and emotionally gritty. Stevens writes like he’s telling a story, and his clarity and straightforward approach help these short poems deliver a harder punch. This isn’t a happy book, but it’s an important one because it reminds us that some things aren’t over just because they came to an end.

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Gabino Iglesias is a writer, editor, literary critic, and professor living in Austin, TX. He is the author of ZERO SAINTS and COYOTE SONGS. You can find him on Twitter at @Gabino_Iglesias.

[REVIEW] And God Created Women by Connie Voisine

Posted on April 14, 2021 by admin

REVIEW BY GABINO IGLESIAS

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The reasons a lot of literary critics opt not to write about poetry is that doing so is often to trying to explain the ineffable. Trying to come up with a few lines to describe Connie Voisine’s And God Created Women is like witnessing a religious ceremony from an unknown culture conducted in a language you don’t understand and then trying to explain exactly what was happening. The poems here are beautiful and Voisine is an I that keeps popping up, so at least we have some coordinates for navigation. However, besides those two things, the poems in this collection are about everyday things becoming elevated into something more via language.

And God Created Women contains known elements shaped into new things. There are babies and horses here, for example. People ride the bus and watch the news. Someone is angry and a wedding takes places after a murder. We know the world Voisine writes about, but we encounter a different version of it here. For example, we know the story of God creating Eve, but here we see it differently, and the retelling calls her womb a 3-D printer and includes Cheetos.

“Woman printed out two sons

in pain she bore them, and later,

much later, that fratricide, another

management fail. God gave her

other wonders, like the flaming

swords barring her from the garden,

a nice set of earrings, and the recent

regional victory of basketball team.

Much later, God’s son was very kind

to her, though she had slipped a bit,

what with the poverty and prostitution.

And God Created Women might be a guide to find beauty in everyday things. Or maybe it’s an exploration of how we can inhabit different spaces and how those spaces either shape us or adapt to who we are. Maybe it’s both. Maybe it’s neither. The only thing that’s clear here is that Voisine is a gifted writer with a knack for unveiling things using a unique lens that reveals them as new and makes us wonder about the details we might be missing.

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Gabino Iglesias is a writer, editor, literary critic, and professor living in Austin, TX. He is the author of ZERO SAINTS and COYOTE SONGS. You can find him on Twitter at @Gabino_Iglesias.

[REVIEW] Hardcore by Mik Grantham

Posted on April 13, 2021 by admin

REVIEW BY GABINO IGLESIAS

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I read a lot of horror fiction, which means I tend to take the term “hardcore” with a grain of salt because it’s something often used by writers who think gore or sexual abuse is enough to mask their lack of storytelling skills. That said, Mik Grantham’s Hardcore, which contains a fair amount of fear and bodily fluids, delivers on every implied promise made by its title. Funny, harrowing, personal, and dark, the poems in Hardcore delve deep into things most people would rather not talk about. In the first four poems, Grantham tackles pregnancy scares, losing her favorite underwear, vomiting on herself at the gynecologist’s office, drunk people, and being afraid of anthrax. And that’s just the start. Depression, the aftermath of abortion, the 2016 elections, and dark childhood memories are also present here, and Grantham’s straightforward approach brings them to the page raw and unfiltered.

Hardcore is a door into Grantham’s life. The poems talk about events with unfiltered honesty, and that makes the readers feel like they’re listening to a friend telling them about the stuff they experienced. Here’s “Stay”:

the dogs fucked all night long

we ordered chinese food

there were noodles?

covered in soy sauce

are you turned on??

you took my food away?

maybe you wanted to save some?

for later?

i always thought that was a weird move

do you remember this?

this was back when you disappeared

often?

here we are?

hey, where are you going now

While it might sound like a gloomy collection—and it is gloomy—Hardcore is unique and fun to read. Bizarre cohesive element like movies (especially ones with witches) and teeth (lost teeth, missing teeth, teeth falling out, ripping teeth out) emerge from the poems as testaments to the strange nature of the voice that created this book. Grantham’s style walks a fine line between deadpan gallows humor and the kind of honesty that comes out you without filter. Behind every poem here there is a story or a feeling, and the delivery often makes deconstruction or analysis unnecessary. I guess the word that fits here is blunt, but it’s a bluntness that’s strangely beautiful, that makes you nod your head in agreement. Here’s “riding my bike”:

wishing someone would?

hit me with their car while i’m

on my way to work

Hardcore is full of that weirdness that makes real life look scripted. For example, Grantham’s mom is a recurring character in the collection. She saw the devil and liked listening to Jewel. Her grandmother is also here, and the last poem, the longest in the book, is about spending time with her. And then there’s Grantham’s work as a waitress, which permeates the book and gives her stories to tell.

This isn’t a beautiful collection about perfect moments; it’s a rough, graphic, authentic, wonderfully humane collection about hating your job, eating eggs, past relationships, remembering your childhood, and peeing in parking lots. Grantham has a knack for bringing reality to the page with outstanding economy of language, and that makes this a must read for anyone who likes their poetry with a healthy dose of grit.

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Gabino Iglesias is a writer, editor, literary critic, and professor living in Austin, TX. He is the author of ZERO SAINTS and COYOTE SONGS. You can find him on Twitter at @Gabino_Iglesias.

[REVIEW] Becoming Coztototl by Carolina Hinojosa-Cisneros

Posted on April 12, 2021 by admin

REVIEW BY GABINO IGLESIAS

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Carolina Hinojosa-Cisneros’s Becoming Coztototl is a short poetry collection that inhabits the interstitial space between this world and the spirit world, between Spanish and English, between the United States and Mexico. This is a collection about bodies and harsh realities, but also about hope, light, power, land, heritage, culture, and family. Hinojosa-Cisneros writes with conviction and strength, and these pages are a testament to that:

“As hijitos and hijitas sit in manmade cages,

detentions they will call them, their wings carry

los antepasados like rayos de luz within.

And when the cage gets lonelym los antepasados,

remind hijitas and hijitos of the land they stand on.”

Becoming Coztototl comes in at 36 pages, but its short length doesn’t detract from the punch it packs. Displaced bodies, trauma, the struggles of migration, the weaving in and out of cultures; it’s all present here, and Hinojosa-Cisneros tackles these topics with an open heart and brings the power of first-hand experience—as a woman of color, as a Tejana—to the page. More than poetry, the words in this book add up to a celebration of mestizaje and a song that tells of the beauty of mixed languages. However, despite all the light here, there is a scream at the heart of this collection that wants to destroy “systemic oppression” and free every “marginalized body.”

FlowerSong Press is doing important work by bringing voices like Hinojosa-Cisneros to readers, and this book is a strong addition to their catalog. Their aesthetic is authenticity and diversity, and Becoming Coztototl delivers both. Hinojosa-Cisneros’s writing is strong, but not angry. Despite the heavy topics the book deals with, there is a lot of light, a lot of hope, in its pages. Unity, family, and community emerge as the pillars that hold us up, and reading these poems is to witness how beauty and love can be found even in harsh times.

“Mi’ja you are more than

shared flesh. You are

warrior at evening time.

You are powerful voice

at morning prayer. You are

ancestral lucha burning

sage under your bar feet.”

Becoming Coztototl makes that fight communal, but it also reminds us if the beauty around it; the reasons why we keep fighting. Hinojosa-Cisneros is a fighter in that lucha, y estos poemas nos invitan a luchar con ella.

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Gabino Iglesias is a writer, editor, literary critic, and professor living in Austin, TX. He is the author of ZERO SAINTS and COYOTE SONGS. You can find him on Twitter at @Gabino_Iglesias.

[REVIEW] Séance in Daylight by Yuki Tanaka

Posted on April 11, 2021 by admin

REVIEW BY GABINO IGLESIAS

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Yuki Tanaka’s Séance in Daylight, which won the 2018 Frost Place Chapbook Competition, is one of those rare poetry collections that appeal to me both as a lover of poetry and a fan of horror fiction. At once full of light and darkness, the poems in this short book cover a plethora of topics. The lack of central theme, however, doesn’t detract from the work because Tanaka’s voice and the combination between light and dark gives the collection a sense of cohesion.

Séance in Daylight is a superb title, and Tanaka delivers on everything it promises:

“A man drowned in a river.

We scoop up the water

and look at his face. Inside

his egg-shaped head, a white

spasm—death looks like birth.”

Ghosts, pain, transformation, and memories wrapped in the emptions they birthed are the elements Tanaka used here to build his tiny universe. This is a book I originally read in April of 2019, but the beauty of some of these poems made it linger in my mind, so I decided to bring it back for this National Poetry Month project. The best poetry, I think, paints pictures vividly using language, and that’s what Tanaka does here in every page. He tells stories that feel like gloomy fairytales, and that makes this feel much longer that it is.

Mentioning horror in a poetry review is odd, but it fits here. As the title suggests, Tanaka gets close to horror in these pages, often offering lines that could be considered spooky:

“She opened her mouth as if her throat were a bird

ready to leave her. I thought she was going to sing

for the dead, because she saw them always.”

Séance in Daylight holds secret conversation with other texts, which Tanaka reveals in the notes at the end. However, what matters most here is that the feverish nature of the writing creates a space in which the reader feel like they don’t always know if they’re witnessing a memory, a nightmare, a fever dream, or a hybrid creatures that brings them all together. Whatever the case, this chapbook is a great introduction to Tanaka’s work as well as an enjoyable slice of poetic darkness.

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Gabino Iglesias is a writer, editor, literary critic, and professor living in Austin, TX. He is the author of ZERO SAINTS and COYOTE SONGS. You can find him on Twitter at @Gabino_Iglesias.

[REVIEW] Louder Birds by Angela Voras-Hills

Posted on April 10, 2021 by admin

REVIEW BY GABINO IGLESIAS

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I love poetry that seems to contain living slices of the life of a writer. Angela Voras-Hills’s Louder Birds is the kind of collection made up of tiny portals that take you places, showing you what Voras-Hills has seen, done, and felt. At once heartfelt and elegant, the writing in this collection isn’t afraid to be straightforward, which allows it to feel real:

“Days after my mom finishes radiation, she’s in Vegas

on a Harley. It’s 80 degrees, and she sends selfies

with cocktails in the sun.”

Sometimes a poetry collection will demand deconstruction in order to be enjoyed. That’s not the case here. Many of the poems here feel like short stories that bring to life a specific time, place, or individual(s). A grandpa lands a place on a lake. Someone uses a book to smash a centipede. The poet looks through a window at a bloodstain on the floor of an abandoned house. “Two foxes run circles/around the cement wall/of a reflecting pool.” These poems are small tales that are large in significance. The beauty of great poetry is that, much like a photograph, it can capture a moment in time and hold it there forever, a thing trapped in amber that can be shared with the world. Voras-Hills has a knack for trapping moments with words, and her talent is in full display here.

Louder Birds inhabits an interstitial space between the inner an outer worlds of the writer. The inner one drives the memories and forms the frames of each poem. The outer world provides a plethora of elements of cohesion, including water, snow, wood, trees, grass, flowers, and a collection of animals that includes bears, chipmunks, foxes, eels, worms, ants, an owl, a spider, and a decapitated rabbit:

“On the bike path, a bunny’s body and blood

where the head should be. Something

has torn off its foot, something has eaten

its heart, its entrails frozen in snow.”

Voras-Hills is aware of her body as part of this world, and her writing reminds us to pay attention, to live in the moment, to rejoice, to observe the small things and rejoice in their secret meaning. The poems in Louder Birds are beautiful chronicles that invite readers to recognize the transcendence of the commonplace. That alone should make you read it.

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Gabino Iglesias is a writer, editor, literary critic, and professor living in Austin, TX. He is the author of ZERO SAINTS and COYOTE SONGS. You can find him on Twitter at @Gabino_Iglesias.