Originally appeared in ImageUpdate, a publication of IMAGE Journal.  The Penny Poet of Portsmouth: A Memoir of Place, Solitude, and Friendship by Katherine Towler “Minor Poets Have More Fun,” read the calling cards of Robert Dunn, the titular character in Katherine Towler’s memoir The Penny Poet of Portsmouth. Towler, who knew this very private writer as much as anyone …

Originally appeared in ImageUpdate, a publication of IMAGE Journal.  A Radiant Coming-of-Age My Radio Radio by Jessie van Eerden They called themselves The Dunlap Fellowship of All Things in Common. They were idealists who meant to replicate the early church described in Acts, doing away not only with private property but even family ties, so that parents were addressed not …

Originally appeared in ImageUpdate, a publication of IMAGE Journal.  Marking the Unseen Eye Dothead by Amit Majmudar “It’s not some freak / third eye that opens on your forehead like / on some Chernobyl baby,” writes Amit Majmudar in the poem “Dothead.” “What it means / is, what it’s showing is, there’s this unseen / eye, on the inside. And …

Originally appeared in ImageUpdate, a publication of IMAGE Journal.    Small Mothers of Fright  by Tara Bray Beware the omnipresent wings, the iridescent stunner on the cover: they may trick you into thinking that Small Mothers of Fright, Tara Bray’s new collection of poems, is just another lovely book about birds. True, you’ll catch sight of the creatures—thrush …

Originally appeared in ImageUpdate, a publication of IMAGE Journal.  Poems of Creative Mischief Abandoned Homeland by Jeff Gundy   If there be anything curious, anything playful, anything vital noodling just beneath the quiet surface—think on these things. Or ask a question about them. Or make some poems that do both, as Jeff Gundy does in Abandoned Homeland. Gundy’s settings are …

Originally appeared in ImageUpdate, a publication of IMAGE Journal.  Poems Radiating the Heart of Lent Other Acreage by Becca J.R. Lachman There are precisely 46 poems in Becca J.R. Lachman’s Other Acreage—a neat correspondence with the days between Ash Wednesday and Easter—and should you begin the book today (and do a little catch-up reading) you will embark upon a most pleasurable daily …

Originally appeared in ImageUpdate, a publication of IMAGE Journal.  Dead-Serious Play The Milk Underground by Ronny Someck “I’m a pajama-Iraqi, my wife’s Romanian / And our daughter the thief from Baghdad. / My mother’s always boiling the Euphrates and Tigris….” Poet Ronny Someck’s family emigrated from Iraq to Israel when he was a child, and for readers unfamiliar with the …

Originally appeared in ImageUpdate, a publication of IMAGE Journal.  Questions of Unfulfilled Longing Only So Far by Robert Cording When we’re turned away at the thousandth mile, having traveled 999 before it—when our labors of love never reach consummation—when we can’t get no satisfaction—well, what do we get instead? Robert Cording’s collection Only So Far poses this question from its very first poem, “Kafka’s Fence”: “Haven’t we …

It’s been a while since a book intrigued me as much as Aviya Kushner’s The Grammar of God. I’ve always cringed upon hearing people argue for “the inerrancy of Scripture.” I understand they’re trying to bolster the credibility of the Bible (as if it needs defenders, and doesn’t stand on its own as a great …