by Lillias Bever (2005)
"The event at the center of this refreshingly conceived cycle of poems is Italian painter Gentile Bellini's sojourn in Istanbul in 1479. Poems undulate out from this experience as the poet carves poetic sculptures that explore the themes of art, archaeology, and the idea of cultural transmission. These insightful contemplations are delicately honed by the author's own experience in Turkey, ultimately fashioning a mirror to history that reflects the landscape of self. Bellini in Istanbul has the finish of voice present in the best poetry, the report on experience and travel of the most interesting people, and the reflective tone of a cultivated inner voice. Though I treasure its descriptive pieces--Italian scenes, Turkish fish markets, comments on and condensations of The Blue Guide--what is the most touching are the poems that intermingle the exotic with the deeply personal--the assessment of a relationship gone bad in a foreign land, then considering a new one aborning; the carrying and birthing of a child thought in terms of Greek myth, and the crisp observations of the world turned into signifiers of the dreamwork which is poetry. Lillias Bever is a gorgeous poet, traveled and travailed, seeking a home in her own strophes."--Publisher's website.
Carol Muske
An Octave Above Thunder presents a collection of poems spanning more than twenty years in the career of Carol Muske, who has won acclaim for work that marries sophisticated intelligence, emotional resonance, and technical craft. This volume brings together new poems and a generous selection of work from Muske's five previously published collections.
Michael Macrone
The books in the Brush Up series clarify the thoughts, theories and declarations that have defined and developed the core of Western civilisation over the millennia, from the classics through the Renaissance to the information revolution.
Elise Paschen
"In her third poetry book, The Nightlife, Paschen once again taps into dream states, creating a narrative which balances between the lived and the imagined life. Probing the tension between 'The Elevated' and the 'Falls,' she explores troubled love and relationships, the danger of accident and emotional volatility. At the heart of the book is a dream triptych which retells the same encounter from different perspectives, the drama between the narrative described and the sexual tension created there. The Nightlife demonstrates Paschen's versatility and formal mastery as she experiments with forms such as the pantoum, the villanelle and the tritina, as well as concrete poems and poems in free verse. Throughout this poetry collection, she interweaves lyric and narrative threads, creating a contrapuntal story-line. The book begins with a dive into deep water and ends with an opening into sky"
Jean Gallagher
"This Minute is a connected whole, in which the verse is driven by strong intellectual excitement, evident in the energetic movement of the lines and in a vocabulary that switches easily from the colloquial to the exact. There is an urgent voice, felt close at hand. And there is a skill in handling and matching the size of a poem to its subject that makes each invigorating to read - one arrives slightly out of breach. These poems are luminous, discovering rather than manufacturing their metaphors as the most exact way of speaking."--Jacket.