The following list was decided after consultation between California Review of Books co-editors David Starkey and Brian Tanguay and the journal’s most frequent reviewers, Walter Cummins and George Yatchisin. As…
Category: Poetry
The Best Poetry Books of 2025
Reviews by David Starkey As I have every year since 2014, in 2025 I set aside a couple of months to peruse the year’s books of poetry–at least those books…
All These Things I Will Give to You by Robert Clinton
Rain Mountain Review by Walter Cummins Robert Clinton’s ekphrastic poem “Egon Schiele,” which finds words to describe how Schiele creates a painting, provides a visual equivalent to the way Clinton…
Talking All Night: The New York Poets – Interviews, Photographs, Letters by Mark Hillringhouse
Serving House Review by David Starkey In an interview with Mark Hillringhouse, poet Anne Waldman responds to a question about the literary scene with a quote that could apply to…
To Phrase a Prayer for Peace by Donna Spruijt-Metz
Wildhouse Review by Catherine Abbey Hodges To Phrase a Prayer for Peace, Donna Spruijt-Metz’s second full-length collection of poems, chronicles the poet’s experience of the first 118 days of the…
Pause the Document by Mónica de la Torre
Nightboat Review by Laura Mullen “These days walks are my cinéma vérité… // Walks are my party. My cinéma vérité. Nameste.”–Mónica de la Torre At a poetry festival recently a…
The Redesignation of Paradise by Denise Newman | Alibi Lullaby by Norma Cole
Kelsey Street | Omnidawn Review by Laura Mullen Two books by powerhouse Bay Area writers are reason to celebrate—offering welcome sites of refuge and refreshment. Poets Denise Newman and Norma…
Standard Time by Dante Di Stefano
Cow Creek Review by H. L. Hix By the wholeness it tenders in so slender a volume (38 pages of poetry plus front and back matter), Dante Di Stefano’s Standard…
Alba and Other Songs: Poems by Fred Arroyo
Gunpowder Review by Laura Villareal In Novelist as Vocation, Haruki Murakami quipped, “The way I see it, people with brilliant minds are not particularly well suited to writing novels.” Not…