Finishing Line Review by Jack Smith Founder of one of the most prestigious literary magazines in the country, Ploughshares, DeWitt Henry is also a prize-winning novelist, memoirist, essayist, and poet. …
Category: Poetry
California Review of Books – 10 Best Books of 2023
The following list was decided after much consultation between California Review of Books co-editors David Starkey and Brian Tanguay and the journals’ most frequent reviewers, Walter Cummins and George Yatchisin.…
General Release from the Beginning of the World by Donna Spruijt-Metz
Parlor Review by Catherine Abbey Hodges I can’t remember when I last read a book of poems that I’d call suspenseful. Donna Spruijt-Metz’s new poetry collection, General Release from the…
Democracy of Fire by Susan Cohen
Broadstone Review by Catherine Abbey Hodges In 2021, Susan Cohen’s poem “In Respect to the Jellyfish” won the Red Wheelbarrow Prize. The poem crossed my radar at that time, and…
Between Twilight by Connie Post
(New York Quarterly Books) Review by Linda Scheller Connie Post understands the price pain exacts on the body and psyche, and she writes about it exceptionally well. In Between Twilight,…
Concrete Poetry: A 21st-century Anthology edited by Nancy Perloff
(Reaktion) Review by David Starkey Compare an accomplished short poem of several hundred characters—say Seamus Heaney’s “Wedding Day”—with just about any concrete poem of the same length, and you’ll quickly…
Poetry Book Reviews for the Holidays
by David Starkey Since 2014, first for the Santa Barbara Independent and then for the California Review of Books, every National Poetry Month, I’ve offered one very short review of…
All Possible Histories, by Sonia Greenfield
Review by Catherine Abbey Hodges One morning when my daughter was twelve, I became aware of her studying me. After a few moments, she said, “I wonder what it’s like…