Poetry is a very personal thing. It feels like belonging, a favourite jumper we go back to every fall, no matter the number of holes that are in it. It is a sink or a toilet bowl we empty our worst selves into. While reading Sammi Yamashiro’s book “The Peach Pit Mask”, I felt a bit like an intruder, for stumbling upon some of the rawest and most honest poetry I have ever read. I felt like I needed to stop turning the pages, but I couldn’t.
Read MoreSean Felix writes with the fervour of every poet who has ever fallen in love with the seductive muse of Paris. His work is fuelled by a gritty determination to keep crawling forward – through insomniac nights and midnight possessions. “From the echoing drums on cold stone / a necromancer in the shape of a black man / too ugly to share my face so I draw on it.” He possesses an ability to set a vivid scene and tell a story so dramatic, you’ll awake as if from a lucid dream.
Read MoreReading poetry is cathartic to me. Reading poetry is supposed to be raw, confessional, a love, or hate letter from the poet to the reader. It’s supposed to be messy and thought-provoking. You make a statement; you have an impact on people through your words. You’re brave enough to touch on topics nobody else will do with such ferocity, sensibility, and finesse.
Cassie Senn’s first poetry chapbook, published in 2020, takes all the above into account and delivers poetry that cuts deep. “The Changing Temperatures of Heartache” is a collection of narrative short poems; each one takes over a single page and just because of that formatting, you get the idea that you peek into the narrator’s diary. It’s an excellent example of confessional poetry that ignites discussion around love that breaks you and cures you.
Read MoreThe Care Home is Rebecca Rijsdijk’s fourth collection of poetry. This book deals with what it is like to work as a carer with our without a global pandemic. It portrays the people the author works with, and it portrays the inner life of the carer.
Read MoreIn a world choking on social media cleanliness, Golden is a glance at the sordid underbelly which unites humanity - whether humanity likes it or not. It is a knot of painfully-raw honesty and bitter deceit, drenched in a vicious philosophy and hard to swallow half-truths. It oozes anti-poetry at a time when the art form is reduced to self-help and a ceaseless quest for innocence and purity.
Read MoreOur Sarah sent a New York Times article in our poetry group app a couple of days ago. It was a review on a pandemic poetry book. On the cover, it said, ‘America’s poets respond to a pandemic.’ The author of the review, Dwight Garner, complained about a lack of bite in the book. We all thought that was a bit of a no-brainer.
Read MoreE. T. Reyes has a clear command of form that comes through in the way she sets the stage in each poem – a crime scene, a love scene, or a shade of both.
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