Reviews

Spring 2010

 

 

 

Psyche's Weathers by Cynthia Atkins

Custom Words, 2007; 116 pages; $17.00
ISBN 9781933456874, paper
http://www.custom-words.com

Reviewed by Philip Miller

In a poem from her book, Psyche's Weathers, Cynthia Atkins writes:

And when you speak, we'll watch the clouds
shift with our breath, because the weather always
      has something to say:
frost and chimney spilling one fraught bonfire
of duplicitous desire.

                ("October's Other")

Indeed, Atkins generously shows us in poem after poem one intimate connection after another between ourselves and two kinds of weather; one from nature, the other within us. These weathers closely follow the people of Atkins' world, shifting as their "breaths shift," providing locations for human dramas and contexts for our evolving mythologies.  Read Review

 

Peering Through Perfect Dark: New Poems by Susan Maurer

ungovernable press; e-book, 2009; 57 pages
Free download at:
http://www.ungovernablepress.weebly.com

Reviewed by George Wallace

In Perfect Dark (ungovernable press, 2009), a new collection of poems by Susan Maurer, the urban dilemma that is New York is told in fine style, offering up poem after poem with the kind of duality that satisfies and tantalizes readers. There's fine understated humor in many of the poems, which softens the otherwise urbane voice — one part wary and another part earnestly yearning. It is this combination of vulnerability of the heart and toughness of spirit that results in a compelling volume with fabulous range.  Read Review