Category Archives: Reviews

Steven McCabe’s Meme Noir , Quattro Books, 2020. $20.00 The bold figurative abstract painting by the author, gracing the cover of Meme Noir, hints at the sophistication of its contents. At 85 pages, we’re promised a tightly edited literary work and … Continue reading →

Donna Langevin, Brimming, Piquant Press 2019, 119pp, I.S.B.N. 9781927396155  Donna Langevin’s wonderful new book casts a spell. Here’s a writer who isn’t just an accomplished poet, but a master storyteller. Her sense of narrative is pitch perfect. She’s also a … Continue reading →

Andy Lee. Love Is a Side Effect of Life. Casa del Alma, 2019 ASIN  B081LSKJ8G From the first poem in his book, the elements of Andy Lee’s refreshing style are clearly in evidence. Contemporary poetry can be many things but its two … Continue reading →

Thomas Gannon Hamilton, Panoptic, Aeolus House, 2018, 110 pp.      I.S.B.N. 978-1-987872-13-2 … which brings me to your assignment … “Nobody stuffs the world in at your eyes.                  The optic heart must venture: a jailbreak                  and recreation.”       … Continue reading →

Luciano Iacobelli, Dolor Midnight. Quattro Books.  84pp. $20.00 There is a poetry in gambling and Luciano Iacobelli has written an important book about it. As a child watching the neighbourhood men play dice in the streets, he felt “the poetry … Continue reading →

Valentino Assenza, Through Painted Eyes, Piquant Press, $19.95 Here are some admirable lines from Through Painted Eyes, Valentino Assenza’s first full-length collection of poems: “that precious/subliminal taste/of the past through/my senses.” These lines say that though his form resembles chopped prose, the … Continue reading →

El Marillo is an elegaic work of great passion focused on Hamilton’s late wife, Rhena Hymovitch, and her humanitarian passion to bring ‘boots-on-the-ground’ aid, relief and protection to thousands of displaced ‘campesinos’ during the 1980’s in El Salvador where she lost … Continue reading →

Penn Kemp. Fox Haunts. Aeolus House, 2018. 97 pp. The way suburban garden fences are a line the fox crosses from the countryside to steal our chickens, is like the line fox, since time immemorial, has crossed from the countryside … Continue reading →