Superstition Freeway by Miles Waggener

Superstition Freeway by Miles Waggener
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Forlornness as breathtaking desert scenery.

View all my reviews

Meet Me at the Happy Bar by Steve Langan

Meet Me at the Happy Bar by Steve Langan
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

These poems possess great exactitude about the human condition and also a fair dose of dark humor. These quotes are pretty arbitrary as I found amazing lines throughout, but here are some of the ones I read last and so remembered best when I was writing this:

"You just have to believe in the suffering
of others; it's really the only way
some of us can go out into the new day."
- History of a Town

"Hurling our pain from the sidewalk into windows left open."
- Notes on Landscape

And a little bit of darkish humor I couldn't resist sharing:
"These are my (wink) deranged friends.

If I promise they won't steal anything,
do you mind if they smoke in your house?

Now don't steal anything."
- Meditation on the Campsite and the Pier

Now go read the collection so I don't end up quoting the whole thing.


View all my reviews

Errata by Lisa Fay Coutley

Errata by Lisa Fay Coutley
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Poetry is so hard to write about, especially, when, like me, you don't read enough poetry. These poems feel very geological but the terrain is all feelings and memories. The poems are dark, but the terrain is bright. There is a languid feeling about the poems, but the terrain is urgent with extremes of cold and heat. After reading through the collection I felt hollowed out, not in a depressed way, but in the satisfied way I imagine Pinocchio felt after Geppetto made him.

*Lisa Fay Coutley teaches at the University of Nebraska at Omaha Writer’s Workshop.

View all my reviews

Mass for Shut-Ins by Todd Robinson

Mass for Shut-Ins by Todd Robinson
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Love poems, recovery poems, personal reflections, familial relationships, and Nebraskan scenes that make you feel and see more clearly.

View all my reviews