You may have to Search all our reviewed books and magazines, click the sign up button below to create a free account.
Poet Jeanette Powers, well-known for her quips, presents her first collection of modern maxims. Novel Cliché: Aphorisms is a book of simple thoughts, or micropoems, that range from humorous to potent to pointing, and each adage is memorably quotable.
In June 2016, Jeanette Powers sent out a social media call egging on the artists of Poetic Underground—a whiskey drinking, verbal slinging, raucous and righteous open mic poetry sequence at the Uptown Arts Bar in Kansas City, MO—to contact her and request a prompt: a short, personally crafted phrase intended to be the inspiration for NEW SHIT! to spit at open mic night. Over the next week, she issued over one-hundred prompts, leading to the epic readings of volumes of New Shit! But other folks, many of whom were unable to attend open mic, wanted to be part of the shenanigans; so, the idea of a prompts book was born. Prompts! A Spontaneous Anthology represents the outpouring of new work by both fledgling and established writers and artists, which was engendered, simply, by the offer of a prompt.
Tiny Chasm, the third book of poetry by Jeanette Powers, explores the miniscule openings in our psyches in order to reveal the vast infrastructures of our neuroses, anxieties, and joys. It ponders the responsibilities of self to child and society; the ways we are manipulated and conditioned; the struggles of loss and longing; as well as the pathways into awareness and being present. These poems challenge societal standards, reveal surprising taboos, and don't hesitate to demand accountability. For example, "Enough Pussyfooting" accuses religious radicals of suffering from Stockholm Syndrome, "Shadow Children" reviles absent fathers, and "Breadbox" bombastically demeans those who don't press ...
In the 1920s and 1930s, Pittsburg, KS was a major coal-mining town, attracting various ethnic groups from southeast Europe and beyond. The often belligerent and divisive spirit of the miners--and the unpredictable politics of Southeast Kansas--earned the region the nickname, "The Little Balkans." The four poets (Al Ortolani, Melissa Fite Johnson, Adam Jameson, JT Knoll) appearing in this collection carry forward that same proud, independent spirit. They call themselves White Buffalo, after a now-defunct café in Pittsburg that offered writers, poets, artists, musicians, and friends a place of warmth and community, which in turn fostered an environment of challenge and diversity. Ghost Sign e...
Black Girl Shattered, the third book by spoken word artist Sheri Purpose Hall, effortlessly weaves her spirituality, black consciousness, and femininity into a tapestry of fully poetic words that are part memoir, part Black Studies thesis, part feminist manifesto, and part sacred text. By exploring the root causes of misfortunes that have been engineered to break the spirit of every woman—and revealing a path that leads to the beauty of mending—she ministers to all women (and men) while also speaking directly to issues that are both unique and specific to the black woman. This collection of poetry, prose, epistles, and essays is built on the kind of raw honesty designed to reveal, refresh, and uplift.
Hugh Merrill, the printmaker, has a dirty little secret: for many years, he has been covertly writing … poetry. His debut book of poems, Nomadic? Rover by Days Singing These Gang Plank Songs of the Ambler, reflects the intense and unguarded energy of a vital artist and natural storyteller who has deep connections to both historic and current movements. His subject matter ranges from childhood memories of racial inequality to contemporary ideas of gender fluidity, and his absurd ditties tickle the what the fuck bone in all of us. Littered amongst the poems are moments of prose and snippets of email exchanges between Merrill and his editor, Jeanette Powers. But perhaps the most dynamic aspect of this book is the inclusion of Merrill's original drawings and handwritten notes, which occupy the space around the poems: visual expansions from the poet’s haptic nonce of a squirrelly soul.
Gender Treason, a series of portrait paintings by Kansas City based artist Ryan Wilks, chronicles his latest exhibition, which debuted at Leedy-Voulkos Art Center on 1 July 2016, and includes interviews with the artist's subjects, providing a rare glimpse into the lives of queer people living in the Midwest. In an effort to transcend sensationalized media stereotypes and portray a more honest perspective into queer existence, Wilks spent a year interviewing, and then painting, queer Kansas City residents. The series, which focuses on twelve people who span the queer spectrum of gender and sexual identity, offers a vulnerable insight into each individual's life, their common struggles, and th...
None
In her fourth collection of poetry, Where Water Meets the Rock, Lindsey Martin-Bowen explores loss and recuperation in three sections. “Erosion,” the book’s elegiac opening sequence, laments a trinity of tragic Greek personas: Pasiphaë, Psyche, and Antigone. The middle section, “Frenzies,” a series of zany poems, emulates the ensuing topsy-turvy world that follows deep loss. And finally, “On the Shore” completes the triad, concluding that by re-seeing and re-building life, one can heal the psyche and the spirit. Once again, through the use of her recurring sea-rock metaphor, Martin-Bowen has employed a poetic technique that effectively maintains both a visual and auditory descriptive style, which, according to New Letters editor Robert Stewart, is defined by her “refreshing reliance on imagery and understatement.”