Review of The River Where You Forgot My Name by Corrie Williamson

Southern Illinois University Press/Crab Orchard Series in Poetry, Paperback, 80 pages. $15.95. By Melissa Kwasny “A poem can be said to have two subjects,” Richard Hugo states in his collection of essays on writing, The Triggering Town, “the initiating or triggering subject, which starts the poem or ‘causes’ the poem to be written, and the […]

Poetry Of Presence: An Interview with Phyllis Cole-Dai & Ruby R. Wilson

By James Crews Poetry of Presence: An Anthology of Mindfulness Poems was published by Grayson Books in 2017 and has since amassed quite the following among those interested in the intersections of mindfulness practice, meditation and poetry. I spoke with editors, Phyllis Cole-Dai and Ruby R. Wilson, via email in the summer of 2019 about […]

Review of Where Outside the Body Is the Soul Today by Melissa Kwasny

University of Washington Press, hardback, 96 pages, $19.95 Reviewed by Tami Haaland Inspired by Christopher Howell’s ecstatic poem “Another Letter to the Soul,” Melissa Kwasny’s Where Outside the Body Is the Soul Today is a careful examination of the self, the natural world, the spirit and soul woven through with an awareness of language and […]

Review of What Does Not Return by Tami Haaland

Lost Horse Press, Paperback, 78 pages. $18.00. Reviewed by Melissa Kwasny Poetry has been described as the art of speaking the unspeakable. In some cases, the unspeakable is that which seems almost too horrific to put into words. Sometimes it is that the state of being is too nuanced, the feeling too fleeting, the insight […]

Poetry Advocacy

How do we get the vital news not only from poems, as William Carlos Williams famously wrote in his poem “Asphodel,” but also of them? Many poets are skillful at promoting their work and connecting with a larger audience, but the sheer number of books published each year makes it nearly impossible to know about […]

So Precious: On The Hip Hop of Kunu Bearchum

By Steven Jackson Before this assignment for basalt, I was unfamiliar with Kunu Beachum (Stryk-9) or the other So Precious performers, Jordan Wheeler, and Adrienne Fainman. Nevertheless, as an unabashed hip-hop head who grew up watching shows like Yo MTV Raps, Rap City, and BET Uncut, I appreciate the opportunity to critique their hip-hop video. Stryker-9 […]

Review of The Lord of Everywhere by John Hodgen

Lynx House Press, Paperback, 62 pages. $19.95 By Cameron Scott Scaffolded around Romans 8:38-39, Hodgen’s Lord of Everywhere launches its reader into a constellation of sounds, ideas, things, and images. These are poems built from word seeds, from thoughts which launch back and forth between music and association, association and music, until they find their way toward […]

The Empty Hand of the Wind

by Robert Stubblefield Even as a student editor of a college literary magazine, perhaps particularly as a student editor of a college literary magazine, you are aware of those rare instances when a work lands on your desk that unequivocally belongs. And on that late winter afternoon in 1992 when I opened the envelope and read “Graves […]