Now make room in the mouth for grassesgrassesgrasses What an exceptional debut! Long Soldier’s collection is a response to the 2009 official US apology to Native Americans, and it is a rare gem in its experimentation and use of language to confront injustice and racism. Long Soldier writes verses that don’t rest, that are restricted …
Sit down. Right here in the aisle is fine. Get your phone, put in earbuds. Go to YouTube. Watch Li-Young Lee read his poem”This Room and Everything in It.” Buy this book. –Shawn, Elliott Bay Book Company, Seattle, WA Immerse yourself in poetry at Elliott Bay Book Company and other independent bookstores.
A surreal journey across the ages, a mind-bending road trip. In his September 2017 essay, “Study the Executioner,” for NWBookLovers.org, Portland author and artist Keith Rosson talked of how history, as a subject of interest, was largely lost on his youthful version. “Droll. Too large in its scope and breadth to really grasp.” But something changed …
Gentle, confident poems cascade, unnamed, through a muted urban landscape, eventually diving off of big ideas atop delicate stems. Soldofsky has a knack for condensation, which is, perhaps, one for word-choice: an expansive vocabulary attuned to the microscopic. And a voice I wish to inhabit. Smart, playful, observant, energizing. A wonderful debut. –Alexander Moysaenko, Open …
by Cila Warncke for frugalportland.com In an era where you can read yourself blind online without spending a penny, buying books is an act of enlightened frugality. Magazines and newspapers get tossed; websites morph. Books stick around. What’s more, books slow us down. There are no hyperlinks or banner ads, nothing to whisk our mind into the …
Most of the time, a sticker proclaiming a title is a “NEW BOOK” is sort of self-evident, but in the case of Shel Silverstein, an actual new book is worth getting out of bed, rushing through your morning oat bran, and heading on down to the bookstore early. Runny Babbit Returns is a collection of tongue-twisting poems …
In a time when the necessity and urgency of certain books feels more apparent and vital than ever, it’s imperative to know the ground we are literally standing upon–its past, its real past, what has led to these present moments, the state of this time. I know of few single books that have invoked this ground as …
Chris Dombrowski has traveled many of the most elegant, hidden, rugged waterways of Montana. He’s a husband, father, poet and fishing guide, and he’s one of the most generous men I know. If you have the grace of spending time with him, your mind and heart will be renewed, you’ll laugh a great deal, and …
The 2016 Washington State Book Awards Winners were announced Saturday, October 8, 2016 at a celebration at the Central Branch of the Seattle Public Library. Fiction: The Sasquatch Hunter’s Almanac by Sharma Shields History/ General Nonfiction: Dead Wake by Erik Larson Poetry: Reconnaissance by Carl Phillips Biography/Memoir: Road Trip by Mark Rozema Picture Book: Boats …
The Poem Is You: 60 Contemporary American Poems and How to Read Them Some anthologies of new poetry try to take a stand, declare a school, say what poetry is now and what it should be. Burt, a poet himself, couldn’t include all of his peers in his book, but it seems like he’d like …
