Carnegie Mellon University Books

"One Season Behind" is a slender, 65-page book of impeccably presented poetry that showcase the talent and imaginative skill of Milwaukee, Wisconsin poet Sarah Rosenblatt. Her verse deftly reveals the way time moves men and women along so deftly that we are often surprised as to the results of its having passed. From the innocence of a child's questions, to watching our lives unfold, to reflected feels on the contrasts between ourselves and our parents, to the details of ordinary life experiences, to the questions and aspirations and yearnings of the human heart, this little collection of verse is very highly recommended and rewarding reading for its elegance, intelligence, familiarity, and resonance in the minds and emotions of its readers. 'The Love in the House': Driving my cat home/from the hospital-one leg less-/I sing, "Sometimes I wonder if I'm ever gonna make it home again"/in my grandmother's voice.//I am myself/but with the hinges/of my ancestors.//The love in our house keeps us loyal,/but the snow comes down/without heed for us/piling on our brows.//The changes are beyond us/as are our own natures,/staking us out in the afternoon.

Jim Harms has written another beautiful book of poems -- a lovely, stunning, book full of wisdom and empathy.

This poet is very cool, like having a New York street sensibility (humor, wit) while maintaining a hospitable southern stance toward experience. She has a wonderful sense of jazz in her writing. I dig her.

For 25 years, as translator of Rilke & Char, and as the producer of half-a-dozen honest and unsparing collections, Franz Wright has written dispatches from 3 a.m., many of which will split your skull.

These are not the image-polishing cutsey poems of MFA-America. They are the hard effort of a mature professional, a man who has lived poetry since birth and handed everything over to it. Wright stares at the black dog all night long; the effort, and wisdom, of this work is rarely encountered in our Edge City world. Rorschach Test is his best book: lucid, reflective, by turns sardonic, always honest beyond measure.

Don't buy this book if your idea of poetry is small elaborations on obvious things, artfully done; this is a book that tries to understand why men and women breathe, and why that is so hard.

These short stories are unlike anything I've read before. To me, they are so true to life the words practically burn off the page. Keith Banner illuminates and makes art out of the lives of rural, small town, and small city gay people, and of those whose lives intersect with them. Some characters are so deeply flawed they are repugnant; others evoke nothing but respect and understanding. These stories are funny, pitiful, and harrowing. I hope at least a few of Banner's stories make their rightful place alongside those of the esteemed Flannery O'Connor, Mary Hood, Katherine Anne Porter, and Joy Williams.

About the Author: Professor
Department of English
College of Liberal Arts
University of Minnesota, Twin Cities An exceptionally gifted teacher and poet, Michael Dennis Browne has inspired and nurtured his students to approach poetry as a way of life--to look for poems in their everyday experience and in their lives. His outstanding contributions to the creative writing profession, including both local and national writing communities, have made him a beacon in the field. According to a colleague, "His dedication to poetry and to the craft of teaching is unswerving."

Thom Ward is the author of three collections of poetry: Small Boat with Oars of Different Size, Tumblekid (winner of the Devil's Millhopper Poetry Contest), and now Various Orbits. This latest collection may be a mere ninety-six pages, but its forty-five poems are anything but light. Ranging from free verse to didactic, from anti-narrative to Pantoum, Various Orbits swings a wide arc through the poetic universe, but always returns home to the heart.

Ward's mastery of the craft can be seen instantly in "Night Game," in which he describes the simple beauty of the moon, told as a baseball analogy. Likewise, "Though Monarchs Exploit the Disparity Among Us," an ode to ale, amongst other things, may be the most poetic drinking song ever written.

Humor is in abundance here, in "Viagra Falls" and "After Decades of Silence, Toilet Speaks," the latter told from the point of view of, well, a toilet.

This humor is balanced with the graceful art of "Poem Without a Freight Train or a Pocket Watch," "What'll It be Tonight, the Heart or the Fist?" and "Poetry Is a Game of Managing Your Mistakes." Each is an exciting turn at the Malayan/French Pantoum form. The poet's variations on this style are both intriguing and edgy.

And what can you say about "Joseph and the Boss," a poem that pulls together theology, psychology, Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung, Sominex sleep aids, and Newark, New Jersey? It is a poem that turns the would-be comic line "...you're the propane for God's barbecue," into something like reverence.

Even "Cheesehead," though it may slip in a dry pun here and there at the expense of Green Bay Packer fans, ends as something more; something like a gentle sermon.

"Wreckage" is a similar conundrum, containing humor (she'd relinquished drinking / but everyone / could smell the poetry / on her breath), while ending in the following, very unexpected way: the sharp light / of each hour's doubt / and frustration / this clickety-clack / blue-veined volt world / we love but cannot trust, / all of us, scattering / wreckage in our wake, / in search of something / like justice, something / like mercy.
What's most likely to catch the eye is Ward's incredible description, in poems like "Third Night in San Francisco," "Cycling Through Taylor's Basin," "Saranac," "Ontario," and "Seneca." Their landscapes, real or imagined, are now pictured in my mind as truly as those of my own hometown. A nd if this weren't enough, there is more beauty to be found beneath the surface of each of these poems.

In "Saranac," the simple description of docks and boathouses, empty of summer tourists once again, evokes a certain magic. Plumb its depths, and you find lines such as: this moment balanced amid / almost and was - and -the thought of men / doing nothing useful in a world / so weary of usefulness.

Beneath the gorgeous description of "Seneca," we find: When we dive into this water, / cobalt, windblown, fierce, / we're certain to come out / on the other side of yes.

And within the lush description of small town America in "Cycling Through Taylor's Basin," there is: I need to travel / among the old versions of who / we thought we were.

These poems may revolve around fictional people or places, but they reveal greater truths about humanity than anything else I've read or seen in years; truly a hallmark of great art, in any form.

Various Orbits is unabashedly, and undeniably, brilliant. It is beautiful, thoughtful, and funny. I would say that Ward's poetry has a sense of magic to it, but that wouldn't be true. Ward's poetry IS magic, and it is nothing less than magic I experience each time I read, and re-read, this book.
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Mr. Ward has degrees in English from both the College of Wooster and SUNY Brockport, has been editor of more than sixty collections of poetry, and is a teacher of creative writing workshops in elementary and high schools, as well as through the Writers & Books Literary Center. He is a former chair of the Literature Panel of the New York State Council on the Arts, a recipient of numerous grants from the New York Foundation for the Arts, and was nominated for the Pushcart Prize. He is currently editor and development director for BOA Editions Ltd., an independent, not-for-profit poetry publishing house. He was also editor of the winner of the 2001 National Book Award for Poetry (Lucille Clifton's Blessing the Boats).
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P.M. Bradshaw is a writer of poetry and fiction, and a two-time judge of the Young Adult Poetry Coffeehouse Contest at the Mount Vernon Public Library, where he also teaches a poetry workshop for adults. When not working at the Supreme Court of Ohio Law Library, he is a volunteer reader at VoiceCorps: the Central Ohio Radio Reading Service, a radio station that provides readings of daily newspapers, books, and the like for the visually impaired and elderly.

Despite what Johnny Cash may have said, Mr. Bradshaw DID NOT shoot a man in Reno once, just to watch him die.
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David Lynn, editor of the Kenyon Review, has followed up his previous publications, a short story collection and a book of literary criticism, with a stunning novel. He employs a slight trick and does so masterfully to force his readers to think about how they view the world in terms of racism, class and morality, while enjoying a page turner of a novel.

The story is told from the point of view of Baltimore reporter, Jason Currant. He is a Viet Nam veteran who is recently divorced. His ex-brother in law has been accused of rape in a small Iowa town and he is asked by his ex-in laws to look into it.

Gabriel Salter, the ex-brother in law is an idealist and a working member of the International Socialist Alliance. He has worked in some of the worst conditions imaginable in order to get the word out that the common worker and illegal immigrant is getting screwed on a regular basis. He has been accused of raping the daughter of a Black, truck owner/driver who doesn't have the greatest reputation in town.

The two sides have completely irreconcilable stories in regards to the events of the evening. The police have Salter as a low level drug dealer in the neighborhood to collect on a debt. The ISA has Gabriel set up because of his rabble rousing ways, including a recent protest over the raid and arresting of many illegal immigrants working at the meat packing company he works at. They claim a woman accosted him and told him her boyfriend was dangerous and asking if he would take her home? Upon arriving, she disappeared into the home, and as she wandered through the home, the police appeared behind Gabriel and pulled his pants down and arrested him.

The slight trick that Lynn uses is offering two different prologues, one for each of the two sides. Throughout the remaining reading of the book, the reader will choose one of those two views as the one to believe as Lynn has set them so far apart that finding a middle ground is not possible. He set the prosecution view up first and then offers a second prologue titled, "Another Story," giving the ISA view.

Throughout my reading, as Currant investigates, talks to people, and builds up both sides of the case at the same time, I had to constantly question myself - did I think what I did because of Lynn's ordering of the prologues? Because of the race of the participants in the events? Because of the politics of those involved?

Currant is not only investigating the story of Gabriel Salter, but wrestling with himself as well. He is trying to piece together a history of his family and that of the Salters, coming to conclusions that would be shocking, and not just surprising, if Lynn didn't do such a good job of foreshadowing them. Lynn reminds us just how simple it is to hide from one's view what is going on around us when we don't want to know - Currant is a reporter, trained to observe and investigate yet he is the one most surprised by the revelations he discovers about his youth, and his family.

As the mystery of the rape is the one that is being written about front and center, with Lynn's format, it is not the one that is going to be most easily solved. That lifts this book above the level of a standard mystery and puts it in a special class. Lynn has delivered a page turner that is as thought provoking as any book I've read this year - I believe I have learned as much about myself through my reading of "Wrestling with Gabriel," as I did of the characters.

In this, her third collection, Leslie Adrienne Miller continues to expand on themes explored in earlier work: intertwined phenomena of eros and intellect, the vagaries and cruelties of beauty and its transformations, constellations of desire and their effect upon the inner life of the artist, all offered in language deeply musical and meticulously detailed. Set against the backdrops of Germany, Indonesia, and an American Midwest fractured by a "deadly disaffection," this elegant book is populated with mermaids, arsonists, itinerant lovers and Italian porn queens, all animated by Miller's articulation of an insistence upon "appasionato," the music of ardent longing. Always walking the edge of exile from rites and rituals of late-20th century Western culture, Miller employs lament and meditation, dirges, dark humor and excavation to bring the palimpsest of the self and other "more deeply into being."