Challenge and Ambition: Rose Solari Releases new Poetry Reviews for WIRoB
Rose Solari's reviews this month focus on four collections that "challenge and stretch the reader’s expectations in terms of content, form, or both."
Rose Solari's reviews this month concern books that "challenge and stretch the reader’s expectations in terms of content, form, or both." This includes Charlotte Pence's vitalizing Code with its centerfold poem written entirely in DNA, Kelvin Corcoran's The Republic of Song with its tributes to the scholar and poet Lee Harwood, Lauren Camp's soft poems based on visual artists of the 20th century in Took House, and the singular obsession with form presented in Peter Kline's Mirrorforms.
As always, Rose Solari writes with generosity and specificity when recounting the challenges and triumphs of each work. It is important also to note something unique to her reviews: her ear for the music of poetry. Solari never leaves the reader wanting for descriptions of concord and discord.
Rose Solari's is a monthly poetry review column for the Washington Independent Review of Books. You can find more of her reviews HERE.
Solari, while an excellent reviewer of poetry, is herself a regarded poet. Check out her work HERE.
Fiddlin’ Around in Ireland
Nothing buoys the spirits like a walk along Grafton Street. Gray day or sunny, it’s bright with noise and laughter. Loud “hellos,” babies crying, neighborly gossip, rich brogues and lilting Irish airs float up onto the breeze. Our chosen course allowed for a stroll through St. Stephen’s Green. Sunlight dappled the leafy brakes. Inspired by the moment, Lawrence liberated his fiddle and sawed out a hornpipe. He was joined in his performance by a pair of amorous ducks.
On Grafton street we were immediately surrounded by music. A couple of 9 and 10-year-old boys, Donald Reagon and Paul O’Neill, were delighting passersby with smooth moves on the fiddle and concertina. College students with shaved heads played sitars. Old men played jazz. A guitarist somewhere was plucking out George Harrison tunes and singing, “Here comes the sun, little darlin’ here comes the sun.”
On that musical street there was only one poet—a threadbare character who, for a pound or a punt (Irish pound) or nothing at all, would recite a poem by a poet of one’s choosing. I selected Yeats and was honored with “The Fiddler of Dooney”:
“When I play on my fiddle in Dooney, Folk dance like a wave of the sea . . .”
An Interview with Elizabeth Hazen, Baltimore Poet and Baker Award Finalist
Baltimore poet, Elizabeth Hazen’s first collection of poems is entitled Chaos Theories. Last week the young poet was announced as a finalists for the prestigious Baker Artist Award in literature. We sat down to talk with her about her experience in Baltimore as an artist and what programs like The Baker Awards mean to artists.
Elizabeth Hazen Announced as a Finalist for the 2019 Baker Award
This year, ASP’s own Elizabeth Hazen, author of the poetry collection Chaos Theories, is a finalist for the $10,000 literary honor. Hazen is a Baltimore resident and ardent supporter of the city’s burgeoning arts scene (named by Thrillist and Departures magazines as one of the best arts cities in America). She received her MFA from Johns Hopkins University and currently teaches English at the Calvert School in Baltimore.